Means.

To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served.

Milton Friedman, from Capitalism and Freedom

Excellent.

An excellent album ...

Act.

Chappel, Samuel Adams, 1887

Is it not High Time for the People of this Country explicitly to declare, whether they will be Freemen or Slaves? It is an important Question which ought to be decided. It concerns us more than any Thing in this Life. The Salvation of our Souls is interested in the Event: For wherever Tyranny is established, Immorality of every Kind comes in like a Torrent. It is in the Interest of Tyrants to reduce the People to Ignorance and Vice. For they cannot live in any Country where Virtue and Knowledge prevail. The Religion and public Liberty of a People are intimately connected; their Interests are interwoven, they cannot subsist separately; and therefore they rise and fall together. For this Reason, it is always observable, that those who are combined to destroy the People’s Liberties, practice every Art to poison their Morals. How greatly then does it concern us, at all Events, to put a Stop to the Progress of Tyranny. It is advanced already by far too many Strides. We are at this moment upon a precipice. The next step may be fatal to us. Let us then act like wise Men; calmly look around us and consider what is best to be done.

Samuel Adams, signed "Valerius Poplicola," Boston Gazette, October 5, 1772

Talk.

There is a tendency of people in universities to think that what’s going on in the university is what really matters and that was the case of Bloom. When he was talking about the closing of the American mind, he really meant the fact that he couldn’t talk to his students anymore. Outside the universities there are all kinds of natural, normal Americans still existing, going about their business, going to church services. America has remained a devoted, devout Christian society through all these things — at least, if you’re outside the cities and also if you’re outside the universities, a basically decent society. So the fact is that it wasn’t as bad as he thought, it was just bad for him. But he had a point because what he was saying was that relativism had made it impossible for him to teach the curriculum as though it had any objective authority. That was really what upset him. You couldn’t really say to the student, here is Shakespeare, just look; here is Steinbeck, just look. Surely you’ve got to see that that first thing is not just better, but touching on the human reality in a deeper way. And his students would say: “That’s your view, I’ve got my Bob Dylan” — which is a million times better than what they have now. There is a problem if you can’t teach the old curriculum in the humanities because of this relativism; what are you going to teach students? Increasingly, people teach pseudo-sciences instead: the deconstructionist analysis of Steinbeck. Or instead of teaching esthetics, neuro-esthetics — not knowing quite what that is, except it’s Beethoven plus brain scans.

Sir Roger Scruton, from "On Moral Relativism"

Growing.

When people ask me are you happy, I'd say that isn't quite the question. The real question is am I still growing? Have I become a finished creation? Am I dead or am I still growing? Is my life still an adventure, an adventure full of trouble, full of joy, full of pain, full of cataclysm. Am I still living dangerously? So, am I still growing is the real question.

John Moriarty, from a conversation with Joe Duffy on Liveline, 2005

True.

What if man had eyes to see the true beauty—the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life—thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine?

Beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.

Plato, from "Ladder of Love"

Jimmy Buffett, "Twelve Volt Man""

I never got a grip on penmanship

Could never make the small L's flow

Seldom found the trick to arith-a-metic

Three plus two be faux, pas

But ask for some palm trees

Or tales from the South Seas

And I just might turn your head ...

Happy Birthday, Mac

Darren McCarty was born on this day in 1972.

The game-winner in Game Four of the '97 Stanley Cup Final ...

Released.

RUSH released 2112 on this day in 1976.

"Overture/The Temples of Syrinx"...

Locally-Sourced.

Locally-sourced ice.

Habit.

Allen & Co., John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron of Acton, 1902

There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.

Lord Acton, from Lectures on Modern History

Chopin, Prelude in D-flat Major, Op. 28: No. 15, “Raindrop”

Lang Lang ...

Full.

Abbey, Study for Design of The Hours, 1937

The great trouble with the vast majority of artists is that they cease to be students too soon. They spend a couple of years--even three or four-years--in Paris, among the best teachers and academies in 19th century Europe or some other place where students congregate, and, bored by the drudgery of the serious atelier or academy and seeing certain easy-going pictures attracting a certain amount of attention and having also a certain amount of merit, they throw over the opportunity which, mind you, never comes again, to make themselves as perfect as they may be with the aid of all the facilities a far-seeing body of eminent artists have, during many years, accumulated for their benefit, and dash into paint with a confidence bred entirely of ignorance and intolerance of the training that they, at that ill-informed and blind period of their lives, do not see the need of ...

Go to the Louvre constantly (on Sunday mornings you will have the place to yourself, or nearly so). Look at the designs and drawings by the great masters and reflect that they thought it necessary to take all that pains before they began their painting, and that they did not rely upon genius or talent to carry them through. Remember that you are pretty blind at present. I don't remember ever before having seen an art student of your age absolutely without a sketch-book. You should be sketching always, always. Draw anything. Draw the dishes on the table while you are waiting for your breakfast. Draw the people in the station while you are waiting for your train. Look at everything. It is all part of your world. You are going to be one of a profession to which everything on this earth means something. Keep every faculty you have been blessed with wide awake. The older you get the more full your life will be getting.

Edwin Austin Abbey, born on this day in 1852, from Edwin Austin Abbey, royal academician; the record of his life and work, by E.V. Lucas

Delightful.

van Gogh, Landscape at Auvers in the Rain, 1890

APRIL SHOWERS

Delightful weather for all sorts of moods

& most for him – grey morn and swarthy eye

Found rambling up the little narrow lane

Where primrose banks amid the hazly woods

Peep most delightfully on passers bye

While Aprils little clouds about the sky

Mottle & freak unto fancy lie

Idling and ending travel for the day

Till darker clouds sail up with cumberous heave

South oer the woods & scares them all away

Then comes the rain pelting with pearly drops

The primrose crowds until they stoop & lie

All fragrance to his mind that musing stops

Beneath the hawthorn till the shower is bye

John Clare

Emboldened.

 Böcklin, Spring Evening, 1879

And now that the year wearily turns and stretches herself before the perfect waking, the god emboldened begins to blow a clearer note.

Kenneth Grahame, from "The Rural Pan (An April Essay)"