Saturday, January 29, 2011

New Books Cannot Match Old Books for Charm

There. I have said it. No amount of exposition on shiny paper, with photographs devised by the latest technology will budge me from this opinion.


Any number of persons will now run to their favorite new book and drag it out to defend it. harrumph. All such efforts are in vain. Those who prefer the old do not care for all the arguments in Babylon in defense of new.


There is nothing new under the sun - merely revised ways of viewing things ... some like to think it is "new ways of looking" ... but we all know only babies have a new way of looking at things. Society (drooling bully that it collectively is) soon beats that out of the wee upstarts. (I say drooling because, collectively, society drools after all that is shiny, flashily inconsequential and base). Anyhoooo ... here are some lovely illustrations in an old book from 1806. This book had been much read and studied in its day. This is hardly an incunable treasure, but it is a treasure of a sort for those who appreciate such ...

James Ferguson's
Astronomy Explained Upon Sir Isaac Newton's Principles, and made Easy for those who have not Studied Mathematics ... &c., &c. - Published in 1806 in Philadelphia by Mathew Carey.


























Nor for simplicity of titles ;) :