A garden is so forward-looking that it resembles sometimes a family or a business enterprise. I’ve even heard someone liken it to a crystal ball, making it surely unique. Seeds are literally prophetic: tiny crystal balls. Within 12 to 18 months, you’ll have exactly what was foretold. This makes gardeners a strong surviving force—we call […]
Many years ago, as a result of library research on the great German poet Else Lasker-Schuler, I came across many essays about her and her colleagues. What struck me most was their unshakeable love of Germany. Even after the Holocaust, despite their Jewish identity and living in exile with the memories of dead friends and […]
Abraham Lincoln had a modest library, befitting his focused outlook and humble origins. He possessed some law books, since he passed the bar exam by reading and memorizing all he could get his hands on. He famously never set foot in college, much less law school. (Today most states prohibit this; in fact, I don’t […]
Once I visited a military museum at Saumur in France, housed in a castle there. Its main collection was of saddles—every example of whatever man has fashioned to seat himself on a horse was on display, from almost all the armies in the world, old and new, north and south, east and west. I was […]
