Every season hath its pleasures;
Spring may boast her flowery prime,
Yet the vineyard's ruby treasures
Brighten Autumn's soberer time.
~ Thomas Moore



Next word: soberer

"Over second and third cups flow matters of high finance, high state, common gossip and low comedy. [Coffee] is a social binder, a warmer of tongues, a soberer of minds, a stimulant of wit, a foiler of sleep if you want it so. From roadside mugs to the classic demi-tasse, it is the perfect democrat."

-- The New York Times, 1949

next word: foiler

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins, God's Grandeur (1877)

Next word: trod

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
~ John Gillespie Magee, Jr.



Next word: delirious

I wanted to give us seven or eight innings. We've made two red-eye flights over the last couple of days and guys really haven't complained. I don't know if we're delirious or not, but it's one of the reasons I like this team. They've got character . ~ Paul Byrd


Next word; character

***

The people have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge--I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers.~John Adams

Next word: unalienable

First there is the democratic idea: that all men are endowed by their creator with certain natural rights; that these rights are alienable only by the possessor thereof; that they are equal in men; that government is to organize these natural, unalienable and equal rights into institutions designed for the good of the governed, and therefore government is to be of all the people, by all the people, and for all the people. Here government is development, not exploitation.

Theodore Parker, American theologian, pastor, scholar and abolitionist
(1810 - 1860) - in a speech in Boston -

next word: alienable

All men born with equal rights] Some of those rights are alienable, and may be parted with for an equivalent. Others are unalienable and inherent, and of that importance, that no equivalent can be received in exchange. Sometimes we shall mention the surrendering of a power to controul our natural rights, which perhaps is speaking with more precision, than when we use the expression of parting with natural rights--but the same thing is intended. Those rights which are unalienable, and of that importance, are called the fights of conscience. We have duties, for the discharge of which we are accountable to our Creator and benefactor, which no human power can cancel. What those duties are, is determinable by right reason, which may be, and is called, a well informed conscience. What this conscience dictates as our duty, is so; and that power which assumes a controul over it, is an usurper; for no consent can be pleaded to justify the controul, as any consent in this case is void . . . [Men forming government voluntarily delegate some power] . . . No individual, in this case, parts with his unalienable rights, the supreme [governmental] power therefore cannot controul them. (Emphasis added.)

"Essex Result" (Report of Conventions of Towns, Essex County, Mass., rejecting first proposed Constitution for Mass., 1778) The American Ideal of 1776: The Twelve Basic American Principles (Rule 3. Unalienable Rights--From God)



Next word: equivalent

If you look at Gilbert and Sullivan, they were played to be the English equivalents of Jacques Offenbach's operettas. They're full of gags, funny situations and parody, which was the typical humor of the time . ~ Vince Liotta


Next word; time

***

Events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order the continuous thread of revelation.~Eudora Welty

Next word: sequence

"High culture is nothing but a child of that European perversion called history, the obsession we have with going forward, with considering the sequence of generations a relay race in which everyone surpasses his predecessor . . ."

Milan Kundera (1929 - ____) Czech "novelist, playwright, poet"
"Paul, in Immortality, pt. 3, ""The Brilliant Ally of his Own Gravediggers"" (1991)."

next word: surpasses

No society of nations, no people within a nation, no family can benefit through mutual aid unless good will exceeds ill will; unless the spirit of cooperation surpasses antagonism; unless we all see and act as though the other man's welfare determines our own welfare.
~ Henry Ford II



Next word: antagonism

The world is not dialectical -- it is sworn to extremes, not to equilibrium, sworn to radical antagonism, not to reconciliation or synthesis. This is also the principle of evil . ~ Jean Baudrillard


Next word; evil

***

There is nothing evil save that which perverts the mind and shackles the conscience.~Saint Ambrose

Next word: shackles

“Mr. Micawber being now on the eve of casting off the pecuniary shackles that have so long enthralled him,” said Mrs. Micawber, “and of commencing a new career in a country where there is sufficient range for his abilities,—which, in my opinion, is exceedingly important; Mr. Micawber’s abilities peculiarly requiring space,—it seems to me that my family should signalise the occasion by coming forward. What I could wish to see, would be a meeting between Mr. Micawber and my family at a festive entertainment, to be given at my family’s expense; where Mr. Micawber’s health and prosperity being proposed, by some leading member of my family, Mr. Micawber might have an opportunity of developing his views.”

from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

next word: enthralled

Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt, Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled; Yea even that which mischief meant most harm - Shall in the happy trial prove most glory”
~ John Milton



Next word: assailed

Most government officials are rushing headlong to solve the problems of 50 years ago, with their ears assailed by the sound of snails whizzing by . ~ Eric Johnston


Next word; by

***

In addition to the decline in competition, American politics today is characterized by a growing ideological polarization between the two major political parties.~Thomas E. Mann

Next word: polarization

"I tell you, the great divide is still with us, the awful split, the Us and Them. Like a rubber band tautened to the snapping point, the polarization of the sexes continues, because we lack the courage to face our likenesses and admit to our real need."

Colette Dowling (1938 - ____) US writer
"""A Woman Sounds Off on Those Sexy Magazines,"" ""Redbook,"" Apr 1974."

next word: tauten[ed]

The sort of girl I like to see
Smiles down from her great height at me.
She stands in strong, athletic pose
And wrinkles her retroussй nose.
Is it distaste that makes her frown,
So furious and freckled, down
On an unhealthy worm like me?
Or am I what she likes to see?
I do not know, though much I care,
xxxxxxxx.....would I were
(Forgive me, shade of Rupert Brooke)
An object fit to claim her look.
Oh! would I were her racket press'd
With hard excitement to her breast
And swished into the sunlit air
Arm-high above her tousled hair,
And banged against the bounding ball
"Oh! Plung!" my tauten'd strings would call,
"Oh! Plung! my darling, break my strings
For you I will do brilliant things."
And when the match is over, I
Would flop beside you, hear you sigh;
And then with what supreme caress,
You'd tuck me up into my press.
Fair tigress of the tennis courts,
So short in sleeve and strong in shorts,
Little, alas, to you I mean,
For I am bald and old and green.
~ John Betjeman, The Olympic Girl



Next word: wrinkles