Quote o' the Day: 'The Direst Facts'

By Richard Howe

Apropos of the nothing in particular, in the most recent bout of insomnia just now I found myself rereading Beaumont Newhall's marvelous historical anthology of writings by photographers (Photography: Essays & Images; Illustrated Readings in the History of Photography, Museum of Modern Art, 1980) and came across the following description, first published in 1857—that's eighteen fifty-seven, not a typo—of the Photograph Society of London, which had been founded in 1853 (in Newhall 1980, page 81):

"The very talk of [the members of the Society] is unlike that of any other men, either of business or pleasure. Their style is made of the direst facts, the longest words, and the most high-flown rhapsodies. Slight improvements in processes, and slight varieties in conclusions, are discussed as if they involved the welfare of mankind. They seek each other's sympathy, and they resent each other's interference, with an ardour of expression at variance with all the sobrieties of business, and the habits of reserve; and old-fashioned English mauvaise honte [bashfulness, reserve] is extinguished in the excitement, not so much of a new occupation as of a new state."

The author was Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, wife of the first president of the Society.

The more things change....

Richard

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Comments

[Account Deleted]

"Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book."

[Paul Norheim]

Good quotes often tend to generate other good quotes. Here`s a famous one:

"Academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small."

Here is Wikipedia`s comment:

"This observation is routinely attributed to former Harvard professor Henry Kissinger. Justin Kaplan, editor of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, asked Henry Kissinger, whether he had stated, "The reason academic politics are so bitter is that so little is at stake." According to him, Kissinger, "foxy as ever, said he didn't recall saying it but that it 'sounded' like him. In other words, he didn't say it but wouldn't mind if we thought he did." In fact, in a 1997 speech at the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at Ashland University, Kissinger said: "I'm going to say one thing about academic politics to which Mr. [Peter W.] Schramm referred. I formulated the rule that the intensity of academic politics and the bitterness of it is in inverse proportion to the importance of the subject their [sic.] discussing. And I promise you at Harvard, they are passionately intense and the subjects are extremely unimportant."

[Warren Stevens]

I have been reading The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes: 2nd Edition. One of the things I like about the book is the way each chapter begins: with a brief history lesson about the process and how it came to be.

One of the striking things about this period is everyone is incredibly passionate about the process they were inventing; it sounds like a pretty exciting time.

[Damon Schreiber]

Goodness! She appears to have created a time-travelling device that allowed her to peer into the gear forums at dpreview.com.

[James McDermott]

Just what one would expect from a point n'shooter.

[David Boyce]

After reading a long thread on a website discussing/abusing/one upping/backslapping/faceslapping about a printing paper this was a joy.

Thanks Mike