About

This blog is a part of my personal commonplace, a repository for public domain works I have transcribed, and a place to save longer comments and other contributions I have made on social media platforms. It does include longer passages than would be expected in a commonplace, and even whole essays.

I am making some of my commonplace public in the hope that others will find it useful, just as I have found useful collections of fragments of others. It is, however, intended primarily as a personal reference and tool for my own inspiration and education, so…

From Roger L’Estrange, Seneca’s Morals, (Philadelphia: Grigg & Elliot, 1834), p. 347:

Books and dishes have this common fate; there was never any one of either of them that pleased all palates. And, in truth, it is a thing as little to be wished for as expected; for an universal applause is at least two-thirds of a scandal. So that though I deliver up these papers to the press, I invite no man to the reading of them: and whosoever reads and repents, it is his own fault. To conclude: As I made this composition principally for myself so it agrees exceedingly well with my constitution; and yet, if any man has a mind to take part with me, he has free leave, and welcome. But let him carry this consideration along with him, that he is a very unmannerly guest, that presses upon another body’s table and then quarrels with his dinner.

The image used as the site icon and my avatar is a section of “Astronomer by Candlelight” by Gerrit Dou, made available for free by the J. Paul Getty Museum as part of their Open Content Program.

Except as otherwise noted, and to the best of my knowledge (I am not a lawyer), passages quoted here are in the public domain in the United States. My own commentary and original work on this blog, I place under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.