Folks,
I am more than a little aware that the post of a few days back was lengthy. As I go on with them, I find that each seems to take on a life of its own and that, if you are going to do what it demands properly, you have to succumb. In which light, today a respite!
On his father’s tombstone in Shirley Churchyard (south of London), in addition to noting for anyone who might read the carved words in visits to come that John James Ruskin was “an entirely honest merchant” (a lesson which would undergird all his son’s social and ethical writings), Ruskin thanked his sire for having always taught him to “speak truth.” Over a half century of writing, in his more than forty books and three times and more that number of lectures and essays, he tried to do just that, as I hope our first few posts have begun to illustrate and ones yet to come will show further.
Here’s the snippet. For many years one of my favorites. It bears a little reflecting.
You cannot find a lie; you must make it for yourself. False things may be imagined, and false things composed, but only truth can be invented.
May you have the happiest of holidays,
🙂
Jim
