In 1862, at twenty-one, my great-great-grandfather John Hodges Wadhams left Goshen, Connecticut, to seek his fortune in the West. In 1992, almost exactly 130 years later, I began keeping seriously the journal of my own early adulthood. John was the son of an old Connecticut farming family. Church, town, party, father and Civil War suppliedContinue reading “The Court of Final Appeal”
Tag Archives: Puritan
Neoptolemus
We have already met him. Neoptolemus arrives on Lemnos as the younger man Odysseus brings to retrieve Philoctetes and the bow of Heracles. He resists the deception Odysseus requires. That is Neoptolemus at his best: resistant to manipulation, not yet corrupted by the compromises of war. Sophocles gives him dignity in that moment of resistance.Continue reading “Neoptolemus”
Delphi: Know Thyself
Delphi emerges as a Panhellenic sanctuary around 650 BCE but it started earlier, much earlier. Inscribed on the pronaos of the Temple of Apollo was the threshold admonition: γνῶθι σεαυτόν, gnōthi seauton, know thyself. It was never therapeutic advice. It does not mean discover your preferences or honor your feelings. It means: know what kindContinue reading “Delphi: Know Thyself”
Protective Arts 