The opera, the stolen tea, the sand drawing, the verging sea

[sovay]

History, like a vast river, propels logs, vegetation, rafts, and debris; it is full of live and dead things, some destined for resurrection; it mingles many waters and holds in solution invisible substances stolen from distant soils. Anything may become part of it; that is why it can be an image of the continuity of mankind. And it is also why some of its freight turns up again in the social sciences: they were constructed out of the contents of history in the same way as houses in medieval Rome were made out of stones taken from the Coliseum. But the special sciences based on sorted facts cannot be mistaken for rivers flowing in time and full of persons and events. They are systems fashioned with concepts, numbers, and abstract relations. For history, the reward of eluding method is to escape abstraction.

—Jacques Barzun, Clio and the Doctors (1974)

Comments

Re: "...The opera, the stolen tea, the sand drawing, the verging sea..."

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Dang, you beat me to my comment--well, actually, I didn't know it was a song--I was just going to say that I loved the subject line.

I'd like to think of other, equivalent groups of four things...

the curl of birch bark, the gamelan, the hourglass, the night

[sovay]

I didn't know it was a song--I was just going to say that I loved the subject line.

It's from 10,000 Maniacs' "Verdi Cries." I have only a version by June Tabor.

the curl of birch bark, the gamelan, the hourglass, the night

Prrrr.

Give me a story for that.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Maybe a poem? Story would have to be from you!

I'll try a poem:-)

Verdi Cries--what a great title! Gonna listen *right now*

[sovay]

I'll try a poem:-)

I'll take a poem. I'm not picky.