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reetings from Australia.
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In 38 deg.30 min. We fell in with a fit and convenient harbor and June 17, came to anchor there, where we stayed till the 23 July. During all which time, not withstanding it was the height of summer, we were continually visited with nipping cold, neither could we at any time within a fourteen day period find the air so clear as to be able to take height the sun or stars. Sir Francis Drake; The World Encompassed Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes. William Prescott, American soldier in the War of Independence, at the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775 See in what peace a Christian can die. Last words of Joseph Addison, English essayist, who died on June 17, 1719 (Tea is) The infusion of a China plant sweetened with the pith of an Indian cane. Joseph Addison Cleanliness is, indeed, next to Godliness. John Wesley, English religious revivalist, born on June 17, 1703 I can't think that when God sent us into the world He had irreversibly decreed that we should be perpetually miserable in it. |
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Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer.
Henry Lawson
Though you sing of dear old Mudgee and the home on Pipeclay Flat,
You were born on Grenfell goldfield – and you can't get over that.
Henry Lawson; 'Said Grenfell to
My Spirit'
This portrait of me was taken by Eden when
I was eighteen or nineteen and enlarged by them. I was a better man and a
bigger fool in those days.
Yours truly,
Henry Lawson, 1903
For he shall write a
simple song
to rouse men's hearts and cheer them,
And thousands roar the words along!
And kingdoms quake to hear them.
However faint and frail the form,
The strong heart has succeeded …
The grandest battles have been fought
With broken hearts behind them.
Henry Lawson; from 'Without the Heart'
We
are marching on and onward
To
the silver-streak of dawn,
To the dynasty of mankind
We
are marching on.
Henry Lawson, 'The Australian Marseillaise, or, A Song for the Sydney Poor', 1890
One Man One Vote it
may not be, but if the wealthy trifle
With Labor's rights and God's decree, we'll try "One man one
rifle".
Henry Lawson; in Truth journal, 1892
Give me a pound a
column, and a drop to clear my throat,
An' I will write the reddest song as ever poet wrote.
Henry Lawson; ibid, c. 1892
Southern men of letters, vainly seeking recognition here-
Southern men of letters, driven to the Northern Hemisphere!
It is time your wrongs were known; it is time you claimed redress –
Time that you were independent of the mighty Northern press.
Sing a song of Southern writers, sing a song of Southern fame,
Of the dawn of art and letters and your native country's shame ...
In the land where sport is sacred, where the labourer is a god,
You must pander to the people, make a hero of a clod!
What avail the sacrifices of the battles you begin
For the literary honour of the land we're living in?
Henry Lawson; from 'A
Song of Southern Writers', The Bulletin,
May 28, 1892
Dear Bulletin
I'm awfully surprised to find myself sober. And, being sober, I take up my pen
to write a few lines, hoping they will find you as I am at present. I want to
know a few things. In the first place: Why does a man get drunk? There seems to
be no excuse for it. I get drunk because I am in trouble, and I get drunk
because I've got out of it. I get drunk because I'm sick, or have corns, or the
toothache: and I get drunk because I'm feeling well and grand. I get drunk
because I was rejected; and I got awfully drunk the night I was accepted. And,
mind you, I don't like to get drunk at all, because I don't enjoy it much, and
suffer hell afterwards. I'm always far better and happier when I'm sober, and
tea tastes better than beer. But I get drunk. I get drunk when I feel that I
want a drink, and I get drunk when I don't. I get drunk because I had a row last
night and made a fool of myself and it worries me, and when things are fixed up
I get drunk to celebrate it. And, mind you, I've got no craving for a drink. I
get drunk because I'm frightened about things, and because I don't care a damn.
Because I'm hard up and because I'm flush. And, somehow, I seem to have better
luck when I'm drunk. I don't think the mystery of drunkenness will ever be
explained – until all things are explained, and that will be never. A friend
says that we don't drink to feel happier, but to feel less miserable. But I
don't feel miserable when I'm straight. Perhaps I'm not perfectly sober right
now, after all. I'll go and get a drink, and write again later.
Yours truly,
Henry Lawson; The Bulletin,
December, 1903
... That egotistic word 'mateship' – which
was born of New Australian imagination, and gushed about to a sickening
extent – implied a state of things which never existed any more than the
glorious old unionism which was going to bear us on to freedom on one
wave. The one was altogether too glorious, and the other too angelistic to
exist among mortals. We must look at the nasty side of truth as well as
the other, the conceited side. When our ideal 'mateship' is realised, the
monopolists will not be able to hold the land from us.
