Wisdom and Woe

• Pdf
• Amazon

Supplemental:

• Circus Stories podcast
• Those Extraordinary Twins by Mark Twain
• The Siamese Twins by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Extracts:

• "Now envy and antipathy, passions irreconcilable in reason, nevertheless in fact may spring conjoined like Chang and Eng in one birth. Is Envy then such a monster?" (Billy Budd, 12)
• "’Tis side-by-side entwined in ease / Of Chang and Eng the Siamese / When leaning mutually embraced; / And so these improvised twin brothers Dance forward and salute the others" (Clarel, 3.13)
• "It seemed more an intestine feud, than a fight between strangers. Or, rather, it was as if the Siamese Twins, oblivious of their fraternal bond, should rage in unnatural fight." (Israel Potter, 19)
• "Every fine evening, about sunset, these two, the cook and steward, used to sit on the little shelf in the cook-house, leaning up against each other like the Siamese twins, to keep from falling off..." (Redburn, 17)
• "... the two stood together; the old miser leaning against the herb-doctor with something of that air of trustful fraternity with which, when standing, the less strong of the Siamese twins habitually leans against the other." (Confidence-Man, 21)
• "So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature united us.... I saw that this situation of mine was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in most cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a plurality of other mortals." (Moby-Dick, 72)
• "At variance in their revery move / The spleen of nature and her love: / At variance, yet entangled too— / Like wrestlers." (Clarel, 3.5)
• "O city yonder, / Exposed in penalty and wonder, / Again thou seest me! Hither I / Still drawn am by the guilty tie / Between us; all the load I bear / Only thou know’st, for thou dost share. / As round my heart the phantoms throng / Of tribe and era perished long, / So thou art haunted, sister in wrong!" (Clarel, 3.19)
• "... the mere fact of there being twins always seemed curious; in fact, to me at least, all twins are prodigies; and still I hardly know why this should be; for all of us in our own persons furnish numerous examples of the same phenomenon. Are not our thumbs twins? A regular Castor and Pollux? And all of our fingers? Are not our arms, hands, legs, feet, eyes, ears, all twins; born at one birth, and as much alike as they possibly can be? Can it be, that the Greek grammarians invented their dual number for the particular benefit of twins?" (Redburn, 53)

This meetup is part of the series Circuses and Snake Oil.

• Kindle
• Google books
• Gutenberg
• Librivox 5h 25m

Extracts:

• "By the way Melville reads Old Books. He has borrowed Sir Thomas Browne of me and says finely of the speculations of the Religio Medici that Browne is a kind of 'crack’d Archangel.' Was ever anything of this sort said before by a sailor?" (letter by Evert Duyckinck, 18 March 1848)

This meetup is part of the series Circuses and Snake Oil.

• Kindle
• Standard Ebooks
• Gutenberg
• Google books
• Librivox 12h 5m

Supplemental:

• Backlisted podcast
• Great Books lecture by Jim McWard
• The Weird Circle 1944 radio adaptation
• BBC Radio 2016 radio adaptation
• Theme Wheel
• Discussion by Vollrath Publishing

Extracts:

• "She was like the great fire of London, breaking out on the heel of the great Plague." (Israel Potter, 19)
• "Still, relatively to the pale history of the voyage, and his own pale face, there seemed something so incongruous in the Spaniard’s apparel, as almost to suggest the image of an invalid courtier tottering about London streets in the time of the plague." ("Benito Cereno")
• "I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least, of his peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this earthly air, whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless miseries of the numberless mortals who have died exhaling it; and as in time of the cholera, some people go about with a camphorated handkerchief to their mouths; so, likewise, against all mortal tribulations, Stubb’s tobacco smoke might have operated as a sort of disinfecting agent." (Moby-Dick, 27)
• "Some thinking they would catch the plague, dipped oakum in coal-tar, and at intervals held it to their nostrils. Others having broken the stems of their pipes almost short off at the bowl, were vigorously puffing tobacco-smoke, so that it constantly filled their olfactories." (Moby-Dick, 91)
• "This day we buried three; the next day one, and then the pestilence left us, with seven convalescent..." (Redburn, 58)
• "It visited them like a plague, sweeping them off by hundreds." (Typee, 26)
• "We die by land, and die by sea; we die by earthquakes, famines, plagues, and wars; by fevers, agues; woe, or mirth excessive. This mortal air is one wide pestilence, that kills us all at last." (Mardi, 2.74)
• "He would tell of lying in Batavia during a fever, when his ship lost a man every few days, and how they went reeling ashore with the body, and got still more intoxicated by way of precaution against the plague." (Redburn, 7)
• "There seems to be no calamity overtaking man, that can not be rendered merchantable. Undertakers, sextons, tomb-makers, and hearse-drivers, get their living from the dead; and in times of plague most thrive. And these miserable old men and women hunted after corpses to keep from going to the church-yard themselves; for they were the most wretched of starvelings." (Redburn, 36)
• "... in some of these ships... the emigrant passengers are cut off from the most indispensable conveniences of a civilized dwelling. This forces them in storm time to such extremities, that no wonder fevers and plagues are the result. We had not been at sea one week, when to hold your head down the fore hatchway was like holding it down a suddenly opened cesspool." (Redburn, 47)
• "You see no plague-ship driving through a stormy sea; you hear no groans of despair; you see no corpses thrown over the bulwarks; you mark not the wringing hands and torn hair of widows and orphans:—all is a blank. And one of these blanks I have but filled up, in recounting the details of the Highlander’s calamity." (Redburn, 58)
• "... the archangel cared little or nothing for the captain and mates; and since the epidemic had broken out, he carried a higher hand than ever; declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole command" (Moby-Dick, 71)
• "... a malignant fever followed the scurvy; with the excessive heat of the lengthened calm, making such short work of it as to sweep away, as by billows, whole families of the Africans, and a yet larger number, proportionably, of the Spaniards, including, by a luckless fatality, every remaining officer on board." ("Benito Cereno")
• "... do you think that because you can strike a bit of green light from the Leyden jar, that you can thoroughly avert the supernal bolt? Your rod rusts, or breaks, and where are you? Who has empowered you, you Tetzel, to peddle round your indulgences from divine ordinations? The hairs of our heads are numbered, and the days of our lives. In thunder as in sunshine, I stand at ease in the hands of my God. False negotiator, away!" ("The Lightning-Rod Man")
• "For spite the sky there, always blue, / And blue daubed seas so bland, the pest / Was breaking out—the people quailing / In houses hushed; from Egypt sailing, / In ship, I say, which shunned the pest.... I say there fell to her unblest / A hap more baleful than the pest." (Clarel, 3.12)
• "... forever exempt from wearing on his hands those treacherous plague-spots of indigence—videlicet, blots from the inkstand" (Pierre, 18.2)

