Day 222: September 22, 2019
Well, brahs and tahs, this is it--the last volume of Buckle writings available on this plane of existence. There are 645 pages of text, then another 61 pages of Index...which means that if I stick to my plan, it should take me 65 days to get to the end of Volume III. So it looks like November 25th is D-Day. Which (1) isn't all that far in the future and (2) makes me a little sad. Oh, and (3) means I'm going to have to decide what my next Daily Devotional Reading will be right quick, as I would very much like to continue this ongoing project.
News as it happens.
Meanwhile...hmmpf. Alexander the Great's dead body was massaged with honey? Wouldn't have guessed that.
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Day 223: September 23, 2019
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As for this Next Book / Daily Devotional Reading...
Here are some of the things I'm thinking about:
Fernand Braudel's Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century:
vol. 1: The Structures of Everyday Life
vol. 2: The Wheels of Commerce
vol. 3: The Perspective of the World
This is a trilogy which Neal Stephenson used in the writing of his Baroque Cycle, and Neal praised it highly...which is a pretty damned good recommendation. I found the first two volumes at Goodwill, but would have to buy the third.
Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil by Thomas Hobbes
I've read very little of this, and I suspect that it is one of the most important books ever written.
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
This would be a most natural follow-up on my Buckle readings, since Buckle said several times that this was one of the most important books ever written.
I was also thinking about putting Don Quixote onto the docket, as it doesn't look like I'm going to get around to finishing it otherwise, but part of me feels resistant to the idea of using fiction as my Daily Devotional. I read So Much fiction....
64 more days to make a decision.
Day 224: September 24, 2019
Some mierda muy interesante:
Uno: "1488. JAPANESE WOMEN WHEN MARRIED BLACKEN THEIR TEETH."
And so do the women of Java. The reason? "...because monkeys have white [teeth]." Well, hell, bring on the shoeshine!
Dos: "1494. IN JAPAN THE MARRIED WOMEN PULL THE HAIRS FROM THEIR EYEBROWS."
I've got to say...this does not make me love Japanese culture more.
Tres: There were several references in today's reading...and yesterday's as well, I think...to Thunberg's Voyage to Japan in his Travels. I thought that was kind of interesting in that for the past several days the news has been full of stories about young Greta Thunberg as she speaks out at the U.N. on the imminent climate disaster.
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Day 225: September 25, 2019
Well, this is interesting:
BTW, I feel compelled to say that the words preceding the number 3 refer to an elephant TUSK. So get your mind out of the gutter.
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Day 226: September 26, 2019
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Day 227: September 27, 2019
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Day 228: September 28, 2019
Some interesting stuff in today's ten pages...from weird Innocence Tests (ingest poison...if you die, you were guilty, if you vomit, you are innocent)...to Africans thinking the Devil is white...to the fruit of the manghas tree...
...which is put forth as the possible "real" apple of
Garden of Eden notoriety...and is said (though I couldn't see it in any of the pictures I perused of Cerbera manghas) to have an indentation on one side which is thought to be a physical reminder of the bite Eve took out of said GoE 🍎. (And Adam's bite? Hmmm.)
There was also a line which I liked a lot:
I thought it would make a great title for a short story. I started writing on it, but probably won't go back unless I feel compelled to do so.
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Day 230: September 30, 2019
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Also, this
arrived in the mail today courtesy of Thrift Books (highly recommended!), so I'm beginning to incline towards that Fernand Braudel trilogy for What Comes Next.
Day 231: October 1, 2019
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Day 232: October 2, 2019
A lot about Cabool in today's ten pages. That's
, by the way,
not
.
And what did I learn? Well...that Cabool (as of 1872, anyway) is:
6,000 years old
60,000 people strong
the place the Devil landed when he was thrown out of heaven
named after Cain
(who ended up there)
has FABulous rhubarb
has such an abundant grape crop that they feed grapes to cattle three months of the year.
Well.
That was all news to me.
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Day 233: October 3, 2019
Some references to Alexander the Great...which made me think of these lines from Hamlet:
HAMLET Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'
the earth?
HORATIO E'en so.
HAMLET And smelt so? pah!
HORATIO E'en so, my lord.
HAMLET To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may
not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole?
HORATIO 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.
HAMLET No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with
modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he
was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
It's pretty humbling to think that even a person like Alexander the Great, who is remembered by history as being of great significance, essentially becomes nothing more than a three word answer to a Jeopardy! question. This isn't making me feel significant.
