The outline of the story that follows appeared in Edward R. Snow’s volume The Fury of the Seas, which was published in 1964. Snow relates that he first became aware of its details in 1934. His book is now long out of print, so it will be a pleasure for us to retell it here.
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Theodore Roosevelt was going to Cuba when war with Spain broke out, and no power on earth was going to stop him. As Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he had fought, schemed, and maneuvered to get an officer’s commission, and he had prevailed.
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Andrea Palladio is considered one of the most distinguished names in the history of architecture. His designs of villas, churches, theaters, and palaces have for centuries been held as exemplars of the High Renaissance genius for adapting classical styles and themes to modern purposes.
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This morning my friend Dr. Michael Fontaine sent me an email that contained the following quote by the French Enlightenment thinker Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle. When Fontenelle, at the age of 85, met Rousseau in 1742, he counseled him, “You must courageously offer your brow to laurel wreaths, and your nose to blows.”
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The Athenian statesman and general Phocion lived from about 402 to 318 B.C. He was famous for his frugal and unassuming personal habits; and he always put the interests of his country first, in stark opposition to his careerist, opportunistic contemporaries.
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The following story is taken from John Koehler’s masterfully researched Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police (1999). It is just one of countless tales of tragedy, suffering, and betrayal that took place in East Germany between the years 1945 and 1989. As the memory of communist oppression continues to recede in time, it becomes increasingly important to document, for the benefit of future generations, its fearsome scope and unrelenting cruelty.
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General Jacob Bayley remains one of the most obscure figures of American Revolutionary War leadership. Yet in our present age of debilitated moral strength, feeble character, and flexuous purposes, the details of his life and deeds are both instructive and edifying.
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One of the most impressive names in the annals of American Revolutionary War leadership is that of General John Stark of New Hampshire. Few of his peers equaled him in fighting prowess, tenacity, and strength of character; and while his name may be unfamiliar today, this is only because he was an apolitical animal who scrupulously refused to seek the garlands of notoriety and fame.
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The Canadian explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who lived from 1879 to 1962, changed his birth name when he was in college. He was originally known as William Stephenson, and was born in Manitoba, Canada. His biographers do not know exactly what prompted him to make such a startling reinvention of identity.
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Painting is a perishable art. Pigment fades and flakes with the centuries; and the passage of millennia leaves us nothing of painting but dust and memories. From antiquity have survived statues, tombs, mosaics, some murals here and there, artifacts of all kinds, and the sublime monuments of architecture; but of the great Greek and Roman painters, we have no original works.
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Quintus Curtius 
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