You can find a complete listing of all the articles on this site here. They are listed in reverse chronological order, and are all clickable links. Twenty-five articles are displayed per page, with the publication date included. To find older articles, click on the page numbers at the bottom.
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Wealth Cannot Turn Back Time (Podcast)
In this podcast we discuss a short moral essay of Samuel Johnson. In the essay, a narrator, who was once poor but now is rich, desires to return to his hometown and treat with condescension those who once viewed him with disdain. His scheme of petty revenge, however, does not play out as he wishes.…
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The Climacterics
The word climacteric is not one commonly encountered. The Oxford English Dictionary describes its variegated colors of meaning. A consultation with Volume II of the 1970 edition (covering the letter C) informs us that the word is an adjective “applied to that period of life (usually between the ages of 45 and 60) at which…
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“I Need Some Advice In My Job Search” (Podcast)
A reader is experiencing some difficulties in his job search. He just graduated from a respected degree program, but he is beginning to realize that opportunities are hard to come by. In fact, his morale is low, and he’s not sure what his next steps should be. We discuss.
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It Meant More To You Than It Did To Them (Podcast)
There are times when we try to share fond memories of the past with friends, family, or former lovers. Yet, we often find that these nostalgic recollections are not acknowledged or reciprocated as much as we would like. We may feel emotionally spurned, or shut out. Why is this? We discuss.
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The Availability Of Information Does Not Equate To Its Effective Employment
Dear Sir: Some recent news reports have occasioned me to call attention to a principle of learning which, in our era of existential unease and fracture, often escapes notice. A professor at an institution of higher learning, we have been told, worries that he may not be able to “compete” (as he says) with the…
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Rise From The Earth, And Fly As A Victor
The progress of duncery is geometric, while knowledge and understanding advance, if at all, with arithmetic slowness. He who demands acute perception from the overwhelming mass of humanity will find himself crushed in disappointments, and immersed in doleful ruminations.
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“I’m Distraught That She Ended It” (Podcast)
A reader is upset that his girlfriend has broken things off. He believes that his behavior was the cause of it, and has been trying to repair the perceived damage. He wonders if there is something he could have done, or should have done. Nothing is working out, however. We offer some opinions about the…
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Trivial Characters Never Disparage Themselves
In his treatise on medicine, the Roman writer Celsus digresses to make a shrewd observation on the behavior of personalities of rare distinction. He happened to note, in the writings of Hippocrates, that the great Greek doctor once confessed to having been misled by the presence of sutures in a patient. Such a comment might…
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The Beautiful Suit (Podcast)
In this podcast we discuss H.G. Wells’s fable The Beautiful Suit. It was originally published in 1909 under the title A Moonlight Fable. You may never have heard of the story, but it imparts a powerful message. What does it mean? What is the author trying to communicate to his readers? And what lesson can…
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The Icy Tragedy Of The “Mexico”
We have in these pages chronicled many shipwrecks and maritime disasters, each of which is woeful in its own way. The wreck of the barque Mexico in 1836, however, evokes particular pity, not only from the fact that its victims—most of whom were women and children—perished from freezing, but also because the wreck occurred so…
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The Loss Of The “Prince” And The Ordeal Of Her Survivors
The French East Indiaman Prince left Port L’Orient in France on February 19, 1752. She soon ran into trouble, and became temporarily grounded on a sand bank; but her captain, M. Morin, ordered some cargo to be thrown overboard, and the lightened vessel was able to proceed. The ship returned to port temporarily for repairs,…
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The Whisperers In Darkness
Some conceptions are possessed of such awesome magnitude and gravity that the mind can only with difficulty apprehend their sublime grandeur. I would like to share one such idea.
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Young Charles Wager Steps Forward And Takes Command
Sir Charles Wager served as Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty from 1733 to 1742. He had a long and distinguished naval career, both at sea and ashore; and it will be useful for us to relate an anecdote from his early life that discloses much about his character and fortitude. The story that follows…
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The Story Of Zopyrus
The tale of the Persian nobleman Zopyrus appears in the third book of Herodotus, from chapter 150 to 160. We will relate it here, with no justification beyond the insight it may provide on human nature.
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Ten General Principles Of Conflict (Podcast)
Recent events have encouraged, or should have encouraged, some reflection on general principles of conflict. In this podcast, we propose ten of them.
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The Greatest Movies Of The 1960s
We have previously reviewed the best movies of the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and the first two decades of the new millennium. Until now I have hesitated to go further back in time; it did not seem to me that the 1960s was a particularly grand decade for film, at least not when compared to the…
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Interview With “Classical Wisdom” On The New Translation Of Frontinus’s “Stratagems”
I had the privilege of doing a recent interview with Ms. Anya Leonard of Classical Wisdom, a publication that focuses on classical learning and education. The interview can be seen here:
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Love, Sloth, And Free Will (Podcast)
In this podcast we discuss love, sloth, and free will in the context of Canto 18 of Dante’s Purgatorio. What is the nature of love, and how does it affect our souls? What is the true meaning of sloth? What place does free will have in our lives? We explore these questions.
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The Strange Murder Of Madame Launay
The following crime story is found in an issue of William Evans Burton’s The Gentleman’s Magazine from 1839 (Vol. IV, January—July). It appears under the title “Unpublished Passages in the Life of Vidocq, the French Minister of Police. No. V: The Strange Discovery.” “Vidocq” refers to Eugène-François Vidocq (1775—1857), the French criminalist and investigator who…
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Lone Founts
If someone were to ask me why I read history, my reply would be in three words: solace, advice, and examples for our edification. Let me explain further.
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The Decline Of Poetry
Poetry is not the “draw” it once was. In the nineteenth century, it was relatively common for poetic works to be taught in schools, to be memorized in whole or in part, and to be the subject of public readings. No longer. One would today be hard-pressed to name any modern poets who have achieved…
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The Banners Of The King Of Hell Go Forth
In the thirty-fourth canto of Dante’s Inferno, our intrepid tourists Dante and Virgil find themselves at the very bottom of Hell’s ninth circle, known as Judecca, a name derived from Judas Iscariot. With his enthusiasm for classification and categories, Dante has given us names for the different parts of the ninth circle, in which are…
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Herman Melville’s “Battle-Pieces And Aspects Of The War”
The two greatest artistic productions to come out of the American Civil War were Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketch-Book of the War, and Herman Melville’s poetic masterpiece, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.
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The Zero Sum Game
I read recently a fascinating tale of nautical survival. In 1965, six teenage Tongan boys were shipwrecked on the uninhabited island of Ata in the Tongan Archipelago of Polynesia. After stealing a boat, they had encountered a storm which deposited them on the island without any means of communication with the outside world.
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Ne Plus Ultra
Canto XXVI of Dante’s Inferno takes place in the eighth bolgia (ditch) of the Eighth Circle of Hell. Here reside those guilty of providing fraudulent or deceitful counsel. In life, these souls used their persuasive abilities to harm or destroy others; and, in keeping with Dante’s attention to the principle of contrapasso, their punishment in…
Original copy of Cicero’s De Officiis (On Duties) published in Holland in 1642. From the collection of Fortress of the Mind.
Quintus Curtius 
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