And then, after tidying up very briefly in the kitchen where the landlady had left the usual evidence of her usual midnight snacking (sometimes I do this, sometimes I ignore her nonsense), checked the mail.
Nothing very interesting at this point although Google Alerts collected an advertising broadside from pagan spiritualists who are confidently going about their work (in French) demonstrating, inter alia, that George Harrison was the reincarnation of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber von Bibern. If I recall rightly, their faces are similar (and even their hairstyles!), they both enjoyed 'musical talent', and, while Biber was born in Bohemia and Harrison in England, this difference of nationalities is evidently 'a principle' of such reincarnations and thus additional proof. One prays for such people of course, that they might renounce their idolatry and false beliefs and so forth-- but the email itself was vaguely amusing.
The Ms was made for Duke William of Bavaria; the back cover is stamped with the date 1552, if I'm reading it correctly. How many parts of speech are there? Eight. What are they? Noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, participle, conjunction, preposition, interjection. What is a noun?
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Father John Hunwicke has written a series of four brief essays, posts on his blog Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment, on the Psalms; Monday's and the preceding one about the Psalm Venite, exsultemus Domino, with which the Traditional Roman Office begins each and every day.
Those posts are here, here, here, and here. Quite why I took it into my head that he is finished with Monday's post, I have no idea. If there is a fifth part or more parts, I shall return here.
Veníte, exsultémus Dómino, jubilémus Deo, salutári nostro: præoccupémus fáciem ejus in confessióne, et in psalmis jubilémus ei.
Ant. Sancta María, Dei Génitrix Virgo, * Intercéde pro nobis.
Quóniam Deus magnus
Dóminus, et Rex magnus super omnes deos, quóniam non repéllet Dóminus
plebem suam: quia in manu ejus sunt omnes fines terræ, et altitúdines
móntium ipse cónspicit.
Ant. Intercéde pro nobis.
Quóniam ipsíus est mare, et ipse fecit illud, et áridam fundavérunt manus ejus (genuflectitur) veníte,
adorémus, et procidámus ante Deum: plorémus coram Dómino, qui fecit
nos, quia ipse est Dóminus, Deus noster; nos autem pópulus ejus, et oves
páscuæ ejus.
Ant. Sancta María, Dei Génitrix Virgo, * Intercéde pro nobis.
Hódie, si vocem ejus
audiéritis, nolíte obduráre corda vestra, sicut in exacerbatióne
secúndum diem tentatiónis in desérto: ubi tentavérunt me patres vestri,
probavérunt et vidérunt ópera mea.
Ant. Intercéde pro nobis.
Quadragínta annis
próximus fui generatióni huic, et dixi; Semper hi errant corde, ipsi
vero non cognovérunt vias meas: quibus jurávi in ira mea; Si introíbunt
in réquiem meam.
The antiphon is Sancta Maria... of course because today is the feast of Our Lady of the Snow and, fairly obviously, I copied that from DivinumOfficium.com and pasted it here.
Windows is having itself updated; unlike the previous updating this one is taking a dreadfully long time. Tsk. It is on the 'music laptop' too and hence I am hearing the fan blowing and the occasional chatter of birds. I intended to be hearing Biber's Missa Salisburgensis by this time. Before None. Windows is still ponderously working its machinations. I wonder if the wifi business is somehow decaying in that laptop.
***
Have been re-reading, not in any particularly serious way but more by way of browsing the quotations, the Classical English Rhetoric of Ward Farnsworth and came upon a passage (in italics infra) from Abraham Lincoln's speech at Peoria in 1854.
Thus, with [Mr Jefferson] the author of the declaration of Independence, the policy of prohibiting slavery in new territory originated. Thus, away back of the constitution, in the pure fresh, free breath of the revolution, the State of Virginia, and the National congress put that policy in practice [the Northwest Ordinance, 1787]. Thus through sixty odd of the best years of the republic did that policy steadily work to its great and beneficent end. And thus, in those five states, and five millions of free, enterprising people, we have before us the rich fruits of this policy
But now new light breaks upon us. Now congress declares this ought never to have been; and the like of it, must never be again. The sacred right of self government is grossly violated by it! We even find some men, who drew their first breath, and every other breath of their lives, under this very restriction, now live in dread of absolute suffocation, if they should be restricted in the 'sacred right' of taking slaves to Nebraska. That perfect liberty they sigh for-- the liberty of making slaves of other people-- Jefferson never thought of; their own father never thought of; they never thought of themselves, a year ago. How fortunate for them, they did not sooner become sensible of their great misery! Oh, how difficult it is to treat with respect, such assaults upon all we have ever really held sacred.
This struck me as a perfect example of what we who would see the Church returned to her proper place at the head of political society talk about when we go on about the necessity for liberty to be properly ordered to its proper end, liberty of individuals and the common liberties we enjoy as members of the res publica: of course there are limits to individual liberty, and the Divine Law and the natural law set them out in their most basic form. Slavery is the most obvious example of course but nor did Mr Jefferson envision legal adultery, legal usury, the legalized immoralities of vice and pornography, not to mention legalized infanticide and abortion. And so on.
And I find myself obliged also to point out that today's electorate, unlike that of Illinois 166 years ago, would be utterly mystified by Mr Lincoln's address, and the news media would distort it so monstrously that he would be unable to have a public life.
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Last night I watched the first episode of Dobie Gillis and, well, I'm watching the second tonight, ante Completorium. Warren Beatty (I thought he seemed familiar but had to look online) is playing a smugly obnoxious suitor for Thalia's attention and Dobie worked a scheme on the local haberdasher: new suits in exchange for Dobie serving as a walking sales pitch at Central High. I don't know how many high schools in 1959 were anything like Central-- not very many, I expect-- but some of the same interpersonal dynamics were at play in a certain high school in the mid-70s, sans Maynard Krebs. And I reckon that my nieces and nephew had to put up with similar nonsense in the 2010s and now. 73 degrees F. this evening, Deo gratias.
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