Stirred by Alexander Pope

‘Tis hard to say, if greater Want of Skill
Appear in Writing or in Judging ill,
But, of the two, less dang’rous is th’ Offence,
To tire our Patience, than mis-lead our Sense:
Some few in that, but Numbers err in this,
Ten Censure wrong for one who Writes amiss;
A Fool might once himself alone expose,
Now One in Verse makes many more in Prose.

Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism”

I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest. The day Hazlitt came he opened to “I hate to read new books,” and I hollered “Comrade!” to whoever owned it before me.

Helene Hanff, 84 Charing Cross Road

One of my deepest delights on this Thanksgiving vacation odyssey was perusing an antiquarian book store and finding these three volumes of Pope’s poetical works dating from 1853 and available for a price I could afford.  With trembling hands, I opened the very fragile volume II last evening and read his Essay on Criticism. The opening lines I believed were worth repeating. 

Awakening this morning, the words from Helene Hanff rose to the surface of my consciousness, and I felt the urge to rise early, post this brief blog, then get to work on some art.  Many times, essayists will stir me artistically because what they record of the act of writing I find apropros to the act of making visual art.

Thanks for reading.

I make art in order to discover.

I journal when I feel alone.

I blog to remind myself that I am not alone.

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