May 19, 2014
Maximes ___________________________________________________
I got
a letter today from my Uncle Albert. To
his congressmen and women at every level, state, federal, and world, he writes
emails. To his “favorite nephew” − how many others I share that exalted
position with I don’t want to know . . . (None is an actual nephew, you may
recall. See “The Ambiguities” for March12.)[1] To his favorite nephew he writes letters in a
wavering, spidery, ancient yet entirely legible hand. The letters are brief, and they contain
advice he does not expect me to take as it is sadly true: On
donne des conseils, mais on n’inspire point de conduite.[2]
− La Rochefoucauld.
Uncle Albert’s advice comes in that
form, as maximes. Regrettably, he is not La Rochefoucauld, he admits in every
letter. He despairs of writing anything
as sharp. “He [La Rochefoucauld] fought every
duel with a blade so keen that he could plunge it in and remove it, leaving his
opponent dead on the floor without a trace of blood anywhere − on the blade, on
the floor, even on the man’s shirt, on his skin!” But he [Uncle Albert] modestly proffers these
little bits and pieces he has been working on “to rub them to the proper
polish.” That is different in twenty-first
century American English from seventeenth-century French. The buckles on the Frenchman’s shoes could
glitter like a mirror, but “our shoes must shine without looking as if they have
been polished.”
These are from today’s letter, which
begins as usual, “Ah, my favorite nephew,” speaks briefly of the weather which Uncle
A has decided “will be from now on always unseasonable,” and ends after
these “pieces not for your edification
but amusement” with “your poor dead mother’s ancient friend . . .” and his
signature, Albert.
- There
is nothing more provincial than snobbery.
Snobbery is itself a province.
- What
we take seriously we know others do; we’re shocked
to learn they care for our religion no more than they care for butter beans.
- The time you spend thinking about your golf swing will improve nothing, except, perhaps, the state of your soul if it has interrupted contemplating some other meanness.
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