Gulliver's Travels

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 23:05:14 +0100
books

After seeing some book descriptions recently on planet debian, let me add some short recommendation, too.

Almost everyone has heard about Gulliver's Travels already, so usually only very cursory. For example: did you know the book describes 4 journeys and not only the travel to Lilliput?

Given how influential the book has been, that is even more suprising. Words like "endian" or "yahoo" originate from it.

My favorite is the third travel, though, especially the acadamy of Lagado, from which I want to share two gems:

" His lordship added, 'That he would not, by any further particulars, prevent the pleasure I should certainly take in viewing the grand academy, whither he was resolved I should go.' He only desired me to observe a ruined building, upon the side of a mountain about three miles distant, of which he gave me this account: 'That he had a very convenient mill within half a mile of his house, turned by a current from a large river, and sufficient for his own family, as well as a great number of his tenants; that about seven years ago, a club of those projectors came to him with proposals to destroy this mill, and build another on the side of that mountain, on the long ridge whereof a long canal must be cut, for a repository of water, to be conveyed up by pipes and engines to supply the mill, because the wind and air upon a height agitated the water, and thereby made it fitter for motion, and because the water, descending down a declivity, would turn the mill with half the current of a river whose course is more upon a level.' He said, 'that being then not very well with the court, and pressed by many of his friends, he complied with the proposal; and after employing a hundred men for two years, the work miscarried, the projectors went off, laying the blame entirely upon him, railing at him ever since, and putting others upon the same experiment, with equal assurance of success, as well as equal disappointment.' "

"I went into another room, where the walls and ceiling were all hung round with cobwebs, except a narrow passage for the artist to go in and out. At my entrance, he called aloud to me, 'not to disturb his webs.' He lamented 'the fatal mistake the world had been so long in, of using silkworms, while we had such plenty of domestic insects who infinitely excelled the former, because they understood how to weave, as well as spin.' And he proposed further, 'that by employing spiders, the charge of dyeing silks should be wholly saved;' whereof I was fully convinced, when he showed me a vast number of flies most beautifully coloured, wherewith he fed his spiders, assuring us 'that the webs would take a tincture from them; and as he had them of all hues, he hoped to fit everybody’s fancy, as soon as he could find proper food for the flies, of certain gums, oils, and other glutinous matter, to give a strength and consistence to the threads.'"