Opening Line of the Week
These are the opening words of a short story that was originally published in a 1917 issue of Der Jude, a German-Jewish monthly magazine co-founded by Martin Buber in 1916. The narrator is a West African ape who was shot and captured by a German hunting expedition five years earlier. He was given the name Red Peter by his captors (after a red facial scar from the gunshot wound), and shipped in a cage to Europe.
In transit, Red Peter acquired social and language skills by carefully observing the interactions of the crew (he began with the handshake ritual and quickly discovered that it was surprisingly easy to mimic a wide variety of human behaviors). After arriving in Europe, he worked even harder at his imitative efforts in an effort to avoid a lifetime of confinement in a zoo. Once he acquired the rudiments of human language, he was able to make a living as a music-hall performer named Peter.
Franz Kafka was a master of speculative fiction, an umbrella category of fiction that includes science fiction, horror, and fantasy. To see more than 200 Great Opening Lines from that genre—including the legendary first sentence of Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”—go here. And if you’d like to receive a daily dose of Famous First Words, follow me on Facebook.
This Week’s Puzzler
On September 23, 1889, this man was born in New York City to German-Jewish immigrants. An extremely bright lad, he entered Harvard University at age 17, and quickly got the attention of two legendary professors: William James and George Santayana. After graduating with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1909, he returned to Manhattan, where he became an influential journalist, a respected political theorist, a founder of The New Republic magazine, and an adviser to President Woodrow Wilson.
In addition to his many critically-acclaimed books—including A Preface to Morals in 1929—he wrote a popular newspaper column (“Today and Tomorrow”) that was syndicated in nearly 300 newspapers (his work on the column earned him Pulitzer Prize awards in 1958 and 1962). His 1922 book Public Opinion became so influential that he is often described as “The father of American journalism.”
In 1947, this week’s Mystery Man authored a study on Soviet-American relations with the oxymoronic title “The Cold War” (the expression did not originate with him, but he certainly helped immortalize the saying). In his career, he penned many elegantly phrased observations, including this one:
Who is this person? (Answer below)
What Does Honor Mean to You?
There are a number of different meanings attached to the word honor, but this week's Mystery Author is using it as if it were synonymous with character and integrity. The editors of the American Heritage Dictionary were reflecting this sense of the word when they wrote:
“Honor implies principled uprightness of character and a worthy adherence to a strict moral and ethical code.”
The Puzzler quotation takes the definition one important step further, though, adding that honorable people don’t merely uphold an ideal of conduct when it is popular, but also when it involves risking the disapproval and rejection of friends, family, and colleagues. As I write this, I’m thinking of several prominent examples, and I suspect you will have no trouble coming up with examples of your own.
One I will never forget occurred during the 2008 presidential campaign, when the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain was appearing at a town hall in Lakeville, Minnesota. During a Q & A session, an elderly woman said into a hand-held microphone, “I can’t trust Obama. I have read about him, and he’s not, um...he’s an Arab.” As she approached closer to the candidate, McCain gently cut her off, took the mike from her hands, and said: “No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man, [a] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what the campaign’s all about.”
Writer Stephen King described the incident as McCain’s “finest moment,” and like so many people at the time, I viewed it as an impressive demonstration of both character and class. At the time, though, I didn’t link it to the concept of honor. That wouldn’t happen until several months later when I was reading Pat Conroy’s The Lords of Discipline (1980).
At one point in the novel, U. S. Army General Bentley Durrell says: “I have never had to look up a definition of honor. I knew instinctively what it was. It is something I had the day I was born, and I never had to question where it came from or by what right it was mine. If I was stripped of my honor, I would choose death as certainly and unemotionally as I clean my shoes in the morning.” And then the general concluded.
This is one of the most memorable things ever said on the subject of honor—and most certainly one of Conroy’s most quotable lines. If I were to construct a list of The Ten Best Things Ever Said About Honor, this line from The Lords of Discipline would most definitely make the list.
Moving on, I don’t think I’m overly romanticizing the past when I say that there used to be a general consensus about what honor means, but that no longer seems to be the case. One of America’s great historians described the problem this way:
Tuchman’s observation, written more than six decades ago, seems especially appropriate to our current era, when honor is often viewed quite differently, depending on one’s philosophical, religious, or political views. Having said this, though, I believe there are some enduring constants surrounding honor, and I’d like to share them with you this week. In my view, you are a person of honor if you…
…have a moral compass, and guide your life by it.
…fight hard—but always fairly—for your core beliefs.
…are not careless with the truth or the reality of things.
…attempt to live your life on the heights, and not in the gutter.
...can be trusted to keep a secret, a confidence, or a commitment.
…stand up to family members, friends, and colleagues when they are acting unethically, immorally, or illegally.
…try to listen to “the better angels of our nature,” as Lincoln so beautifully phrased it, and not the baser or darker instincts.
…view adversaries and opponents as fellow human beings, not enemies to be disparaged, demonized, or demolished.
…are respectful of the rights and sensibilities of others, and will not attempt to use or manipulate people for selfish or devious purposes.
…believe in fairness and fair play, and will not bend the rules—or break them—in order to secure an advantage or put an opponent at a disadvantage.
…hold the concept of honor in such high regard that you will not subject it to perversion by enabling, supporting, or celebrating anyone who is clearly acting in a dishonorable way.
…will not cheat—in cards, in golf, in school, in marriage, in business, and in other important areas of life (and if you do cheat in any these areas, you completely forfeit the right to apply the term honorable to yourself).
I could go on, but these few thoughts describe the kind of person I aspire to be—even though I’ve often fallen short of my ideals. These thoughts also describe the kinds of people I want to embrace in life and count as friends.
This week, spend some time thinking about what the concept of honor means to you and how successfully you’ve lived up to the ideals of conduct that are typically described as honorable. As usual, I've selected a number of quotations to stimulate your thinking:
How is it possible, that the love of gain and the lust of domination should render the human mind so callous to every principle of honor, generosity, and benevolence? — Abigail Adams
All honor’s wounds are self-inflicted. — Andrew Carnegie
My honor is dearer to me than my life. — Miguel de Cervantes
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned. — Herbert Hoover
It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles. — Niccolò Machiavelli
The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught. — H. L. Mencken
Honor is self-esteem made visible in action. — Ayn Rand
The man who makes a promise which he does not intend to keep, and does not try to keep, should rightly be adjudged to have forfeited in some degree what should be every man’s most precious possession—his honor. — Theodore Roosevelt
On the whole it is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them. — Mark Twain
For source information on these quotations, and many other quotations on the topic of HONOR, go to Dr. Mardy's Dictionary of Metaphorical Quotations.
Cartoon of the Week
Answer to This Week’s Puzzler:
Walter Lippman
I mentioned earlier that Lippmann penned many memorable observations in his career. Here are a half-dozen more:
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.
It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.
There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.
Propaganda is that branch of lying which nearly deceives your friends without ever deceiving your enemies.
Love, in spite of the romantics, is not self-sustaining; it endures only when the lovers love many things together, and not merely each other.
Dr. Mardy’s Observation of the Week
Thanks for joining me again this week. See you next Sunday morning, when the theme will be “Arrogance.”
Mardy Grothe
Websites: www.drmardy.com and www.GreatOpeningLines.com
Regarding My Lifelong Love of Quotations: A Personal Note
This quote made my day:
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thanks, Jerry. It is a good one. In my DMDMQ, I offered this additional thought:
QUOTE NOTE: In forging this thought, Emerson was almost certainly influenced by a 1763 remark from Samuel Johnson. Speaking to his biographer James Boswell, he said about a contemporary: “But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.”