April 19 1824: Death of Byron

I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day

— DARKNESS by LORD BYRON.

On April 19, 1824, in the town of Missolonghi, on the west coast of Greece, under a sky dark and full of the roar of a thunderstorm, suffering a violent fever, and the fatal treatments of his doctors — leeches to his temples, enemas, blisterings and prodigious bloodletting — at a quarter past six in the evening, Lord Byron opens and shuts his eyes one last time, and dies.

1819 Keats

John Keats dines with the Brawnes — “nothing particular passed” though he continued to be troubled by a sore throat.

— January 1 1819. pic.twitter.com/eglk0ZBlmt

— pastnow (@pastnow_) January 2, 2019

Prometheus in Chains — Frantisek Kupka

via Prometheus in Chains — Frantisek Kupka

John Cage’s Music of Chance and Change

 

 

via John Cage’s Music of Chance and Change

Things I Dislike about the Constitution

Double Aspect

In an interesting Volokh Conspiracy post, Ilya Somin provides a “list of several areas where … the Constitution [of the United States] gets important issues badly wrong”. This is in response to concerns that (American) originalists, most of whom tend to be conservatives or libertarians, come to their position on how to interpret (their) constitution because they think that originalism yields results consonant with their political views. As Professor Somin notes, “[s]imilar charges, of course, are often made against living constitutionalists, who have long been accused of just coming up with ways to constitutionalize their (mostly liberal) political views”. But, even if one’s work is focused on those areas where one’s political and constitutional views are aligned, for any principled person there are likely to be areas where this alignment break down.

Here are some of mine (for the Canadian constitution of course, not the American one). It is…

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May 19 1840: Darksome Veil

May 19th.–. . . Lights and shadows are continually flitting across my inward sky, and I know neither whence they come nor whither they go; nor do I inquire too closely into them. It is dangerous to look too minutely into such phenomena. It is apt to create a substance where at first there was a […]

via Words may be a thick and darksome veil | Nathaniel Hawthorne’s journal entry for May 19th, 1840 — Biblioklept

Tinkers Resting — Louis Le Brocquy

Source: Tinkers Resting — Louis Le Brocquy

Pictorial Photography

On the 19th of September 1854, English photographer, and a proponent of pictorial or impressionistic photography, George Davidson was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, England. He is noted as one of the most important figures in the development of Pictorial photography at the end of the nineteenth century. Born into a comparatively modest family – his […]

via Impressionism in Photography: George Davidson — A R T L▼R K

David Ricardo on the Principle of Comparative Advantage

The Votes Are In

Happy New Year! @1816now is now @pastnow_https://t.co/vSoNwNGt7c

What should happen to this Twitter account?

— pastnow (@pastnow_) January 1, 2017

The people have spoken, or at least those that voted, and the majority want the account to continue only with the year 1817.  I will thus continue with the name @pastnow_ and tweet only from the perspective of 1817.  As for the minority that wanted an all years account, I have also set up @universalpast Twitter account.

John Newton, a former slave trader, accompanies his New Year's sermon with a new hymn. — January 1 1773.https://t.co/C8XjNlZGkn pic.twitter.com/YE2Oeh8ICF

— universal past (@universalpast) January 3, 2017