Afterthought on Bullfighting

The goal of the torero in the bullfight is to take possession of the force of nature, which is the bull. The only way to truly take possession of another being is by killing it, therefore the drama of the bullfight is how does the torero manage this inevitable end. Alas, the end is only nearly inevitable on account of the indulto, which can be awarded in an especially outstanding bullfight. This means that the bull's live is spared, so the end of killing can be avoided, but an exception made, if the torero is so close to taking possession of the bull alive, that it is no longer necessary to kill the bull.

Notes

Nothing is irrelevant.

It’s only our mental limitations that force us to disregard things which our pride then calls irrelevant.

Liberty without responsibility is an impossibility, we delude ourselves about.

Responsibility without liberty is a perversion, we get deluded about.

Being a reactionary is not about thinking the past was better, but about remembering the good and bad in the past to make the future better.

Bedside Table: Biography

As is the problem with all classification, categories are theoretical, whereas things to be categorised are not. So this list contains books in a loose sense to do with biography:

Osvaldo Lira: Nostalgia de Vázquez de Mella. Santiago de Chile: Difusión Chilena [Colección Verbo], 1942, Ortega en su espíritu. I: Metafísica y estética. Santiago de Chile: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 1965, Ortega en su espíritu. II: Psicología, gnoseología, política. Santiago de Chile: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 1967, Poesía y mística en Juan Ramón Jiménez. Santiago de Chile: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 1969, De Santo Tomás a Velázquez, pasando por Lope de Vega. Santiago de Chile: Academia Superior de Ciencias Pedagógicas de Santiago, 1981,

Spike Milligan & Anthony Clare: Depression and How to Survive It

William Foster (ed): Early Travels in India, 1583-1619, 1921

C. S. Hardinge: Recollections of India, London, 1847

Carl von Hügel: Kaschmir und das Reich der Siek, 4 Bände, Hallberger, Stuttgart 1840-1848, Das Kabul-Becken und die Gebirge zwischen dem Hindu-Kosch und der Sutlej, 2 Bände, Kaiserlich-königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Wien 1851-1852, Der Stille Ozean und die spanischen Besitzungen im Ostindischen Archipel, Kaiserlich-königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Wien 1860

Major H. M. L. Lawrence: Adventures of an Officer in the Service of Ranjeet Singh, 1845

W. G. Osborne: The Court and Camp of Runjeet Singh, 1840

Father Pierre Du Jarric: Akbar and the Jesuits. Trans. C. H. Payne. London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd, 1926

J. W. McCrindle: The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great. Karachi: Indus Publications, 1992

François Bernier: Mémoires du sieur Bernier sur l’empire du grand Mogol, 4 vols, Paris, Claude Barbin, 1670-1671

M. Elphingstone: An Account of the Kingdom of Cabaul. London: 1815.

G. R. Elsmie: Thirty-five Years in the Punjab, 1858-93. Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1908.

Albert Jay Nock: Francis Rabelais: The Man and His Work Harper and Brothers, 1929, A Journal of These Days: June 1932-December 1933 William Morrow & Company, 1934, Henry George: An Essay William Morrow & Company, 1939, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man Harper and Brothers, 1943

Helmuth von Glasenapp: Meine Lebensreise. Menschen, Länder und Dinge, die ich sah, Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1964

Henri-Frédéric Amiel: Journale Intime I-XII, Age de l’Homme

Johann Caspar Bluntschli: Denkwürdiges aus meinem Leben, 1884

Carl Jacob Burckhardt: Der Berner Schultheiss Charles Neuhaus, 1925, Richelieu, 4 Tl., 1935-67, Meine Danziger Mission, 1937-1939, 1960, Memorabilien, 1977, Briefe: 1908-1974, 1986

Friedrich Emmanuel von Hurter: Leben Innocenz III, 4 vols., Hamburg, 1834-42, Geschichte Kaiser Ferdinands II. und seiner Eltern, Schaffhausen, 1850-65, Beiträge zur Geschichte Wallensteins, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1855, Wallensteins vier letzte Lebensjahre, 1862

Heinrich von Hurter: Friedrich von Hurter und seine Zeit, 2 vols., 1876

Denis de Rougemont: Journal d'un Intellectuel en chômage, 1937, Nicolas de Flue, 1939,

Philipp Anton von Segesser: Erinnerungen. Separatabdruck aus Katholische Schweizerblätter 1890, Luzern 1891

Roudolphe Toepffer: Voyage aquatico-historico-romantico-comico-comique dans le Nord Est jusqu’au Righi, Automne 1826

Georges Bernanos: Le combat pour la liberté. Correspondance inédite, tome I (1904-1934), Paris, Plon, 1971, Le combat pour la liberté. Correspondance inédite, tome II (1934-1948), Paris, Plon, 1971, Lettres retrouvées. Correspondance inédite, tome III (1904-1948), Paris, Plon, 1983

Anatole France: Vie de Jeanne d'Arc, 1908

Christian Dietrich Grabbe: Herzog Theodor von Gothland, 1822, Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossa. Drama, erster Teil des Hohenstaufen-Zyklus, vollendet 1829, Kaiser Heinrich VI.. Drama, zweiter Teil des Hohenstaufen-Zyklus, vollendet 1829, Kosciuzko. Dramenfragment, entstanden 1835, Hannibal. Tragödie, vollendet 1835. Uraufführung München 1918

Herman Milton Bien: Ben-Beor: A Story of the Anti-Messiah, 1891

John Randolph: Letters of John Randolph, to a Young Relative, 1834, Collected letters of John Randolph of Roanoke to Dr. John Brockenbrough, 1812-1833, edited by Kenneth Shorey; foreword by Russell Kirk, Transaction Books, 1988

Folke Leander: Humanism and Naturalism: A Comparative Study of Ernest Seillière, Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More, 1937

Mel Bradford: Worthy Company: Brief Lives of the Framers of the Constitution, 1982

Richard Brookhiser: Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution, 2003, America’s First Dynasty : The Adamses, 1735-1918, 2002, Alexander Hamilton, American, 1999, Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington, 1996

John Randal Baker: Julian Huxley, scientist and world citizen, 1887 to 1975 : a biographical memoir, with a bibliography compiled by Jens-Peter Green, 1978

William Buckley Jr: God and Man at Yale. Regnery. 1951

Robert Flint: Vico, 1884

Francis W. Hirst: Early Life and Letters of John Morley. Macmillan. 1927. 2 vols, Adam Smith. Macmillan. 1904, Life and Letters of Thomas Jefferson. Macmillan. 1926

Thomas Jefferson: The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson

John Morley: Edmund Burke, 1867, Voltaire, 1871, Rousseau, 1873, Diderot and the Encycloaedists, 1878, The Life of Richard Cobden, 1881, Walpole, 1889, Oliver Cromwell, 1900, Life of Gladstone, 3 vols, 1903

Martin Hürlimann (ed): Grosse Schweizer, 1938

Gustave de Molinari: L’Abbé de Saint-pierre, sa vie et ses œuvres, Paris, Guillaumin & Cie, 1857, Lettres sur la Russie, Bruxelles, A Lacroix, Verboeckhoven & Cie, 1861, Lettres sur les États-Unis et le Canada, adressées au Journal des Débats, à l’occasion de l’Exposition universelle de Philadelphie, Paris, Hachette & Cie, 1876, L’Irlande, le Canada, Jersey. Lettres adressées au journal des débats, Dentu, 1881, A Panama. L’isthme de Panama, la Martinique, Haïti, Paris, C. Reinwald, 1887

Oliver Sachs: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, 1985

George Rawlinson: Memoir of Major-General Sir HC Rawlinson

Jacob Burckhardt: Carl Martell, 1840, Conrad von Hochstaden, 1843

Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo: Elegía en la muerte de Federico García Lorca, 1938

Arthur Schlesinger Jr: Orestes A. Brownson: A Pilgrim's Progress, 1939

Jean Baruzi: Saint Jean de la Croix et le problème de l’experience mystique, 1924

Paul Julius Möbius: Über das Pathologische bei Goethe. J. A. Barth, Leipzig 1898, Über Schopenhauer, Barth, Leipzig 1899, J.J. Rousseaus Jugend, Nietzsche

Viktor Rydberg: Roman Legends about the Apostles Paul and Peter, translated by Ottilia von Düben, 1898

Mortimer Adler: St. Thomas and the Gentiles, 1938

Romano Guardini: Die Bekehrung des hl. Augustinus, 1935, Der Herr, Betrachtungen über die Person und das Leben Jesu Christi, 1937, Hölderlin, Weltbild und Frömmigkeit, 1939, Der Tod des Sokrates, 1943

Hans Urs von Balthasar: Therese von Lisieux: Geschichte einer Sendung, Hegner, Köln 1950, Bernanos, Hegner, Köln 1954

Hans Urs von Balthasar (Hg): Augustinus, Aurelius: Das Antlitz Der Kirche, 1942

Hugo Rahner (Hg): Ignatius von Loyola: Geistliche Briefe, 1942.

Josef Bütler: Jeanne d’Arc: Die Akten der Verurteilung, 1943

Ferdinand Strobel (Hg.): Katharina von Siena. Politische Briefe, 1944

Otto Karrer (Hg): Kardinal J. H. Newman: Die Kirche, Bd.1, 1945

Barbara von Blarer (Hg): Die Briefe des Sir Thomas More, 1949

Hans Kühner (Hg): Vinzenz von Paul. In seiner Zeit und im Spiegel seiner Briefe, Vorträge und Gespräche, 1951

Margot Schmidt: Mechtild von Magdeburg: Das fliessende Licht der Gottheit, 1955

Rolf Gögler (Hg): Origenes: Das Evangelium nach Johannes, 1959

Lee Maril (Hg): Elisabeth von Thüringen. Die Zeugnisse ihrer Zeitgenossen, 1961

Lee Maril (Hg): Jeanne de Chantal. Zeugnisse ihrer Zeitgenossen, 1967

Jean Daniélou (theologie du chien battu): Philon d'Alexandrie, Fayard, Paris, 1958, Origène, Table ronde, Paris, 1948

Henri de Lubac: Blondel et Teilhard de Chardin. Correspondance commentée 1930,

Erich Przywara: Hölderlin, Nürnberg, 1949

Clemens Brentano: Das bittere Leiden unsers Herrn Jesu Christi, Leben der hl. Jungfrau Maria, Leben Jesu, Materialien zu nicht ausgeführten religiösen Werken. Anna Katharina Emmerick-Biographie

Gregor von Nyssa: Über die Taufe von Christus, 376, Das Leben des Moses

Jerome de San Jose: Life of St. John of the Cross

Compton Mackenzie: Greek Memories, My Religion 1926

Dinzelbacher, Peter: Bernhard von Clairvaux; Leben und Werk das berühmten Zisterziensers, Darmstadt: 1998

Étienne Gilson: Saint Thomas d’Aquin, Gabalda, 1925,

Kurt Ruh: Meister Eckhart: Theologe, Prediger, Mystiker, 2. Aufl. Beck, München 1989

Charles de Montalembert: Histoire de sainte Élisabeth, reine de Hongrie, 1836, Monuments de l'histoire de sainte Élisabeth, 1838, Pie IX et lord Palmeston, 1859, Pie IX et la France, 1860, Lettre à M. le comte de Cavour, 1860, Le père Lacordaire, 1862, Le Pape et la Pologne, 1864, Le général Lamoricière. La victoire du Nord aux États-Unis, 1865, Lettres à un ami de collège, publiées par M. Cornudet, 1872

Karl Jaspers: Nikolaus Cusanus München 1964

Guido Görres: Nikolaus von der Flüe (Ratisbon, 1831), Die Jungfrau von Orléans (Ratisbon, 1834; 3rd ed., 1895)

Alfred Edward Taylor: Plato: The Man and His Work

William C. Bullitt, Sigmund Freud: Thomas Woodrow Wilson - A Psychological Study, 1930s

Seamus Heaney: Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001

Alexandre Dumas: Impressions de voyage: En Suisse, 1834, Le Caucase, 1859, Impressions de voyage: En Russie, 1860

Edward Bellamy: William Ticknor 1888.

Beat Louis de Muralt: Lettres sur les voyages et sur l'esprit-fort, 1753

Hugh Trevor-Roper: A Hidden Life - The Enigma of Sir Edmund Backhouse 1976,

Jean-Rudolf von Salis: Grenzüberschreitungen: Lebensbericht, 2 Bände, 1975/78

Walter J. Buck & Abel Chapman: Wild Spain, 1893; Unexplored Spain, 1910

Chateaubriand: Mémoires sur la vie et la mort du duc de Berry, 1820, Les Aventures du dernier Abencérage, 1826, Voyage en Amérique, 1827, Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe, 1848–1850

Arthur Chuquet: L'Expédition de Custine, 1892

Astolphe de Custine: Mémoires et voyages, ou lettres écrit à diverses époques, pendant des courses en Suisse, en Calabre, en Angleterre et en Écosse, Paris, 1830, Lettres de Russie, 1839

Emmerich Raitz von Frentz: Robert Bellarmin, Jesuiten: Lebensbilder grosser Gottesstreiter

Ernst Cassirer: Kants Leben und Lehre, 1918

F. A. Hayek: John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor, U of Chicago P, 1951

Charles Augustin Saint-Beuve: Portraits littéraires, 1844 et 1876-78, 3 volumes, Portraits contemporains 1846 et 1869-71, 5 volumes, Portraits de femmes 1844 et 1870, Étude sur Virgile 1857, Chateaubriand et son groupe littéraire 1860, 2 volumes, Le Général Jomini 1869, M. de Talleyrand 1870, P.-J. Proudhon 1872, ed of complete works of Chateaubriand (1859-60)

François Guizot: Washington 1841, Madame de Rumfort 1842, Shakespeare et son temps, 1852, Corneille et son temps, 1852, Sir Robert Peel, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de mon temps, 1858-1867 8 vol, Guillaume le Conquérant 1865, Mélanges biographiques et littéraires 1868, Le duc de Broglie 1872, Les vies de quatre grands chrétiens français 1873

Maurice Joyant: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Two volumes. H. Floury, Paris. 1926-1927

Lucien Tendret: La table au pays de Brillant-Savarin, 1892

Marcel Rouff: La vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet, 1924

Thomas DiLorenzo: Lincoln unmasked

Marcel Fournier: Marcel Mauss, 1994

Duc d’Orleans: Une éxpedition de chasse en Nepaul

Louis Petit: Dix années de chasses d'un jeune naturaliste au Congo, Evreux, Imprimerie de l'Eure, 1926

Poulain, J. Le chasseur créole. Le fusil, les munitions et les tirs. Anecdotes, Paris, Chamerot, 1886

Alexander Florstedt: In den Hochgebirgen Asiens und Siebenbürgens. Jagderlebnisse und Forschungsreisen, Neudamm, Neumann, 1928

Sauvaire de Barthélémy, Pierre: Mon vieil Annam. Ses bêtes. Contes et récits de chasse, Paris, Société d'éditions géographiques, maritimes et coloniales, 1930

G. R. Aberigh-Mackay: Notes on Western Turkistan, Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series

Robert Byron: First Russia, then Tibet & The Road to Oxiana

Ernst Jünger: In Stahlgewittern, 1920, Siebzug verweht I-V, 1980-97

Corrin: G. K. Chesterton & Hilaire Belloc: The Battle Against Modernity (Ohio University Press, 1991)

G. K. Chesterton & J. E. H. Williams: Thomas Carlyle, 1902

G. K. Chesterton & R. Garnett: Tennyson, 1903

G. K. Chesterton & L. Melville: Thackeray, 1903

G. K. Chesterton, G. H. Perris & Edward Garnett: Leo Tolstoy, 1903

G. K. Chesterton: Charles Dickens, 1903, Robert Browning, 1903, Varied Types, 1903, G.F. Watts, 1904, George Bernard Shaw, 1909, William Blake, 1910, Simplicity and Tolstoy, 1912, Lord Kitchener, 1917, Irish Impressions, 1919, What I Saw in America, 1922, St. Francis of Assisi, 1923, William Cobbett, 1925, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1927, Chaucer, 1932, St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox, 1933, Autobiography, 1936

A. N. Wilson: Hilaire Belloc

Elisabeth Anscombe & P. T. Geach: Three Philosophers (1961)

François Mauriac: La vie de Jean Racine, 1928, La Vie de Jésus, 1936

Orwell, George: Shooting an Elephant, Secker & Warburg, London 1950.

William Rice: Tiger-Shooting: Being an Account of Hunting Experiences on Foot in Rajpootana during the Hot Seasons, from 1850 to 1854, Smith, Elder & Co, London 1857 & Smith, Taylor & Co, Bombay 1857

Frederick Cordington Hicky: Forty Years among the Wild Animals of India from Mysore to the Himalayas, Pioneer Press, Allahabad 1910. not 1911 only if vols 1-4.

Silver Hackle: Indian Jungle Lore, Man-eaters

Patterson: Man-eaters of Tsavo, In the grip of Nyika

Hyrst: Wild Beasts

Forsyth: Highlands of Central India

Lyell: The African Elephant and Its Hunters

Lyell: African Adventures

Gonzague de Reynold: Jean-Jacques Rousseau et ses contradicteurs : Du Premier ‘Discours’ à ‘Inégalité’ 1750-1755, Impr. de l'Œuvre de Saint-Paul, 1904

Leo Graf Feststics: Die Ozoraer Hochjagden des Fürstenhauses Esterházy, Lauffer, Pest 1872

Bror Blixen-Finecke: African Hunter, translated by F.H. Lyon, Cassell, London 1937

Ernest Hemingway: Death in the Afternoon, 1932, Green Hills of Africa, 1935, A Moveable Feast, 1964, The Dangerous Summer, 1985

Beryl Markham: West with the Night. New York: North Point Press, 1942

Leatham, A. E.: Sport in Five Continents, Edinburgh & London 1912.

Gillispie, Charles C.: Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970-1980. 16 vols. Supplement II, edited by Frederic Lawrence Holmes, 2 vols., 1990

Koertge, Noretta, editor in chief. New Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2007. 8 vols

Dorothea Singer: Giordano Bruno: his Life and Thought, with an annotated Translation of his Work 'On the Infinite Universe and Worlds', Schumann, New York, 1950

Wilfred Thesinger: A life of my choice,

Herzog: Annapurna,

Eric Newby: A short walk in the Hindu Kush,

Frances Yates: Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, 1964

Frank Baron: Doctor Faustus. From History to Legend, München 1978

Robert John Weston Evans: Rudolf II. Ohnmacht und Einsamkeit, Graz 1980

Peter J. French: John Dee, London 1972.

Jerôme B. Grieder: Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance – Liberalism in the Chinese Revolution, 1917 – 1937, Harvard UP, Cambridge 1970.

On Envy

King Rudradeva of Kumaon talking about addictions in his Śyainikaśāstra says: ,Envy means intolerance of others’ prosperity’ – I would replace prosperity with happiness. To be tolerant, is only possible if my beliefs are strong enough for what I tolerate to be a burden. Where envy is concerned, these are beliefs about justice and entitlement. These beliefs can have a variety of very unequal roots. First, the childish, unreflected belief which every child seems to be instilled with and many adults never let go. Second, belief based on personal reflections, which should be part of growing up. Third, philosophical beliefs, thought through by specialists and usually embedded in a greater system of beliefs – this is a somewhat optimistic view of philosophy. Fourth, religious beliefs, based on divine revelations – these too can be reflected and unreflected.

So, envy is the intolerance of others’ happiness, the inability to bare the others’ happiness, based on my belief that the others’ happiness is in some way unjust, that the others are not entitled to their happiness. In Christianity envy is one of the seven deadly sins, but with the growing independence of philosophy, the positive side of envy is discovered – mostly by pointing out the incentive it gives. King Rudradeva’s quote continues: ‘It [Envy] is praiseworthy when it incites to action against rivals or enemies, because inspired by envy, people try to destroy them’. Against that I would hold that the incentive is given by the hope to achieve what the others have. If the incentive is all that envy gives me, then I am able to bear the others’ happiness, therefore I am not envious.

Envy can manifest itself economically, socially and politically, so as result of others’ prosperity, social class, capability and power. Being intolerant of these, the only thing that can be done is to take them away or destroy them. In his The Conquest of Happiness Bertrand Russell says that envy is the basis of democracy – this makes sense, as bringing my betters down to my level ensures equality so important to democracy. That said, how it is possible believe in a Christian democracy, I do not know. Mind you, Pope Leo XIII in Gravis de Communi Re did forbid the expression ‘Christian democracy’ to be used with political significance.

Book on Envy: Helmut Schoeck: Der Neid. Eine Theorie der Gesellschaft, 1966

On Bullfighting

Bullfighting is not really fighting, as it is not reciprocal, but hierarchical - in that it is like hunting. Also, death is essential to both of them, it is the natural end of the hunt and the corrida. Whereas the hunt is an epic, which could lead anywhere as the end is not known, the bullfight is a drama, where the end is inevitable, the suspense lies in the grasp of the end, without knowing the way there. By killing the bull, the torero takes possession of another being inferior to him. In a time obsessed with equality and ignoring death, it is clear that such a strong manifestation of both disturbs.

Books on Bullfighting: Ernest Hemingway: Death in the Afternoon, 1932, A. L. Kennedy: On Bullfighting, 1999, Domingo Ortega: El arte del toreo, 1950,which contains an epilogue by José Ortega y Gasset, which is re-printed in: La Caza y los Toros, 1960, much of what Ortega says about the ethics of hunting holds for bullfighting as well.