"What a deal of cold business…" [Snowy Valentine's Day Repost!]

"What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend the better part of life in! In scattering compliments, tendering visits, gathering and venting news, following feasts and plays, making a little winter-love in a dark corner."

-from Ben Jonson's Timber, 1640 (p. 5 of the 1892 edition, ed. Schelling).


[reposted from June, 2010]

"... judgments upon poetry ..."

"Nothing in our age, I have observed, is more preposterous than the running judgments upon poetry and poets ; when we hear those things commended and cried up for the best writings which a man would scarce vouchsafe to wrap any wholesome drug in : he would never light his tobacco with them."

"Indeed, the multitude commend writers as they do fencers or wrastlers, who, if they come in robustiously and put in for it with a deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows ; when many times their own rudeness is a cause of their disgrace..."

-from Ben Jonson's Timber, 1640 (pp. 21 & 22 of the 1892 edition, ed. Schelling).

What color is your mind?

"There cannot be one color of the mind, another of the wit."

-from Ben Jonson's Timber, 1640 (p. 32 of the 1892 edition, ed. Schelling).

"...I thank those that have taught me... but..."

"If in some things I dissent from others, whose wit, industry, diligence, and judgment, I look up to and admire, let me not therefore hear presently of ingratitude and rashness. For I thank those that have taught me, and will ever; but yet dare not think the scope of their labor and inquiry was to envy their posterity what they could add and find out."

-from Ben Jonson's Timber, 1640 (p. 7 of the 1892 edition, ed. Schelling).

"What a deal of cold business..."

"What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend the better part of life in! In scattering compliments, tendering visits, gathering and venting news, following feasts and plays, making a little winter-love in a dark corner."

-from Ben Jonson's Timber, 1640 (p. 5 of the 1892 edition, ed. Schelling).

Timber!

The commonplace book of Ben Jonson (1572-1637) was published posthumously in 1640, entitled "Timber, or discoveries made upon men and matter". It is fascinating and fun.

Seven years ago, in a puppy-related incident, our copy of that book was destroyed. Recently, in thinking about why we blog, and what a blog is, I was reminded of commonplace books, and of my late, lamented copy of Timber. So, online, I found and ordered a copy of the same edition we'd lost – the 1892 edition, edited by one Prof. Felix E. Schelling of the University of Pennsylvania.

It arrived yesterday, and I was pleased to see that this replacement volume was in much better shape than our old one (even before it was chewed up). I showed the book to my wife, mentioning that it was more than 100 years old, but had cost less than 20 dollars (including shipping).

"Oh," she asked, "would that be on Project Gutenberg or something?"

Well, no*. But it turns out that, yes, it is available on Google Books. In the very same 1892 Shelling edition. And yes, it's free to download.

So yesterday, I also got a free pdf of Timber. And today, NeuroCooking friend, you too can get a free copy, if you wish. My, how the book business has changed.

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*Whoops, um, yes, you can find Timber on Project Gutenberg. [late edit, with apologies; but forgive me for missing it the first time, because Project Gutenberg lists this work simply as "Discoveries" with no "Timber" in sight!]