Sulzbacheromyces Sinensis

Sulzbacheromyces sinensis  (中华丽烛衣).

A basidiolichen with erect ochre fruiting bodies and a dark green crust which slowly turned grey. It was growing in several places on Yuelu Mountain last July.

Buying Books One Cannot Read

 WHAT the old French officer had delivered upon travelling, bringing Polonius’s advice to his son upon the same subject into my head, and that bringing in Hamlet; and Hamlet, the rest of Shakespeare’s works, I stopped at the Quai de Conti, in my return home, to purchase the whole set.
   The bookseller said he had not a set in the world. Comment! said I; taking one up out of a set which lay upon the counter betwixt us. He said, they were sent him only to be got bound, and were to be sent back to Versailles in the morning to the Count de B—.
   And does the Count de B—, said I, read Shakespeare? C’est un Esprit fort, replied the bookseller.

Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey & The Journal to Eliza (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1966; 1788), pp. 68-69.

Longhorn Beetle Frass

Longhorn beetle frass (I am unsure which species) on a willow tree at Taozi lake. These beetle larvae due a fair bit of damage in spite of the park workers vigilance. Curiously the ejected frass attracts a variety of butterflies: I observed many a polygonia c-aureum, vanessa indica, kaniska canace, and even one charaxes bernardus attracted to its sap.

Hero-worship

The history of an art is the history of masterwork, not of failures, or mediocrity. The omniscient historian would display the masterpieces, their causes and their inter-relation. The study of literature is hero-worship. It is a refinement, or, if you will, a perversion of that primitive religion.

Ezra Pound, The Spirit of Romance (Norfolk, Connecticut: New Directions, 1952; 1910), p. 7.

Asian Longhorned Beetle

Asian Longhorned Beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis, 光肩星天牛).

Similar to anoplophora glabripennis but possible to distinguish by the tubercles (little bumps), at the base of its elytra.

A Catalogus Arborum

Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406), 'Conquestio Phillidis', 137-156:

gentibus optatam pacem sacra Palladis arbor
   nuntiet et populis omina leta ferat.
frondibus eternis Phebeia superbiat arbos,
   hacque triumphalis fronde sacretur honos;
altaque odoratis conis redimita cupressus
   perpetua fronde sidera celsa petat.
sacra Iovi quercus per secula multa superstes
   gaudeat aurata glande cibasse viros
luxurient Veneris myrtus in litore salso,
   atque comant semper fronde virente comas.
medica Caiete scopuloso in litore poma
   crescant. Iudeus balsama rara colat.
dactilus ex nudo procedat robore palme,
   ac humilem curvent grandia poma citrum.
Mura, nefas, pulcrum sub pectore servet Adona
   ac electra gemens det quasi parturiat.
flagret turifluis dives Pancaia virgis.
   pinus in Ydeis crescat amena iugis,
ac ebenum nulla lignum violabile flamma
   India producat, plurima monstra ferens.

The sacred tree of Pallas would announce the desired peace to the people and would bear deadly omens to the people. It would distain the Phoebeian trees with their everlasting greenery, and triumphant honour would be consecrated with this bough; and the tall cypress encircled with scented cones would seek the lofty stars with its everlasting foliage. Outliving the sacred oak of Jupiter through many ages, it would rejoice to have fed men with a gilded acorn, the myrtles of Venus would grow luxuriantly on the salty shore, and always adorn their tops with green foliage. The medicinal fruits of Gaëta would thrive on the rocky shore. Judea would cultivate rare balsam trees. The date of the palm-tree would appear on the naked oak, and massive fruits would bend the lowly lemon tree. The Mur (shocking!) would watch over the beauty inside its heart and the groaning Adona would bear forth amber as if in labour. Rich Pancaia would be inflamed with sweet-scented stalks. The delightful pine tree would thrive in peaks of Mount Ida. And India, which produces the greatest number of wonders, would produce ebony wood violable by no flame.

Richard C. Jensen, ‘Coluccio Salutati’s “Lament of Phyllis” ’, Studies in Philology, 65.2 (1968), 109-123, p. 120. My translation.

Citrus Longhorn Beetle

Citrus Longhorn Beetle (Anoplophora chinensis, 华星天牛).

The larvae are pests, and quite destructive to local trees, but the adults are large impressive beetles and have a conspicuous presence throughout the summer.

The Business of a Scholar

To talk in publick, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire, and answer inquiries, is the business of a scholar.  He wanders about the world without pomp or terror, and is neither known nor valued but by men like himself.

Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988; 1759), p. 18.

Campsosternus Auratus

Campsosternus auratus (丽叩甲).

A large metallic click beetle, the adults are fairly common in the summer.

Nested Prose

 [...] and the prose is clotted with sentences like this one: “The elaboration of the demonstrative makes possible the comprehension of the singularity of the singular”. Linguists have a term for this kind of writing, where each abstraction is nested in another like so many Russian dolls: bad.

Stephen Brown, ‘Why so many notes?’, The Times Literary Supplement, 5672 (16 Dec 2011), p. 24.

A University Should Be Like a Poet's Garden

Mark Pattison,'Oxford Studies' in Essays, ed. by Henry Nettleship, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889), I, 415-494 (p. 420):

A university should be situated, like the poet's garden, 'Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite beyond it.

Blushing Wood Mushrooms

Blushing Wood Mushroom (Agaricus sylvaticus, 林地蘑菇).

Beautiful pair of mushrooms growing last June on Yuelu Mountain. There were young, 2-3cm with white skirts still hiding their greyish gills, brown spores and the flesh turned slightly red when cut.

Canon

David Damrosch, We Scholars: Changing the Culture of the University (Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 109:

Too often both sides [progressives/’great tradition’ traditionalists] take absolutist positions, as though our intellectual traditions must either form an invariant and unquestionable unity or else be a specious fiction serving the corrupt self-interest of an elite few. Any canon is indeed a construct; particularly in the extremely selective form of a two-semester course, any representation of "the" tradition of Western literature or social thought is bound to leave out important texts, ideas, movements. Yet this does not mean that a necessarily artificial construction of the canon has no value. The real problem is that at the present time the core itself is largely hollow. Debates over particular inclusions or exclusions often amount to little more than the replacement of a few deck chairs as general education continues slowly, majestically, to sink out of sight.

Pyralid Snout Moth Caterpillar

Some species of pyralid snout moth caterpillar, though I could not discern the species. I found on Yuelu Mountain last July and I should have noted more carefully the plant it was on.