A portrait image of a scene somewhere in Scotland. A thick layer of snow encroaches on the sepia-coloured edge of a pond. Neither the few bare trees, nor the house in the distance (with a flock of birds directly above it) are particularly photogenic, but the pale soft winter light makes the various tones in the sky and the foreground oddly appealing.
Edge of the winter
L was esp. close to the 2 sisters nearest him in age, but both died young - haven’t seen mentions of F in his letters so far, so no idea re. that side. They were cousins as well I’m sure, not that it implies closer ties.
It does sound very much in character!
A screenshot from the Georgian Papers Programme website stating that the papers of two monarchs, George IV and William IV, were found at Apsley House and transferred to the Royal Archives in 1912.
Quietly wondering whether the first Duke was planning to paper the walls with those, or had another practical use in mind for them...
Definitely sd be, or just a name for authors super keen on making diagnoses centuries later. Some speculation is necessary in hist research; unfounded guesswork (made while ignoring sources) is pointless. Having read tons of similar re. F's uncle, the more time passes, the wilder the theories grow.
Thank you!
Congratulations!
They don’t feel shame – or they'd admit neither skipping the text, nor using AI. What they typically feel is juvenile superiority of a person who, to someone having spent a year translating a book, returns, “I cd have done it in minutes with my gadget” (and believes result wd be the same, too).
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True, it can only get better! Wind and rain most of the time for the last month, at least December was dry (if as grim).
A landscape image with only three colours in it: blue for the sky and river, white for the snow-dusted dunes and tiny clouds and a strip of deep brown shore dividing the dunes and the sky from the dunes reflecting in the river. This was the first occasion in six years of there having been enough snowfall to cover the sand AND the grass of the dunes, but the scene only lasted for a day.
A reminder that the last time sun was distinctly visible around my neck of the woods was 5th January; total amount of sunny days this [calendar] winter so far has been below ten.
Unfamiliarity is good with something like that - it makes the words more memorable after you look them up. I love how use of certain words conveys or helps convey the writer’s personality, too.
It’s amazing that no matter how clear the handwriting is (couldn’t be any clearer in this sample), there’ll always be someone reading it creatively.
Two images side by side, one (on the left) showing a section of a burned-out shell of Downhill House, the Bishop of Derry's eighteenth-century mansion, which contained a library and was entirely gutted by fire in 1851, never since rebuilt. The image on the right shows a part of a concrete staircase space in an unnamed modern library, which could be absolutely anywhere, which has not suffered structural damage at any point of its shortish existence and has won many awards typically given to glass-and-concrete towers in very grim towns. The modern library is currently habitable; the old one overlooks the Atlantic. I know which one I would choose!
Two libraries: (l) part of Downhill House (itself a recipient much architectural flak in its day), destroyed by fire in 1851, & (r) a modern multi-award-winning building elsewhere, victim to no natural calamities. I appreciate the latter is at least habitable, but when and how have we gone so wrong?
Sounds good!
Congratulations! It sounds fascinating - I hope it features your comments on W’s comments, too.
It will obvs depend on the reading list info 'speaking' to catalogue search and whether every uni implements it...
If the book is on reading lists for any courses, it's visibly marked as such on Primo, used by a lot of uni libraries. It would require someone checking each likely uni's library catalogue, though. Random example below - more clicking would lead you to courses the reading lists are for.
Very true
Could this be /whispers cautiously/ the first good news of 2026?
Poetry isn’t supposed to make sense, surely? But this is beautiful, I love the line about how the sea hadn’t stopped looking. Thanks for sharing it.
Obvs not objects, and difficult/imposs to recreate, but sound, smells, spatial confines etc. Personal meaningful items. While I try love reading primary sources as a researcher, letters etc. tend to be skipped at exhibitions by many in favour of almost anything else…
Sorry, HA way too modern for me, my cut-off point being 1845. Someone in #PolarExploration may well know some good sources though!
Thank you for sharing - I didn't know you could go inside the monument!
Congratulations!
Some of the references in the article point to the Columbia Uni - and although their page says the diary is not available online, presumably they cd tell you more about their holdings dlc.library.columbia.edu/jay/ldpd:500...
A portrait image of a partially snow-covered beach and some well-dusted dunes in NE Scotland, sidelit by a pale winter sun.
The snow has now left these particular "Scoticanian shores," but during the four days of it in its various states I managed to take enough pictures to bore people with them for quite some time.
Oddly enough, this episode was exactly what I thought of while reading the poem - but am adding "Scoticanian shores" to my vocabulary nevertheless.
I got rid of Discover ages ago (found it v. random and pointless) and don’t seem to have the problem you describe - so worth trying unless you like/need Discover?
A colour image showing a considerable heap of snow in the foreground, more snow on the middle ground and a thin line of trees marking the mock horizon. The sky is almost the colour of snow, with a faint hint of pale blue.
A wonderful, gnarly, snow-covered tree in a small village somewhere in NE Scotland. You can almost hear the silence.
Polite reminder to the south of England re. what “snow” actually means. Even this only lasted 2.5 days before starting to melt…
