Eratosthenes

   Eratosthenes had my job. Or anyway, I want his job. The life of a scholar is one not often available in our common times (for I would venture to say that times past were most uncommon). Life, and even learning, must be ever compartmented — and he who would venture to another compartment not alotted to him . . . he might be thought “worse than an infidel”* by this pragmatic world.
   Not too terribly long ago, I would not be looked at askance for being a writer studying to become a professor of Biology and Biochemistry. Eratosthenes was a librarian (and I am firmly convinced that there is no other profession more suited to my tastes — in being closer to work as a scholar of the classical type), but he also was a scientist (say, “natural philosopher”). In fact, he was the first to accurately measure, or calculate, the circumference of the earth; he did it with an accuracy of only several hundred miles different from what we now know to be the correct value.
   As well, some of his other accomplishments would, in such common times as today, be compartmented out of his reach, he being librarian of Alexandria or not!

Known for his versatility, he wrote poetry and works (most of them lost) on literature, the theater (notably on ancient comedy), mathematics, astronomy, geography, and philosophy; he also drew a map of the known world and evolved a system of chronology.

— The Columbia Encyclopedia, Ed. 6, 2001

   Oh for the life of a scholar! I believe I could be happy ad infinitum surrounded by books and ink and — oh well, I suppose these days I must put up with computers musn’t I? — forever writing and reading and writing about what I read. But you see what I’m saying, don’t you? Now most people would think it odd that a mathematician would write poetry; and much less philosophy! I suppose there is no rule absolutely against such a mix as I, but there is definitely sentiment — expectation, perhaps — against me. I also suppose I don’t care.
   I would not live in any other fashion. Boxes, cells, compartments are not for me.

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But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.

— I Timothy 5:8

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I view askance a book that remains undisturbed for a year. Oughtn’t it to have a ticket of leave? I think I may safely say no book in my library remains unopened a year at a time, except my own works and Tennyson’s.

— Carolyn Wells

Crosspost: Scraps, Harbour in the Scramble, and Academic Musings

Eight Oh Seven

   True colours do begin to show. In the absence of any organizing influence, the rebellion latent — and obvious to only a few observant — in so many rises like a green film to the surface of life.
   Man in general is not a civilized being, and has not been for almost one hundred years. The days of gaslamps and hansoms and the last of the steamships were man’s last days of full and true civilization. Now civilization is provided for — or hung upon — the many by the few.
   Few there be who still know what consitutes actual civility. To most it is in this chimera of electric lights and Roman running water and then that fifth of the simple machines, the internal combustion engine. Deprived of these that separate most men from the animals, they swing from trees.
   Clothing becomes at best a somehow-still-necessary annoyance and at worst illogical and optional. Crisp and trim dormitories take on the look of Manhattan slum apartments with unwashed clothes hanging from the windows to dry the sweat. An awful din of cleanup from the Czar’s^† violent visit thickens the air with chainsaws, chippers, and pressure washers; and the utterly non-sophisticates (revealed by their now loosely-regulated dress) make my campus — my den of sophistication — look like downtown Gary, Indiana.
   Houses bisected by hurricanes happen: there is nothing unconquerable about such damage. Trees will be uprooted — testimony to their foolish stand against the inevitable. A diadem of roots shading where I stand bodes no ill at all.
   The clock stopped. Windows can be deglazed, and fenestrated storeys boarded over, and still I would not breather “savagery”. But for days, imposingly erect and yet unlit, the tower has read “eight oh seven”.
   Eight oh seven is when civilization ceased as an imposition upon savagery. Eight oh seven, two mornings ago. How Golding is proven, even in macrocosm^◊ and two days’ time! Eight oh seven, and all is not well.

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† This is in reference to Hurricane Ivan. The Czar has deprived most of Pensacola, Florida of water and power.
◊ William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies. LOTF was set among a small group of boys on a deserted island: a microcosm of society (sans restraint).

Crosspost: Scraps and Academic Musings

Green Tea and Red China

or The Way of Tea

   Jun loved his tea. About my age, or a little older, or a little younger perhaps, Jun was on his way to William Penn University, a small Quaker institution outside of Des Moines.
   He grew up in Communist China with its grey prospects and simplified characters. True, the western Schezuan area was not as oppressively militarized as more populous areas such as Beijing; still, Chairman Mao’s flabby hand lay heavy on Jun’s life.
   But he loved his country all the same. I guess patriotism is a concept foreign to me — but after experiencing for three years America, how could he rationally love China?
   Green tea.
   Yes, I mentioned my love for tea to him; and for the next quarter of an hour, received a monologue both historical and technical, with some generous helping of fervor and nearly-religious zeal thrown in.
   Five kinds — and all expensive: that’s all he brought with him to the states. And a tea-pot, clay (or “soil”, as his broken translation-dictionary English put it), because you can’t make good tea in a metal pot.
   “The Way of Tea,” he kept saying. “The Way of Tea” dictates you cannot just “make a pot of tea.” Tea is nearly supernatural, to be catered to, appeased, and worshipped through its preparations.
   Funny, isn’t it? All he really wanted was a perfect cup of hot green tea. China was the only place in the world where one could be had. Red China. Communist China. Chairman Mao’s China. So he loved China.
   Though, if we are not prevented from enjoying — and I mean really enjoying, falling-into-a-reverie enjoying — a cup of tea, are we really oppressed? Are we really misused?
   Not for that moment, however short.
   Not for that moment.

Wonder ’tis how little mirth
Keeps the bones of men from lying
On the bed of earth.

— A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad

Crosspost: Scraps and Harbour in the Scramble