Anecdotal Evidence

A blog about the intersection of books and life.

Thursday, January 01, 2026

'My Mind Was Not Free From Perturbation'

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Dr. Johnson writes in his diary on January 1, 1774: “This year has past with so little improvement, that I doubt whether I have not [rather]...
Wednesday, December 31, 2025

'To Have Something to Say'

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“It might be too much to say that no one who cannot write prose should be allowed to write verse, but certainly no one should be admitted to...
Tuesday, December 30, 2025

'A Yellow Flower Growing in the Grass'

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Dr. Johnson’s definition for pissabed is genteel and a little vague, though nicely trochaic: “a yellow flower growing in the grass.” At fi...
Monday, December 29, 2025

'Bracing and Beautiful'

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“The world is so various and rich that there are universes of knowledge that I will never touch (bird watching, mountain climbing, knitting ...
Sunday, December 28, 2025

'Poetry Instructs by Delighting'

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“There are persons in society with whom we put up and others for whom we pull up a chair by the fire; there are volumes of poetry that we po...
1 comment:
Saturday, December 27, 2025

'I Have No Puling Apology to Make'

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People used to get sick and die of exotically named diseases we have never heard of. We have cancer and congestive heart failure. They had q...
2 comments:
Friday, December 26, 2025

'The Happy Morning Is Over'

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“Well, so that is that.”   W.H. Auden captures the hangover, alcoholic or otherwise, of the day after Christmas. As I’ve gotten older the ...
1 comment:
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Patrick Kurp
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