by Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790).

How to Get Riches

       PRECEPT I.

In Things of moment, on thy self depend,
Nor trust too far thy Servant or thy Friend:
With private Views, thy Friend may promise fair,
And Servants very seldom prove sincere.

       PRECEPT II.

What can be done, with Care perform to Day,
Dangers unthought-of will attend Delay;
Your distant Prospects all precarious are,
And Fortune is as fickle as she’s fair.

       PRECEPT III.

Nor trivial Loss, nor trivial Gain despise;
Molehills, if often heap’d, to Mountains rise:
Weigh every small Expence, and nothing waste,
Farthings long sav’d, amount to Pounds at last.

Notes:
http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/
http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/info/index.htm

by Matthew Arnold  (1822 – 188).

Worldly Place

Even in a palace, life may be led well!
So spake the imperial sage, purest of men,
Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den
Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,

Our freedom for a little bread we sell,
And drudge under some foolish master’s ken
Who rates us if we peer outside our pen—
Match’d with a palace, is not this a hell?

Even in a palace! On his truth sincere,
Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came;
And when my ill-school’d spirit is aflame

Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win,
I’ll stop, and say: “There were no succour here!
The aids to noble life are all within.”

Notes:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/88
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/arnold/bio.html

by Anne Brontë  (1820 – 1849).

A Reminiscence

Yes, thou art gone! and never more
      Thy sunny smile shall gladden me;
But I may pass the old church door,
      And pace the floor that covers thee.

May stand upon the cold, damp stone,
      And think that, frozen, lies below
The lightest heart that I have known,
      The kindest I shall ever know.

Yet, though I cannot see thee more,
      ‘Tis still a comfort to have seen;
And though thy transient life is o’er,
      ‘Tis sweet to think that thou hast been;

To think a soul so near divine,
      Within a form so angel fair,
United to a heart like thine,
      Has gladdened once our humble sphere.

Notes:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/abronte.htm
http://www.online-literature.com/brontea/

by Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886).

I Had Been Hungry

I had been hungry all the years-
My noon had come, to dine-
I, trembling, drew the table near
And touched the curious wine.

‘T was this on tables I had seen
When turning, hungry, lone,
I looked in windows, for the wealth
I could not hope to own.

I did not know the ample bread,
‘T was so unlike the crumb
The birds and I had often shared
In Nature’s dining-room.

The plenty hurt me, ‘t was so new,–
Myself felt ill and odd,
As berry of a mountain bush
Transplanted to the road.

Nor was I hungry; so I found
That hunger was a way
Of persons outside windows,
The entering takes away.

Notes:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/emilydic.htm
http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/

Material for the Stout-Hearted Reader to Ruminate

♦ Essays, Lectures & Speeches ♦

—   —   —

William Poundstone is an American science author and columnist.  His books include Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren’t Fair (and What We Can Do About It) (2008), Fortune’s Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street (2005), and Prisoner’s Dilemma: John von Neumann, Game Theory, and the Puzzle of the Bomb (1992).   

This week’s text is Poundstone’s essay “A Test Drive for Voting Methods” from the Mathematics Awareness Month Theme Essay, April 2008.  His essay addresses the question, “What is the fairest way of voting?”  He, immediately points out that the typical American system of plurality vote is the least fair.

 The plurality voting system requires: (1)  the voter to choose only one candidate and (2) that the winner receive the most votes—regardless of whether a voting majority is achieved. Poundstone test drives the approval, Borda, Condorcet, and Instant Run-off Voting (IRV) systems as alternatives to plurality voting. Each of these systems requires the voter to either rank or rate all of the candidates in the election.

Join others from around the world in this weekly reading event! You can find Poundstone’s text at this website:

http://www.mathaware.org/mam/08/PoundstoneMAMessay.pdf

by Edgar Allan Poe ( 1809 – 1849).

A Dream

In visions of the dark night
       I have dreamed of joy departed—
But a waking dream of life and light
       Hath left me broken-hearted.

Ah! what is not a dream by day
       To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
       Turned back upon the past?

That holy dream—that holy dream,
       While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
       A lonely spirit guiding.

What though that light, thro’ storm and night,
       So trembled from afar—
What could there be more purely bright
   In Truth’s day-star?

Notes:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/eapoe.htm
http://www.eapoe.org/

by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861 – 1907).

Marriage

No more alone sleeping, no more alone waking,
   Thy dreams divided, thy prayers in twain;
Thy merry sisters tonight forsaking,
   Never shall we see, maiden, again.

Never shall we see thee, thine eyes glancing.
   Flashing with laughter and wild in glee,
Under the mistletoe kissing and dancing,
   Wantonly free.

There shall come a matron walking sedately,
    Low-voiced, gentle, wise in reply.
Tell me, O tell me, can I love her greatly?
   All for her sake must the maiden die!

Notes:
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/coleridge/bio.html
http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=colema

by  René Sully-Prudhomme (1839 – 1907).

Broken Vase

The vase where this verbena is dying
was cracked by a blow from a fan.
It must have barely brushed it,
for it made no sound.

But the slight wound,
biting into the crystal day by day,
surely, invisibly crept
slowly all around it.

The clear water leaked out drop by drop.
The flowers’ sap was exhausted.
Still no one suspected anything.
Don’t touch! It’s broken.

Thus often does the hand we love,
barely touching the heart, wound it.
Then the heart cracks by itself
and the flower of its love dies.

Still intact in the eyes of the world,
it feels its wound, narrow and deep,
grow and softly cry.
It’s broken. Don’t touch! 

Notes:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/prudhomm.htm
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1901/prudhomme-bio.html

by  Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832 – 1910).

In a Heavy Hour

Be glad when danger presses
Each power your soul possesses!
    In greater strain
    Your strength shall gain,
Till greater vict’ry blesses!
Supports may break in pieces,
Your friends may have caprices,
    But you shall see,
    The end will be,
Your need of crutches ceases.
    –’T is clear,
    Whom God makes lonely,
To him He comes more near.

(transl. by Arthur Hubbell Palmer)

“Note 13.
IN A HEAVY HOUR.  Written in Italy rather late in 1861, after Björnson received tidings of the sharp criticism of his drama King Sverre and of its lack of success on the stage in Christiania, where it was first performed on October 9.  In a letter from Hans Christian Andersen Björnson wrote on December 10, 1861: ‘At a time when I was in a mood to write the following verses, which perhaps tell so much that I need not tell more [the poem is quoted],–at a time when I, the man, nay, the product of friendship, was in a mood to write this, it came just like a Christmas hymn among strangers, to hear that you had dedicated to me your last four Tales.  You …, you had a heart to remember me, when many friends from tested times did not.’ ” –from Poems and Songs by Bjornstjerne Bjornson (1915)

Notes:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/bjornson.htm
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1903/bjornson-bio.html

by John Henry Newman (1801 – 1890).

Memory

My home is now a thousand miles away;
   Yet in my thoughts its every image fair
   Rises as keen, as I still linger’d there,
And, turning me, could all I loved survey.
And so, upon Death’s unaverted day,
   As I speed upwards, I shall on me bear,
   And in no breathless whirl, the things that were,
And duties given, and ends I did obey.
And, when at length I reach the Throne of Power,
Ah! still unscared, I shall in fulness see
The vision of my past innumerous deeds,
My deep heart-courses, and their motive-seeds,
So to gaze on till the red dooming hour.
Lord, in that strait, the Judge! remember me!

Off Cape Trafalgar.
December 15, 1832.

Notes:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10794a.htm
http://www.newmanreader.org/biography/index.html