This meetup is part of the series Circuses and Snake Oil.

• Kindle
• Standard Ebooks
• Gutenberg
• Google books
• Librivox 12h 5m

Supplemental:

• Backlisted podcast
• Great Books lecture by Jim McWard
• The Weird Circle 1944 radio adaptation
• BBC Radio 2016 radio adaptation
• Theme Wheel
• Discussion by Vollrath Publishing

Extracts:

• "She was like the great fire of London, breaking out on the heel of the great Plague." (Israel Potter, 19)
• "Still, relatively to the pale history of the voyage, and his own pale face, there seemed something so incongruous in the Spaniard’s apparel, as almost to suggest the image of an invalid courtier tottering about London streets in the time of the plague." ("Benito Cereno")
• "I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least, of his peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this earthly air, whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless miseries of the numberless mortals who have died exhaling it; and as in time of the cholera, some people go about with a camphorated handkerchief to their mouths; so, likewise, against all mortal tribulations, Stubb’s tobacco smoke might have operated as a sort of disinfecting agent." (Moby-Dick, 27)
• "Some thinking they would catch the plague, dipped oakum in coal-tar, and at intervals held it to their nostrils. Others having broken the stems of their pipes almost short off at the bowl, were vigorously puffing tobacco-smoke, so that it constantly filled their olfactories." (Moby-Dick, 91)
• "This day we buried three; the next day one, and then the pestilence left us, with seven convalescent..." (Redburn, 58)
• "It visited them like a plague, sweeping them off by hundreds." (Typee, 26)
• "We die by land, and die by sea; we die by earthquakes, famines, plagues, and wars; by fevers, agues; woe, or mirth excessive. This mortal air is one wide pestilence, that kills us all at last." (Mardi, 2.74)
• "He would tell of lying in Batavia during a fever, when his ship lost a man every few days, and how they went reeling ashore with the body, and got still more intoxicated by way of precaution against the plague." (Redburn, 7)
• "There seems to be no calamity overtaking man, that can not be rendered merchantable. Undertakers, sextons, tomb-makers, and hearse-drivers, get their living from the dead; and in times of plague most thrive. And these miserable old men and women hunted after corpses to keep from going to the church-yard themselves; for they were the most wretched of starvelings." (Redburn, 36)
• "... in some of these ships... the emigrant passengers are cut off from the most indispensable conveniences of a civilized dwelling. This forces them in storm time to such extremities, that no wonder fevers and plagues are the result. We had not been at sea one week, when to hold your head down the fore hatchway was like holding it down a suddenly opened cesspool." (Redburn, 47)
• "You see no plague-ship driving through a stormy sea; you hear no groans of despair; you see no corpses thrown over the bulwarks; you mark not the wringing hands and torn hair of widows and orphans:—all is a blank. And one of these blanks I have but filled up, in recounting the details of the Highlander’s calamity." (Redburn, 58)
• "... the archangel cared little or nothing for the captain and mates; and since the epidemic had broken out, he carried a higher hand than ever; declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole command" (Moby-Dick, 71)
• "... a malignant fever followed the scurvy; with the excessive heat of the lengthened calm, making such short work of it as to sweep away, as by billows, whole families of the Africans, and a yet larger number, proportionably, of the Spaniards, including, by a luckless fatality, every remaining officer on board." ("Benito Cereno")
• "... do you think that because you can strike a bit of green light from the Leyden jar, that you can thoroughly avert the supernal bolt? Your rod rusts, or breaks, and where are you? Who has empowered you, you Tetzel, to peddle round your indulgences from divine ordinations? The hairs of our heads are numbered, and the days of our lives. In thunder as in sunshine, I stand at ease in the hands of my God. False negotiator, away!" ("The Lightning-Rod Man")
• "For spite the sky there, always blue, / And blue daubed seas so bland, the pest / Was breaking out—the people quailing / In houses hushed; from Egypt sailing, / In ship, I say, which shunned the pest.... I say there fell to her unblest / A hap more baleful than the pest." (Clarel, 3.12)
• "... forever exempt from wearing on his hands those treacherous plague-spots of indigence—videlicet, blots from the inkstand" (Pierre, 18.2)

This meetup is part of the series Circuses and Snake Oil.