After-Orts #40

in response to a couple of queries re the previous After-Orts: 
   and yet no force, however great,
      can stretch a cord, however fine,
      into a horizontal line
   that shall be absolutely straight.

[R]eaders of the Sherlock Holmes stories have noticed that when Holmes and Watson first meet and discuss sharing rooms on Baker Street, Dr. Watson lists his drawbacks as a roommate and says, "I keep a bull pup". The curious fact about that dog is that he is never heard of again-- and no wonder, for keep a bull pup in the 1880s was army slang for have a bad temper.
     -- Jacques Barzun, Simple and Direct, chapter 1

quoted in the same chapter:
A vigorous society is a society made up of people who set their hearts on toys, and who would work harder for superfluities than for necessities. The self-righteous moralists decry such a society, yet it is well to keep in mind that both children and artists need luxuries more than they need necessities.
     -- Eric Hoffer, diary, February 22, 1959


Shakespeare, in Julius Caesar, writes
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones.

It has been noted (not by me!) that
For the evil that men do
is an anagram of
Doth live on after them.