Henry Lawson; 'The Cant and Dirt of Labour Literature' published in Worker,
October 6,
1894. By "New Australian" he is probably referring to William Lane's New
Australia movement.
At high school in Arnhem, I was extremely poor at arithmetic and algebra because I had, and still have, great difficulty with the abstractions of numbers and letters. When, later, in stereometry [solid geometry], an appeal was made to my imagination, it went a bit better, but in school I never excelled in that subject. But our path through life can take strange turns.
MC Escher, Dutch artist, born on June 17, 1898
A long time ago, I chanced upon this domain [of regular division of the plane] in one of my wanderings... However, on the other side I landed in a wilderness.... I came to the open gate of mathematics. Sometimes I think I have covered the whole area ... and then I suddenly discover a new path and experience fresh delights.
MC Escher
At first I had no idea at all of the possibility of systematically building up my figures. I did not know ... this was possible for someone untrained in mathematics, and especially as a result of my putting forward my own layman's theory, which forced me to think through the possibilities.
MC Escher
I think perhaps somewhat more prudence would undoubtedly have perhaps obviated some of the questions that have come before your committee.
US President Eisenhower's assistant, Sherman Adams, testifying on June 17, 1958, before a House panel about a vicuna coat given him by Boston industrialist Bernard Goldfine
June
17 is
the 168th
day of the year in the Gregorian
Calendar (169th
in leap years), with 197
days remaining.
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Feast day of the marriage of Eurydice and
Orpheus
Greek legend tells us that today was the day
on which were married the famed musician and hero of Thrace, Orpheus, and Eurydice, goddess of the
Underworld.
Orpheus
passionately loved the nymph, Eurydice, and
they married. One day when Eurydice was was fleeing from
Apollo's son Aristaeus,
she was mortally bitten by a snake hidden in the grass. Orpheus was
heartbroken at the death of his wife and resolved to descend into the
Underworld to reclaim her.
Orpheus charmed Hades and Persephone who gave him permission to take Eurydice back to earth on the sole condition that he should not look at her during the journey. They proceeded on their way, he leading, she following, through dark passages, in total silence.
When they had nearly arrived at the Gates of Hades near the surface, Orpheus, imprudently and to reassure himself that his lover was still there, cast a glance behind him. In a scene reminiscent somewhat of the Biblical Lot and his wife (Genesis 13), Eurydice was instantly carried away. Stretching out their arms to embrace, they grasped only the air. "Farewell," she said, falling away. Eurydice was lost to Orpheus forever.
Zeus honoured the charm and power of Orpheus's music by turning his lyre into a constellation. To this day, it is said that Orpheus still inspires lovers at night as they gaze upon his stars.
According to one writer, Diane Stein (The Goddess Book of Days, Llewellyn Publications, St Paul Minnesota, USA, 1989), the rescue by Orpheus is a reversal of the story as it was in earlier times. (No evidence for this is given in her book.) Stein, also without substantiation, identifies Eurydice with Inanna, Persephone/Demeter, Proserpina/Ceres, Hel, Sedna, Mother Holle (Mother Hulda), Venus, Cybele, Heurodis, Fortuna, the Fates, Dike, Oya, Kali, Tlatzlteotl, Cerridwen, Hecate and Rhiannon.Pictured: Orpheus and Eurydice, by George Frederick Watts, 1817 - 1904 (detail)
Death and rebirth saviours at the Scriptorium More
Day of the procession of
Sopdu, the Warrior.
Source:
Earth, Moon and Sky
Night of the Drop, and Cutting of the Dam, Egypt
According to Edward W Lane (An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, 1836), the night of June 17 is called 'Leylet-en-Nuktah', or 'the Night of the Drop', because "it is believed that a miraculous drop then falls into the Nile and causes it to rise". An interesting ceremony used to be performed at 'the cutting of the dam' in old Cairo. A round pillar of earth was formed; it was called the 'bride', and seeds were sown on the top of it. Lane says that an ancient Arabian historian "was told that the Egyptians were accustomed, at the period when the Nile began to rise, to deck a young virgin in gay apparel, and throw her into the river, as a sacrifice to obtain a plentiful inundation".
Related (use Search): Tears of Isis; Lamentations of Isis, Rising of the Nile)
Festival
of Ludi Piscatari, ancient Rome
This was a festival of fishermen, sacred in England to the East Anglian
saint, Botulph, and as such is a day of guardianship.
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World
Day to Combat Desertification and Drought