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Day 234: October 4, 2019
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Day 235: October 5, 2019
I am stunned to discover that the word
was around back in the 1870s.
And furthermore, I really want to try me some tree butter:
Looks like it's primarily used as a topical agent nowadays, though. Hmmm. "And...you can EAT nads." Right? How much you wanna bet that Nads is shea butter? Let's see.
Ingredients Nad's for Men Hair Removal Cream
Aqua (Water), Potassium Thioglycolate, Cetearyl Alcohol, Urea, Ceteareth 20, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Glyceryl Stearate, Potassium Hydroxide, Glycerin, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter), Calcium Hydroxide, Sodium Thioglycolate, Acrylates Copolymer, Sodium Magnesium Silicate, Calendula Officinalis Flower Oil, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Cucumis Sativus (Cucumber) Fruit Extract, Magnesium Trisilicate, Tocopherol Acetate, d-Panthenol, Parfum (Fragrance), Sodium Gluconate, Titanium Dioxide, BHT.
Mmm-hmmm.
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Day 236: October 6, 2019
There have been a lot of references to Burce's Travels throughout this book...and maybe even the previous volume, but I didn't take any note of it. But I guess I reached the tipping point today, as I stopped and thought, "Who the hell was Bruce?" So I looked around a bit.
And? Bruce is James Bruce of Kinnaird, and he lived from 14 December 1730 until 27 April 1794. He looked like this--
--and the Big Deal of his life was spending 12+ years in Africa seeking the source of the Nile. He wrote about it in
which you can purchase on Amazon thusly:
Kindle $7.95 *
Leather Bound from $2,750.00
Paperback $19.57
But here's his map for free:
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| By James Bruce - https://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/BlueNileSource-bruce-1790, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64639641 |
* BTW, I wouldn't trust that Kindle version. The preview of it had a table of contents...for Volume 6. **
** As I was casting about to see if all six volumes of Bruce's book were available online ***, I ran across this rather interesting title: "What the Abyssinian Liar Can Tell us about True Stories: Knowledge, Skepticism, and James Bruce’s Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile." Apparently Bruce's travel writings were respected initially, but then it was gradually revealed that he was a bit fuckin' liar. Hmpf. You'd think Buckle would have known that. But I can't imagine him taking Bruce at his word if there was reason to think that he was making shit up. I'd kind of like to know more about this. Just what I needed: another mission. But I'll probably get over it.
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Day 237: October 7, 2019
So...turns out that Mr. Bruce found that people were doubting the stories he told and mocking him...so he put it down on paper to prove that what he was saying was true. So I guess that puts another light on it.
Day 239: October 9, 2019
180
Day 240: October 10, 2019
190
Day 241: October 11, 2019
200
Day 242: October 12, 2019
210
Day 243: October 13, 2019
220
Day 244: October 14, 2019
230
Day 245: October 15, 2019
240
Day 246: October 16, 2019
250
Day 247: October 17, 2018
260
Day 248: October 18, 2019 Here's an interesting bit:  And today:  And just to put that into perspective: 
...and this was a pretty light day, as my 🧡 was not cooperative and time was tight. But I still walked 1/9th of the way from London to Oxford.
270
Day 249: October 19, 2019
280
Day 250: October 20, 2019
290
Day 251: October 21, 2019
300
Day 252: October 22, 2019
310
Day 253: October 23, 2019
Had an interesting textual aberration on page 312. The page was printed like this:
The gulley looks like it's at least three characters deep, but I found that I had no trouble reading it...except for the two French words. So I looked up the Google Books version of the text, and sure enough...
 
320
BTW...the text of this volume ends on Page 645 (whence beginith INDEX TO THE COMMON PLACE BOOK), which means that as of THIS MOMENT, I have only 325 Buckle Pages left to me. These Posthumous books have not been nearly as much fun as History of Civilization in England, for sure, but it still makes me sad to think that it in a little more than one month there will be no new Buckle in all of the universe for me to find. I hope that library in Heaven is well stocked, man.
Day 254: October 24, 2019
As for this Jet...this so-called Jet...  
330
Day 255: October 25, 2019
340
Day 256: October 26, 2019
Amongst other odd subjects (such as cannibalism, eating dog meat, the predictive power of dreams, and the proper time for dinner), a story about a woman who had an injury which exposed a part of her brain to view was told. According to said story, when the woman had vivid dreams her brain would swell out of her skull and pulse. Um...yuck? 
