'Nuff Said

". . .I notice that one day is bright blue, another brown and foggy, another cold, clear and silvery, and my mood varies accordingly. On the bright blue day my spirits go slightly down; there seems something pitiless about perfect weather. On the clear cool day, my spirits are normal. In the fog, my spirits go up; it feels like the end of the world, or better still, a detective story." 

-G.K. Chesterton

"Old Forms and Ceremonies," The Illustrated London News, September 26, 1908

Busy Season

My copy of Bayard Taylor's Eldorado is, at long last, getting some perusal, if not yet a thorough reading. The book is certainly a credit to the journalistic skill of its author, a reporter sent from the New York Tribune to chronicle the events of the California Gold Rush. The news may be old now, but it makes good reading still.

Based even on so cursory a reading as mine, it would be difficult to pretend that the passage which begins below is the most momentous, the most historically important, or even the most interesting, that the book has to offer. It is, however, amusing, poignant, rather astonishing, and anyone who has ever dabbled in customer service might, in a dark and exaggeratory mood,  persuade himself that it has certain familiar aspects. If you click the text below, it should land you at the beginning of the story, which runs to the top of page 213.
 

Public Service Announcement

Tomorrow (very early, in California, 9:00AM in Glasgow) the BBC will be streaming the World Pipe Band Championships. Catch some of it!