April marks the 15th anniversary of my blog, so during the A-Z blogging challenge, I will be sharing previous posts from over 2,100 I have written.
Back in July 2012, when my blog was just a little over a year old, I posted about an old book I found, The Paragrapher's Reverie by Mary Wilson Little. I do remember the book, but I haven't seen it in years. I wonder if I still have it?
At the very least, I still have the post I wrote about it. Here it is.
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Everything old is new again.
Recently, I was looking through a box of old books and found one that caught my eye, A Paragrapher's Reveries by Mary Wilson Little. The book was published in 1904 and is full of pithy little sayings. I wasn't sure what a paragrapher was; however, I learned that it was a person who wrote paragraphs or fillers for newspapers. I also found that what I thought was an obscure book was available in many different formats and sold practically everywhere. This made reading the yellowed pages from an original copy even more interesting to meHere are a few fillers copied from the book. Some of them may seem outdated, and some of them are very applicable today, over 100 years later. I'll leave it to you to decide which is which.
--The penalty of success is to be bored by the attentions of people who formerly snubbed you.
--The woman who sits up and cries because her husband is kept very late at the lodge doesn't bring him home any sooner, and only makes her nose as red as his.
--Quilting bees are going out of fashion. The women who can sew are dying of old age.
--Jack Frost makes a capital artist, but his pictures lack warmth.
--It's difficult to see why lace should be so expensive. It is mostly holes, and holes are not expensive.
--The pain caused by a bee sting can be instantly relieved by jumping into a mud puddle.
--In the trials of the canning season, preserve your temper when you can.
--Happiness is the well-balanced combination of love, labor, and luck.
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Until next time...
the writer makes a great point about lace. its laceflation.
ReplyDelete"laceflation" :) You could be a paragrapher, too.
DeleteA paragrapher sounds interesting. Some of these fillers are like mottos, they make sense but they seem not useful.
ReplyDeleteHave a lovely day.
I remember reading fillers in the newspaper. I had no idea that the people who wrote them had a name.
DeleteThose old books of little moral maxims are wonderful!
ReplyDeleteThey do make fun little fillers.
DeleteI didn't know about paragraphers. Some of those fillers are very witty, aren't they?
ReplyDeleteYes, they are. And back then, they didn't have Google or AI. :)
DeleteI like the canning advice Preserve your temper. Canning can be so time consuming and frustrating I've had family members and friends who ended up not preserving their tempers well, after hours upon hours.
ReplyDeleteI like the play on words on the canning one. "preserve you temper when you "can".
DeleteI had never heard of a paragrapher before. It sounds like it was a fun job, finding little pithy sayings to post in a newspaper. I think there is truth to putting mud on a bee sting, but I don't think I'd jump into a mud puddle to do it.
ReplyDeleteI had never heard about putting mud on a bee sting, so I looked it up. Apparently, it doesn't do anything to neutralize the sting, but does feel good with a cooling effect.
Delete