LINCOLN

     "After finishing Blackstone [Blackstone's Commentaries on Law], he set out across the prairies for Springfield, twenty miles away, to borrow other law-books from an attorney he had met in the Black Hawk War.  On his way home he carried an open book in one hand, studying as he walked.  When he struck a knotty passage, he shuffled to a standstill, and concentrated on it until he had mastered the sense.
     He kept on studying, until he had conquered twenty or thirty pages, kept on until dusk fell and he could no longer see to read...The stars came out, he was hungry, he hastened his pace.
     He pored over his books now incessantly, having heart for little else.  By day he lay on his back, reading in the shade of an elm that grew beside the store, his bare feet angling up against the trunk of the tree.   By night he read in the cooper's shop, kindling a light from the waste material lying about.  Frequently he read aloud to himself, now and then closing the book and writing down the sense of what he had just read, revising, rephrasing it until it became clear enough for a child to comprehend."

~ Lincoln The Unknown, Dale Carnegie, 1937.

The Heritage Grand River ~

An Icy Landscape ~ York

LINCOLN

"One day a mover who was driving out to Iowa halted his covered wagon in front of the Lincoln & Berry store.  The roads were soft, his horses were tired, and the mover decided to lighten his load.  So he sold Lincoln a barrel of household plunder.  Lincoln didn't want the plunder, but he felt sorry for the horses;  he paid the mover fifty cents, and without examining the barrel rolled it into the back room of the store.
A fortnight later he emptied the contents of the barrel out on the floor, idly curious to see what he had bought.  There, at the bottom of the rubbish, he found a complete edition of Blackstone's Commentaries on Law; and started to read...And the more he read, the more interested he became.  Never before had he been so absorbed in a book.  He read until he had devoured all four volumes.
Then he made a momentous decision:  he would be a lawyer."

~ Lincoln The Unknown, Dale Carnegie,Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc.,1932.

Tomorrow:  Lincoln walks twenty miles studying as he goes.
(A. Lincoln b. Feb. 12, 1809 d. April 15, 1865)

Conway Park ~ Banks of The Grand

25 Days until Spring ~



Beowulf Written Originally on Vellum 



"There are several translations of Beowulf available, with various strengths.  The Seamus Heaney version, for example, is recent, very readable, and a fine poem in its own right.  Mike Walton's* is also recent and also very readable, but he has been even more careful than Heaney to stay close to the original.  Walton also manages to convey the *feel* of Anglo-Saxon poetry better than any other translator I've read.  His introduction and notes, too, are particularly clear, instructive, and a pleasure to read.  Mike Walton is not only a careful scholar; he's a born teacher."

*The Book of Beowulf, Michael Walton, 2007. Available at The Neat Little Bookshop.
~ Laurie Miller, author of The Avro Arrow, Lorimer, 2011

Image: Wikipedia



York Haldimand County

 Dreaming ~ 26 Days until Spring



Port Dover Haldimand County

 



Normandale Norfolk County



Mike Walton and Beowulf ~

A special thank-you to Mike for his presentation of the old Anglo-Saxon, epic poem Beowulf.  Mike's artifacts, visuals and discussion of a time unfamiliar to most of us, whiled away an afternoon until it was past bookshop closing time.

Mike, that was a presentation deserving of an audience of two hundred.  (We didn't entertain quite that many.)  Those of us in attendance felt priviledged and enlightened.  Thank you.
~ lbw 

Note:  Mike's first edition, book of beowulf, is available at The Neat Little Bookshop.

Tomorrow:  Comments and praise for The Book of Beowulf.