Obfuscator’s Note to the Reader | Preface | Introduction to MESS | Epilogue
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An Array of Droll MEsses
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Among a thousand one will be lucky to find a dozen who are capable of explaining the tools and machinery they use, and the things they produce with any clarity.
— DIDEROT
The true dignity of man consists in the rectitude of his conduct, and the cultivation of his mind, and these are, in some degree, dependent on each other. Right thinking will tend to promote right acting. By judicious management on the part of instructors, the young may be taught to think and to reason, at every step of their progress, and in every branch of their education. But it is obvious, that for this purpose some branches of education are better calculated than others; and perhaps it may be affirmed, that nothing more directly conduces to intellectual improvement, than an analysis of speech and the principles of thought. The mind, accustomed to this kind of investigation, acquires an acuteness and power of discrimination, which it readily applies to every subject; and when these are acquired, nothing that is interesting can be regarded with indifference. To produce, as far as possible, an effect so desirable on the minds of the young, has been the aim of the author of the following pages. . . . The author believes with Cowper, that “It is the sad complaint, and almost true,and he has few pretensions to originality. To be useful, rather than to be original, has been his aim; but if he has not presented to his readers any new thoughts, he hopes it will be found, that he has placed old ones in a new light; or so grouped them together, as to give them an air of novelty. He has endeavoured to profit by the sentiments of the various authors, to whose works he has had access, and has not scrupled, on some occasions, to use even their language; but he is not conscious of having servilely followed any one: his desire has been to appropriate the motto, “I think for myself.”
— WILLIAM BANKS,
The English master; or,
Student's guide to reasoning and composition (1823)
Cold hearted orb that rules the night,
— GRAEME EDGE,
“Late Lament”
this is wrong and that is right.
— A. HACK
I understand the bitterness which sweeps over you at the foolish reception of you and your works. . . . What would you rather have? a mediocrity which pleases everybody or a talent which breaks new ground. . . . Attacks on originality are to be expected from those who lack the power to create and shrug their shoulders.
— PAUL GAUGUIN,
Letters To His Wife And Friends (1949)
The rate of change in typesetting methods has been steep — perhaps it has approximated the Fibonacci series — for more than a century. Yet, like poetry and painting, storytelling and weaving, typography itself has not improved. This is proof, I think, that typography is more art than engineering — though engineering is certainly part of it.
— BRINGHURST, The Elements of Typographic Style (4.2, 2016)
Our reverence for architecture and art stems from an innate human need to see talent expressed. When it is expressed in usable and functional forms, such as buildings that we can live and worship in, we become connected with it in a more intimate way. In an age when technology is expanding at such a rapid pace that today's advances are often obsolete tomorrow, we yearn for things in life that have substance.
— STEVE CHAPPELL, A Timber Framer’s Workshop (2011)
Bringhurst’s talents as a writer and poet enrich The Elements of Typographic Style in almost every section, with metaphors and literary, historical and cultural references that serve as spoonfuls of sugar. . . . As for its place in the classroom: one student shouted after one look, “Wow, this book is great!” And it is.
Should a young person, in reading an account of any statesman, philosopher, or hero, be required merely to remember the age and country in which he lived, together with a few of the principal actions and occurrences of his life; would his mind be equally benefitted as if he were, at the same time, led to trace the steps by which the individual in question had been induced to performance of such an action, the nature of the action itself, as moral or immoral, with all the consequences which, to himself or society, seemed to result from it? Here the answer is easy. It may, however, be remarked, that whilst the cultivation of the judgment is warmly recommended, it is not meant that memory should be neglected; on the contrary, it may be affirmed, that where the understanding is engaged, the memory is likely to prove most correct and most tenacious; for it is a truth incontrovertible, that what is best understood, will ever be most easily remembered. It is notorious, that, in learning arithmetic, a branch of education in which the judgment might, and should be particularly employed, the cultivation of this faculty is shamefully neglected. It is by no means uncommon to find a boy of good natural ability, capable, by given rules, of answering any ordinary question in arithmetic, without being able to assign a reason why, when he has added one line of figures and found the amount, he should carry a certain number to the next.
— WILLIAM BANKS,
The English master; or,
Student's guide to reasoning and composition (1823) Bildung = Kultur + Aufklärung was a distillation of reading Mendelssohn had done in a remarkable book. This was The Encyclopedia, or Dictionary of Arts and Crafts, edited principally by Denis Diderot. . . . To understand this bible of craftsmanship one has to understand its author’s motives. Diderot was a poor provincial who migrated to Paris, where he talked endlessly, had too many friends, and spent other people’s money. Much of Diderot’s life was wasted in literary hackwork to pay his debts; the Encyclopedia seemed to him at first just another way to stave off his creditors.
— RICHARD SENNETT, The Craftsman (2008)
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