The Ionian Mission
Every once is a while the harmonic convergence of cultural consumption merges to form, well, a blog post. Two and you call it coincidence. Three is rarer, and worth noting. Call it blogorhythm.
We just finished the next work in our campaign to read all of the Patrick O’Brian Age of Sail masterpieces, The Ionian Mission
And further, Aubrey then advises that his son George should also be led to learn about the deeds of Pyrrhus, “‘for it would be a great shame, was George to be found ignorant of Pyrrhus when he grew up.’”
The next sentence O’Brian writes is a thought that has likely crossed every father’s mind: “Jack had never been a hypocrite until he became a father, and even now it did not come easy.”
Yes.
And while we’re about it, earlier in the book O’Brian, via Doctor Maturin, a smoker, dashes off what may be the most eloquent praise of tobacco ever written. In his cabin, after a huge breakfast “in the Naval fashion” Aubrey invites Maturin, who’s about to embark on a risky mission, to smoke:
“If you have finished Stephen, pray smoke away. I am sure you bought some of your best mundungus in Mahon.”
“If you are sure you really do not find it disagreeable,” said Stephen, instantly feeling in his pockets, “I believe I may. For me tobacco is the crown of the meal, the best opening to a day, a great enhancer of the quality of life. The crackle and yield of this little paper cylinder,” he said, holding it up, “gives me a sensual pleasure whose deeper origins I blush to contemplate, while the slow combustion of the whole yields a gratification that I should not readily abandon even if it did me harm, which it does not. Far from it. On the contrary, tobacco purges the mind of its gross humors, sharpens the wits, renders the judicious smoker sprightly and vivacious. And soon I shall need all my sprightliness and vivacity.”
Patrick O'Brian, fiction, tobacco | bshears May 16, 2008
