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Arthur, The Three-Legged Dog (Podcast)
A reader asks about how he should handle a limitation he believes he has. We respond by telling him an anecdote, and drawing the appropriate lessons from it. We close on a humorous note by reading some recent tweets by the G Manifesto. Humor may indeed be the healthiest tonic.
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Captain George Francis Lyon’s Explorations In Africa
There is a certain type of Englishman who is not content with confinement in any one locale. He seeks new vistas, new challenges, and the chance to test his mettle against geography, climate, and the decrees of Fortune. We have chronicled a number of such men in these pages. To this list we must add…
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On Idle Or Trifling Speech
There are some who say that idle talk has no purpose, and should be avoided. Yet in many cases it serves valuable purposes: it enables us to test ideas or plans on our friends, and solicit their opinions; it enables us to relieve stress; and it enables us to pass the time in conversational pleasantry. …
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Travel Tips And Impressions: Athens, Greece
In this podcast we cover travel tips and impressions learned from my recent trip to Athens. The following areas are covered:
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Xenophon’s Dream, And The Power Of Character
When a man is under the duress of extreme events, he sometimes finds himself wracked by indecision. He will mull over various courses of action in his head; he will script out different scenarios in his imagination; and he will ponder his predicament from multiple perspectives. And yet, when he has finished with these troublesome…
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An Interview With “Online Great Books”
I was recently interviewed by Online Great Books regarding different aspects of my translating and writing work. It was a great discussion. The interview can be found here.
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The Olympieion
A short distance south-east of the Acropolis are the remains of a colossal temple called the Olympieion, or the Temple of Olympian Zeus. It was begun around 520 B.C. with the expressed purpose of being the largest and most impressive such structure in the Greek-speaking world, but it fell victim to political fortunes. Work on…
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Kerameikos: The Spirits Of The Dead
Today I visted a site called Kerameikos in Athens. It was a cemetery for many centuries, and contains numerous examples of funerary art. The site was only rediscovered in 1861 during road construction in the neighborhood. On the site is also located the famous Dipylon Gate, which was the main entrance into Athens during ancient…
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Some Observations On Classic Greek Art, And Its Lessons For Today
I have spent the past two days in Athens seeking out some of the monuments of classic Greek art. I have tried to see as many works of art and architecture as was reasonably possible, and thought I would here provide the impressions gained from these observations.
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The Lyceum Of Aristotle, And The National Archaeological Museum
Today I visited the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, as well as the historical site of Aristotle’s Lyceum. The Lyceum was the place of origin of Aristotle’s Peripatetic school of philosophy, which took shape around 335 B.C. Like the Platonic Academy, there is not much in the way of physical remains; but this did not…
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Seeing The Platonic Academy
I walked to the ruins of the Platonic Academy in Athens this morning. Founded by Plato himself around 387 B.C., it persisted through many generations under a variety of scholarchs (i.e., heads). It finally came to an official end during the reign of the emperor Justinian in 529 A.D., who ordered the closure of all…
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Surge And Consolidate, Surge And Recuperate
There is a line in one of Seneca’s letters (107.11) that reads: Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt. Seneca is quoting a line by the philosopher Cleanthes, which means, “The fates lead along the willing, and carry along the unwilling.” It does not matter whether we want, or do not want, to move in some direction;…
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Starvation On The High Seas: The Ordeal Of The “Saint Le Jacques”
Perhaps it is well that the modern traveler remains serenely unaware of the extraordinary hardships endured by his itinerant ancestors. For if he knew what travel in the pre-modern era truly entailed, he would be rightfully consumed by a sense of shame and inadequacy. His concerns are whether he will have the chicken or the…
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René Caillié: To Timbuktu And Back Alive
The modern traveler has little conception of the hardships and expense that were involved in the journeys of ages past. Surrounded by comfort, his every whim catered to by a global tourism industry, he is blissfully unaware of the suffering and danger necessarily involved in travel to remote regions of the globe before the modern…
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“Pathways” Is Now Available As An Audio Book
My essay collection Pathways is now available as an audio book. You can click on the icon above for purchase information. It is available on Amazon and iTunes. The book contains my best short essays published in 2015 (56 essays in all), and is professionally read by Saethon Williams, who also produced the audio books…
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Virtue Is A Sentinel (Podcast)
The virtues have been a force promoting social cohesion and stability for thousands of years. As a society becomes more wealthy, it tends to neglect these virtues. The consequences are deeply destructive: loss of social cohesion, indiscipline, greed and moral corruption. History suggests that such societies become ripe for disorder, even collapse.
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On The Solitary Life
The scholar Petrarch once secured an audience with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who lived from 1316 to 1378. His meeting with the emperor at Lombardy in 1354 is described in one of Petrarch’s luminous letters (Familiares XIX.3). It was a charming custom of those days that kings and popes would occasionally seek out…
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How To Sight-Read A Foreign Language With Speed And Efficiency
One of the skills needed to acquire reading proficiency in a foreign language is “sight-reading.” This is the act of reading a text quickly for information and comprehension. I have found from experience that there are effective and ineffective ways of approaching this skill, and that some discussion of these points may prove to be…
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The Rose Of The Alhambra
We will tell the tale of the Rose of the Alhambra. For many years after the city of Grenada came under the control of the Spanish kings, it remained a quiet and secluded place. Mute and desolate were its haunting spires; and, while every stone bore a secret, they contented themselves with accommodating the restless…
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“How Can I Help Someone With Anger Issues?” (Podcast)
A reader says that he has a family member with anger issues. Every time he tries to help the family member, the person lashes out and becomes defensive. Nothing he does seems to make the situation any better. The reader wants to know if there is anything he can do. We discuss.
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Why We Should Forgive The Faults Of Our Heroes
There comes a time in the life of every son or daughter when they begin to see their parents as flawed mortals. Before this, they are still under the spell of their upbringing; they see their parents more as imposing authority figures than as anything else. I am not sure exactly when, or how, this…
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Do Not Be Too Proud Of Your Generosity
I have always counted myself fortunate when receiving the generosity of another. I have never paused to ask questions about the circumstances of the giver, or to weigh the relative merits of a gift. To be graced with the kindness of another is enough. Perhaps what matters more is the sincerity of the giver; for…
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The Justice Of Malik Shah, Son Of Alp Arslan
Malik Shah I lived from about 1053 to about 1092, and was the sultan of the Seljuk Turkish Empire from 1072 to 1092. His name in Turkish is given as Melikşah; and he succeeded his father, the renowned Alp Arslan. According to his biographer Ibn Khallikan, Malik Shah was famous for his sense of justice…
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The Mystery Of Cicero’s Lost Work “On Glory”
Of the literary works of classical antiquity, only a fraction have survived to the present day. What fraction this is, we do not know; one estimate places it at one-fourth, but the true figure will never be known. The reader may wonder how it can be that literary masterpieces could have been permitted to fade…
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O Arquiteto Da Imaginação (Translation By Daniel Castro)
[The following is a Portuguese translation of my recent article The Architect of the Imagination, which was published here on July 1, 2018. Mr. Daniel Castro, the translator, has done great work in capturing the spirit of the original, and for that I am grateful. He can be found at his website, Nuvem de Giz.]…
Original copy of Cicero’s De Officiis (On Duties) published in Holland in 1642. From the collection of Fortress of the Mind.
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