Kipling's Gods of the Copy Book Headings

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Rudyard Kipling

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,

I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.

Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn

That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,

So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,

But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come

That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,

They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;

They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;

So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.

They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.

But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man

There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Instapundit

ANN ALTHOUSE: “The school district will surely say that Kwanzaa is not a religious holiday, but what constitutes religion for Establishment Clause purposes? It’s not an easy question.”

No, it’s not. That’s the topic of my never-finished law review article: The Elvis Problem: Defining Religion Under The First Amendment. It grows out of something I use in Constitutional Law class: What if I told you that there was a man who was worshipped by millions before he died, who’s often sighted by followers today, post-death, whose home is a shrine and whose relics are eagerly sought and traded? Whose acolytes take on his attributes before adoring and transported crowds? Whose followers attribute miracles to him? Isn’t that a religion? (That’s when I tell them it’s Elvis). If needed, I guess I could show this Alannah Myles video, with the line “a new religion that will bring you to your knees,” but that would probably be overkill — and now there’s a documentary on the theme).

Then, of course, to illustrate courts’ unwillingness to get involved in intra-church disputes I posit a schism in The Church Of Elvis, between those who believe that the King’s commandment is “Love Me Tender,” and those who favor “Don’t Be Cruel,” followed by a further split between the “Don’t Be Cruel” crowd and those who insist it’s “Don’t Be Cruel — To A Heart That’s True!” Splitters!

All fun aside — and it is fun — the issue is serious and it’s one of the arguments in favor of the path the Supreme Court took in Smith, which is that it’s hard to define a religion for purposes of the First Amendment. Of course, you don’t escape it where public schools are charged with sponsoring a religious ceremony.

Posted at 10:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

via pjmedia.com

arXiv.org help - General Information About arXiv

General Information About arXiv

Started in August 1991, arXiv.org (formerly xxx.lanl.gov) is a highly-automated electronic archive and distribution server for research articles. Covered areas include physics, mathematics, computer science, nonlinear sciences, quantitative biology and statistics. arXiv is maintained and operated by the Cornell University Library with guidance from the arXiv Scientific Advisory Board and the arXiv Sustainability Advisory Group, and with the help of numerous subject moderators.

via arxiv.org

And unlike JStor, free for all.

The Case for the Electoral College

The Electoral College comes in for a lot of drubbing these days as undemocratic.  It is. Intentionally. Here is Law Prof. Richard Epstein defending the institution on a Ricochet.com podcast. He defends it "not because it is just, but because it is clear." Listen to these two minutes and see what you make of his arguments. The argument rests on practical grounds more than on moral or political ones. It assumes that the Nation is more than a collection of atomized individuals and that it has a history which includes prior agreements.

G. K. Chesterton Sums It Up

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."[5]
via en.wikipedia.org

This in 1924, in the Illustrated London News.

Reaching for the stars

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon 

a red wheel
barrow 

glazed with rain
water 

beside the white
chickens. 

Take a look at the William Carlos Williams when young. Intensity and Idealism come to my mind. And so his famous "The Red Wheelbarrow." IAt first, the poem seems fixed in empirical reality; the image the poem presents is precise and clear. It is much like Haiku. And there is no commentary.  But the opening line requires us to wonder what it is that depends upon the red wheelbarrow and the chickens and the rain in just this particular arrangement. The poem thus requires us to go in thought beyond the material realm to another realm of being.

I have read that the poem was written as the auther, a pediatrician, was attending a young girl sick sick in her bed with fever. He was looking out her window as he waited to see if the fever would break and this is what he saw.

 

Huck Finn Review Quotations

Quotations from Huckleberry Finn

The following passages were quoted in at least one of the contemporary reviews of the novel. Using the links after each quotation, you can either go to the review in which the passage was quoted, or see the passage in the context of the chapter in which it originally appeared.

You don't know me, without you have read a book by the name of "The Adventures of 'Tom Sawyer,' " but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth mainly. There were things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied, one time or another, without it was "Aunt Polly" or the widow, or maybe "Mary." "Aunt Polly"--Tom's "Aunt Polly," she is--and "Mary," and the "widow Douglas," is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book; with stretchers, as I said before.
Review LINK ICON MT's Text
Now the way the book winds up is this: "Tom" and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got $6,000 a piece--all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, "Judge Thatcher," he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round--more than a body could tell what to do with. The "widow Douglas," she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal, regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so, when I could stand it no longer, I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But "Tom Sawyer," he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.
Review LINK ICON MT's Text
via etext.virginia.edu

This page has everything one would need to construct a research paper on Twain's masterpiece. Each passage has a link to the original review, so an essay about the contemporary reaction to the novel is ripe for the taking.