The Hammock Papers: Kneller

Showing posts with label Kneller. Show all posts

20 October 2025

Happy Birthday, Sir Christopher Wren

Kneller, Portrait of Sir Christopher Wren, 1711

Sir Christopher Wren was born on this day in 1632.

A THP post from 2010 ...

09 August 2025

Happy Birthday, John Dryden

Kneller, John Dryden, 1703

VENI, CREATOR SPIRITUS

Creator Spirit, by whose aid

The world's foundations first were laid,

Come, visit ev'ry pious mind;

Come, pour thy joys on human kind;

From sin, and sorrow set us free;

And make thy temples worthy Thee.

O, Source of uncreated Light,

The Father's promis'd Paraclete!

Thrice Holy Fount, thrice Holy Fire,

Our hearts with heav'nly love inspire;

Come, and thy Sacred Unction bring

To sanctify us, while we sing!

Plenteous of grace, descend from high,

Rich in thy sev'n-fold energy!

Thou strength of his Almighty Hand,

Whose pow'r does heav'n and earth command:

Proceeding Spirit, our Defence,

Who do'st the gift of tongues dispence,

And crown'st thy gift with eloquence!

Refine and purge our earthly parts;

But, oh, inflame and fire our hearts!

Our frailties help, our vice control;

Submit the senses to the soul;

And when rebellious they are grown,

Then, lay thy hand, and hold 'em down.

Chase from our minds th' Infernal Foe;

And peace, the fruit of love, bestow;

And, lest our feet should step astray,

Protect, and guide us in the way.

Make us Eternal Truths receive,

And practise, all that we believe:

Give us thy self, that we may see

The Father and the Son, by thee.

Immortal honour, endless fame,

Attend th' Almighty Father's name:

The Saviour Son be glorified,

Who for lost Man's redemption died:

And equal adoration be,

Eternal Paraclete, to thee.

John Dryden, born on this day in 1631

20 October 2024

Happy Birthday, Wren

Kneller, Sir Christopher Wren, 1711

We need need not fear diminishing a miracle by explaining it.

Sir Christopher Wren, born on this day in 1632.

Gresham College professor, Sarah Hart, presents a lecture titled "The Mathematical Life of Sir Christopher Wren ...

In 2010, The Hammock Papers celebrated Wren's birthday.

05 September 2024

Over-Reach.

Kneller, Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, 1698

On this day in 1698, Peter the Great imposed a tax on beards and the over-reach just snowballed from there.

12 November 2021

Upward.

Kneller, Scholar in His Study, 1668

The LADDER of ST. AUGUSTINE

Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,

That of our vices we can frame

A ladder, if we will but tread

Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

All common things, each day's events,

That with the hour begin and end,

Our pleasures and our discontents,

Are rounds by which we may ascend.

The low desire, the base design,

That makes another's virtues less;

The revel of the ruddy wine,

And all occasions of excess;

The longing for ignoble things;

The strife for triumph more than truth;

The hardening of the heart, that brings

Irreverence for the dreams of youth;

All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,

That have their root in thoughts of ill;

Whatever hinders or impedes

The action of the nobler will; —

All these must first be trampled down

Beneath our feet, if we would gain

In the bright fields of fair renown

The right of eminent domain.

We have not wings, we cannot soar;

But we have feet to scale and climb

By slow degrees, by more and more,

The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stone

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,

When nearer seen, and better known,

Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear

Their solid bastions to the skies,

Are crossed by pathways, that appear

As we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night.

Standing on what too long we bore

With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,

We may discern — unseen before —

A path to higher destinies,

Nor deem the irrevocable Past

As wholly wasted, wholly vain,

If, rising on its wrecks, at last

To something nobler we attain.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

WALT WHITMAN

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL