In these decadent days of sound-grabs and puerile thought (thought is only as good as the prose that conveys it), is there any time left for prosaic deliberation? Is anybody interested in abandoning the shallow political hustings we ought to despise, to contemplate eloquence for its own sake-in the name of whatever prejudice predominates?
I remember several years ago being asked if I'd rather write an essay or a report. Without hesitation, and alone among a cohort of perhaps 30, I said "an essay!". Taken aback, the examiner asked me "wherefore" this deviant sensibility. My reply was that an essay at least afforded the opportunity of some artistry. The art of the essay then...
I'm a devotee of the form and would offer Orwell's "Politics and the English Language"; or Swift's "A Modest Proposal"; or Wilde's "The Soul of Man under Socialism", or his "The Decay of Lying", or his extra-prosaic prose (sublime) "De Profundis"; or Belloc's "On the Departure of a Guest"...; or anything by Montaigne, Hazlit or Emerson.
I do apologies for the want of female stylists and Offer Virginia Woolf's "A room of One's Own" in shrewd recompense.
I love great prose and would appreciate edifying tips from the OLO cognoscenti on the form.
Prey make it available online!

Good thread, Squeers,

I'm not as well read as I would like to be, coming from a distinctly non-bookish family. Nevertheless, I've done my best over the years to grab a few bites of literary merit and stuffed my bookshelves full of things that I might one day catch up with.
Just off the top of my head - I liked Robert Louis Stevenson's "An Apology for Idlers", Max Beerbohm's "The Golden Drugget" and Hilaire Belloc's "The Onion Eater". Another essay that I found quite moving was by an American science writer, Loren Eiseley. He is a very poetic writer and his essay is titled "The Last Neanderthal".
I'll probably pop back to the thread when more come to mind.

how long is an essay..does it become a novel..or a tombe or god forbid a series of syndicated-novelets..

anyhow i have a long list of favoured reads..many of the chapters could be called essays..but i long for..that ring of truth

so my favoured..'reads'..includes/such classics as..one flew over the cookoo's nest/or stranger in a strange land...even such works as wanderer in the strange-land/life herafter...

and the little read ..'a course in miralces'..
that comes closer to/..being..a collection of essays

i regard darwins letters/a good read...and his four/volume..evolution of species..[not genus]..then there are swedenbergs/essays/on the after life...and lest we forget/assimov's vairios essays...

i enjoy/the spiritual/writings best..having gradually evolved here via westerns/science-fiction...into the sciences...various of the how to...type books..biology..the physical sciences./...and the readers digest...then i found the web..so many chatrooms

anyhow..thats enough about me
gotta get back to some...re-reading

there is nothing like reading/again a classic

quote<<..Yet/it is impossible..not to use the content/of any situation..on behalf_of..what you really teach,..
and therefore..what you/really learn.

<<To this the verbal-content..of your teaching/is quite irrelevant.>>.!

<<It may coincide/..with it,..or it may not.

<<It is the teaching/underlying..what you say..that teaches you.

<<Teaching/but reinforces..
what you believe about yourself...>>and your reality..!

<<Its fundamental-purpose..is to diminish self-doubt.>>by doing/loving FEARLESSLY..we do the deeds..that in total=our life

<<This/does not..mean..that/the self you are..trying to protect..is real...
But it does mean/that the self..you think is real..is relective by/what you teach.>>>your works/done..=your..life

<<This is inevitable...There is no escape from it.

<<How could it be otherwise?


<<And/as they..teach*..[live lifes events
live life's lessons/of joy and hope,..
our learning finally becomes complete.

<<we are not perfect,..or we would not be here.
Yet it is our mission/to become perfect here,

and so we/teach perfection..over and over,
in many,/many ways,..until we have learned it.

<<And then/..we are seen no more,..>>>!in these/earthy/realm's

<<although our thought..words/works..
remain a source/..of strength/or weakness..and as our/truth here..forever.


The manual...that../attempts to answer the real/..questions.
so back/to..the course in miracles
http://stobblehouse.com/text/ACIM.pdf

You are kind and most giving OUG, and I for one, thank you for sharing your reading. Will read each evening of this week.

May the Holy Spirit bathe you in safety, love, light and happiness.

Thanks again OUG, I read a few chapters, yet in all due respect and honesty, it appears out of my depth given the way the author has written these. Am an avid reader of a variety of books and internet articles [light articles] pertaining to God and Spirituality, sadly, though, for myself, these publications are too complex or somehow repetitive.

Kindest wishes.

One of my favorite Essays is

"Repressive Tolerance" by Herbert Marcuse.(from 1965)

It's only a fave, because it EXPOSES the darkness and evil of the left wing socialst/neo marxist agenda....so incredibly clearly.

Let's take paragraph ONE for example.

THIS essay examines the idea of tolerance in our advanced industrial society. The conclusion reached is that the realization of the objective of tolerance would call for intolerance toward prevailing policies, attitudes, opinions, and the extension of tolerance to policies, attitudes, and opinions which are outlawed or suppressed. In other words, today tolerance appears again as what it was in its origins, at the beginning of the modern period--a partisan goal, a subversive liberating notion and practice. Conversely, what is proclaimed and practiced as tolerance today, is in many of its most effective manifestations serving the cause of oppression.

THE GREENS ARE NEO MARXISTS!