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CONTENTS:
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Happy Birthday To Us
In thinking about the next article in this newsletter, which mentions
George Orwell, I was reminded of the fact that 1st August is PGA's
birthday. In August 2001 we placed our first book online, "Animal Farm"
by George Orwell (http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100011.txt).
Our second was Nineteen eighty-four (http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt),
also by Orwell. We now have over 1600 titles online.
Project Gutenberg in the US (PG) (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page)
celebrates it's birthday on 4th July, American Independence Day. Our
birthday falls on a more (or less, according to your fancy) prosaic
occasion: "Horses' Birthday."
According to gutindex.all (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Offline_Catalogs),
the first ebook posted at PG was in 1971. There were 20 books online by
1991 and 100 by 1993. There are presently over 26,000 titles. Techology
has delivered inexpensive document scanners and OCR (Optical Character
Recognition) software to help us on our way.
A Short Essay on an Essay on Essays
Recently, the Sydney Morning Herald (5-6 July, 2008), carried an essay
by Andrew O'Hagan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_O'Hagan)
in which he discussed the art of essay writing. O'Hagan quoted his
English teacher from his school days who had said "the point of an essay
is to amuse, educate and express something personal."
O'Hagan mentioned some famous essayists, including Francis Bacon, Thomas
Carlyle, William Hazlitt, Rousseau, and Montaigne. The work of some of
these and other essayists is at Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page).
He also mentioned George Orwell, a writer who some people associate more
with novels than essays. Yet Orwell made his living by writing essays,
criticisms and reviews. O'Hagan quoteed from Orwell's essay "A Nice Cup
of Tea," which can be found in the PGA compilation "Fifty Orwell Essays"
at http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html.
I won't quote from it here, but include it in the "Quotable Quotes"
section, later in this Newsletter. Most of Orwell's writing can be
accessed from our Orwell page at http://gutenberg.net.au/pages/orwell.html.
Virginia Woolf was an essayist of the first order. What is more, you can
access most of her her works from our Woolf page at http://gutenberg.net.au/pages/woolf.html.
In "The Common Reader" Woolf writes about Montaigne and states "After
all, in the whole of literature, how many people have succeeded in
drawing themselves with a pen? Only Montaigne and Pepys and Rousseau
perhaps." She goes on to write "Here then, in spite of all contradictions
and all qualifications, is something definite. These essays are an
attempt to communicate a soul. On this point at least he is explicit. It
is not fame that he wants; it is not that men shall quote him in years to
come; he is setting up no statue in the market-place; he wishes only to
communicate his soul." Such clear, concise, beautiful prose!
O'Hagan, in his essay in the Sydney Morning Herald, also mentioned Mary
Wollstonecraft (1759-1797). He states that "just as the French cannot
think of Flaubert's experiments in psychological realism without thinking
first of Rouueau's beautiful 'Confessions,' the English cannot imagine
the works of Jane Austen without Mary Wollstonecraft's 'Vindication of
the Rights of women.'" (at PG: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3420).
Wollstonecraft's essay is eloquently and elegantly crafted. The message
is still relevant today. She writes: "'Educate women like men,' says
Rousseau, 'and the more they resemble our sex the less power will they
have over us.' This is the very point I aim at. I do not wish them to
have power over men; but over themselves."
O'Hagan must have the last word. It is almost HIS essay after all. (But
not before I state how wonderful it is to be able to refer to writers and
to then provide a link to the ebook of the work itself. Talk about
instant gratification!) O'Hagan writes, in HIS final paragraph, "I felt
my way through the library stacks when I was young, eager to pick up
those essays and tune into some of the most beautiful conversations ever
to happen in Britain. And in the end that is what the essay gives you: a
word in your ear and a thought before bedtime, all the better to speed
your dreams and awaken your appetite for life." 'Ear, 'ear!
Quotable Quotes (by Essayists)
But these contributions to the dangerous and fascinating subject of
the psychology of the other sex--it is one, I hope, that you will
investigate when you have five hundred a year of your own--were
interrupted by the necessity of paying the bill. It came to five
shillings and ninepence. I gave the waiter a ten-shilling note and he
went to bring me change. There was another ten-shilling note in my purse;
I noticed it, because it is a fact that still takes my breath away the
power of my purse to breed ten-shilling notes automatically. I open it
and there they are. Society gives me chicken and coffee, bed and lodging,
in return for a certain number of pieces of paper which were left me by
an aunt, for no other reason than that I share her name.
Virginia Woolf, "A Room of One's Own"
(http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200791h.html)
* * *
I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am
in the country I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not for
criticising hedge-rows and black cattle. I go out of town in order to
forget the town and all that is in it. There are those who for this
purpose go to watering-places, and carry the metropolis with them. I like
more elbow-room and fewer encumbrances. I like solitude, when I give
myself up to it, for the sake of solitude; nor do I ask for 'A friend in
my retreat, Whom I may whisper solitude is sweet.'
William Hazlitt, 'On Going a Journey' (in "Table-Talk"
(http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext02/table10.txt)
* * *
What is truth? said jesting Pilate,and would not stay for an answer.
Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to
fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And
though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain
certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be
not so much blood in them, as was in those of the ancients. But it is not
only the difficulty and labor, which men take in finding out of truth,
nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that
doth bring lies in favor; but a natural, though corrupt love, of the lie
itself.
Francis Bacon, 'Of Truth' (in "Essays of Francis Bacon"
(http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/ebacn10.txt)
* * *
There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why
is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and
much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as
telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits,
healing burns and sweeping thecarpet. It is worth paying attention to
such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling,
so as to make quite sureof wringing out of one's ration the twenty good,
strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.
George Orwell, 'A Nice Cup of Tea' (in "Fifty Orwell Essays"
(http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html)
A list of all the books we provide is available from http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty.html
Check there to see if there are other works by the authors listed
below
-- JULY POSTINGS -- Jul 2008 The Return of Bulldog Drummond, Sapper [080073xx.xxx] 1655A http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800731.txt or .zip Jul 2008 At the End of the Passage, Rudyard Kipling [080072xx.xxx] 1654A http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800721.txt or .zip Jul 2008 Patriotic Lady, Marjorie Bowen [080071xx.xxx] 1653A http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800711.txt or .zip http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800711h.html Jul 2008 The Provincial Lady Goes Further, E M Delafield [080070xx.xxx] 1652A http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800701.txt or .zip http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800701h.html Jul 2008 Under Capricorn, Helen Simpson [080069xx.xxx] 1651A http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800691.txt or .zip Jul 2008 The Spanish Marriage, Helen Simpson [080068xx.xxx] 1650A http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800681.txt or .zip http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800681h.html Jul 2008 The Ringer, Edgar Wallace [080067xx.xxx] 1649A http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800671.txt or .zip Jul 2008 The Diary of a Provincial Lady, E M Delafield [080066xx.xxx] 1648A http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800661.txt or .zip http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800661h.html Jul 2008 Tales of Horror and the Supernatural,Arthur Machen[080065xx.xxx] 1647A http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800651.txt or .zip Jul 2008 The Queen's Caprice, Marjorie Bowen [080064xx.xxx] 1646A http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks08/0800641.txt or .zip
Newsletter Editor: Colin Choat.
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