350
Day 257: October 27, 2019
I miss Roi. (Jacqueline always called her Roister.)
  
360
Day 258: October 28, 2019
370
Day 259: October 29, 2019
380
Day 260: October 30, 2019
Day 261: October 🎃31🎃, 2019
Day 262: November 1, 2019
The first day of the last month of my Complete Works of Henry Thomas Buckle Reading Project. 😭 Hard to believe that you can read a man's life work in less than nine months, isn't it?
That said...I've decided that my next Daily Devotional Reading is going to be 🥁🛢🥁🛢🥁🛢🥁🛢🥁🛢🥁🛢🥁🛢🥁🛢🥁🛢🥁🛢🥁🛢
Fernand Braudel's Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century Trilogy. Woo-hoo!
Meanwhile... This bit  --which is from section 2181. The imaginary island of St. Brandan, west of the canaries.--seems pretty fuckin' perfect for my ...Then There Is No Mountain.... novel. I'm starting to think I should get back to writing on it. 
410
Day 263: November 2, 2019
And P fuckin' S...there's a whole lot of fools out there.
420
Day 264: November 3, 2019 Here's a bit (where Buckle is quoting somebody or other) which I particularly liked: "The state of Massachusetts is a school; it may be said that all there are educated. ...I consider Connecticut equal to Massachusetts; but as you leave those two states you find the education gradually diminishes. New York is in the next rank, and thus the scale descends until you arrive at absolute ignorance." Burn! 
430
Day 265: November 4, 2019 Here's a bit which I particularly liked. After discussing the Icelanders's affinity for eating the flesh of horses, Buckle makes this comment:  Hey, you've got to draw the line somewhere, right? 
440
Day 266: November 5, 2019
Lots of references to Thomas Robert Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population. Feel like I should drive like a demon from station to station. 
Day 267: November 6, 2019
Check this out:  Holy shit! There was also some information about how during the Elizabethan Age the English hated the Scots...which made me wonder why the hell William Shake-speare would write a play set primarily in Scotland and featuring lots of noble Scots. Hmmmm. It's almost like WS just didn't give a fuck about what anybody else thought...as if he were immune to criticism or sanction. 
460
Day 268: November 7, 2019
470
Day 269: November 8, 2019
480
Day 270: November 9, 2019
490
Day 271: November 10, 2019
Y'know...Buckle sure does refer to the works of Ben Jonson a lot. Which makes me think that I ought to get going on My Jonson Project. We'll see.
This is one of my favorite paragraphs in this series of posthumous writings: 
It also makes me want to read that book by Dr. Arnold. (And due to the Living in the 21st Century context, I--and you--can do that courtesy of Google Books...or (even better because they give you the little book version whose pages you can flip) Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/b21440712_0001).
500
Oh no...only 15 more Buckle days left in my life! (Though of course I could just go back and start all over again....)
510
Day 273: November 12, 2019
Here's an interesting bit from page 512:
 Is that amazing or what? I'd be interested in finding out what led to the revival of interest in Mr. Shake-speare. 
520
Day 274: November 13, 2019
 Um...what? There were also some stories about smoking, including the "fact" that there were some people who could blow smoke out of their ears. Mmm-hmm. 
530
Day 275: November 14, 2019 I was checking the online version of Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works of Henry Thomas Buckle Volume III to see if this gap on page 533 
was just a printing error in my copy or Something Else. And?
 Something Else, then. Also, today's Daily Goal would have taken me to page 540, but since page 645 is the last page of text (before lots of index pages), I decided to even it out and read to page 545 today. So...only ten more days of Buckle left to me. 😦 And speaking of text...started a new section as of page 535--MANNERS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--and the entries are very short...like a sentence or two. And a lot of the material is in French. So I might could pick up the pace a little bit. We'll see how it goes tomorrow, eh? 
545
Day 276: November 15, 2019
Speaking of teeny tiny entries, check these out:
From page 547:  And from page 548:  Now, that's brief, ennit? 
555
Day 277: November 16, 2019
From page 563:  That was then. This is now:  Pretty amazing, hug? 
565
Day 278: November 17, 2019
From page 568...surely there was a typo somewhere along the way?  
575
Day 279: November 18, 2019 Bad day, but I still read my Buckle. Lots of De Foe references..and lots of Shake-speare quotes at the end. 
585
Day 280: November 19, 2019
Lots of Shake-speare references: to Troilus and Cressida, The Tempest, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Merry Wives of Windsor, Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, Love's Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, All's Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale, King Lear, and Macbeth. (17 plays in all.)
Also, there is a reference to Romeo's line, "Why, then is my pump well flowered." There is no indication that Buckle thinks that he (or Mercutio) is talking about anything other than shoes. (His reference is actually a quotation from someone named Rann, though, so maybe it's his fault.) At any rate, the exchange reference pumps is clearly sexual in nature. Go back and read it if you don't believe me. In other news, this isn't very nice:  
595
Day 281: November 20, 2019
Hmmm. This description...  of the leader as a beat and his co-horts as cattle shoah do sound familiar. And as for this bit...  ...I can only say that I want to know more about this Ferrex and Porrex. It was written by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, neither of whom seem to have any relationship to Edward de Vere, so I guess I'm barking up the wrong tree...but I think I'm going to bark a little longer anyway, just to see if there are any nervous squirrels in the vicinity. News as it happens. 
605
615
Day 283: November 22, 2019
And now...the end is near...and as I face...the final pages...my friends...I have some tears but I'll still read...of that I'm certain. There'll be no more Buckle...and that is sad...but I shall move on...to Fernand...Fernand Braudel...in a new blog entry.
And today, I found this at Half-Price Books:  In fact, I found this book twice. First I saw it as a two volume thing of beauty...for a mere $15 for both volumes...and I was looking in the bargain section as I mulled over the wisdom of that purchase (though I was pretty sure that I was going to go for it) when I saw the one volume edition in said bargain section...for $2. Well first off...what are the odds on that? And second off...I had heard about this book some time ago and was interested in using it as a Daily Devotional book at some point in the future...but then I kind of forgot about it. So now it's definitely back in. But I think I'm still going to go for Fernand Braudel next. That said...  And...I found it interesting that there seems to have been so much enmity between the Scottish folks and the English right around the time Shake-speare supposedly wrote Macbeth. Case in point, "...the hatred between the Scottish and English was so great that they were constantly stabbing each other with short daggers...." (There were several other references to this enmity previous to this one, but you have to admit that the short daggers bit jumps out at you, eh?) Given that context, why on earth would Shake-speare write a play about a bunch of heroic Scots bringing down an out of control king? I think there's a lot to think about there...but I don't think I'm the guy to do it, so I'll hand it off to you. 
625
Day 284: November 23, 2019
 Speaking of...here's a bit from page 634 which rings some bells for me: "But Charles, though a thoroughly bad man, had a certain rude ability which compensated many of the defects of his understanding. His fate was soon decided. He had sown the wind, and he was now to reap the whirlwind. Within [ten] years after the sword was first drawn, he was a prisoner in his own castle; [two years later his head was taken off in front of his own palace." Well, we can always hope, right? 
635
Day 285: November 24, 2019
This bit...  ...was so Trumperfect that I had to go ahead and Tweet it. And apparently it hit a chord with at least a few folks. It's been up for an hour now, and...  So there's that. And so a few minutes later when I read this bit... "As soon as Charles once found himself on the throne, he and his wretched associates plunged into every description of vice. Never before had there been seen in modern Europe crime so gross and yet so open. Even Tiberius, as he lay at Caprae rotting in lust, did not blazon his vices. But Charles was as impudent as he was vicious. He was a man who had never known the feeling of shame, and who was not likely to learn it from his companions."
Henry Thomas Buckle
...I thought, "Well, why not?" and made another Tweet of it. It's only been up for about 25 minutes and has just over 100 hits, so probably not going to be as "popular," but what the hell, I'll take 100 readers any old day.
708
 So there you have it. It took less that 78% of one year to read every word that Buckle wrote (at least so far as it's possible to tell) in his lifetime. And I'm grateful for the experience...but it's also pretty fucking sad, isn't it? Of course I can always go back (Jack) and do it again...and may well do that vis-à-vis History of Civilization in England. But not the Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works. I am not sorry to have read them...in fact, I would not want to have missed them...but having gotten to the end of all those pages, I have to admit that there's not a whole lot of stuff there that I really needed. In fact, I'd say that I've recorded every bit of it in the past 197 daily entries of this reading log. (So if you're tempted, read my entries, which you can do in a pretty short amount of time, and then you can decided if you want to spend the time to read another two thousand pages of Buckle's notebooks.) So that's it, then. Peace out.
Vive la France!
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