Vantage Point

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The Parthenon in Athens

I was unusually restless today. I started three books and gave up on two of them. The one I continued on was a re-read from fifty years ago, G. K. Chesterton’s All I Survey, first published in 1933. There was a time in the 1970s when I read everything I could find by Chesterton. Today, my shelves hold over a hundred titles of his work, including duplicates. There are few authors whom I enjoy reading so much, probably because he always makes me feel so good. The following is the first paragraph of his essay entitled “On St. George Revivified.”

The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living. Without some such contrast or comparison, without some such shifting of the point of view, we should see nothing whatever of our own social surroundings. We should take them for granted, as the only possible social surroundings. We should be as unconscious of them as we are, for the most part, of the hair growing on our heads or the air passing through our lungs. It is the variety of the human story that brings out sharply the last turn that the road has taken, and it is the view under the arch of the gateway which tells us that we are entering a town.

Mostly Botanical

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Strange Cacti at L. A. Arboretum

Southern California owes a debt of gratitude to some of its past robber barons who have left some beautiful monuments behind them. I am thinking of Henry Huntington (Huntington Gardens), E. J. “Lucky” Baldwin (L. A. Arboretum), and Manchester Boddy (Descanso Gardens).

People usually come to Los Angeles to see Hollywood (a sad slum), the beaches (polluted), or Disneyland (outrageously expensive), but little do they think that the area’s botanical gardens are probably the most satisfying sights to be seen. While Martine and I could easily spend four hours tromping around the Arboretum, I could not imagine spending comparable time at any of the signature sights—except maybe Disneyland, if you are carrying an ample supply of gold bullion.

And only at the botanical gardens will you feel a sense of peace, surrounded by beauty and fresh air.

Trees at the Arboretum

Even if you don’t live in California, I urge you to check out the botanical gardens in your area. They are deserving of your support. And they are a great place to go with your family: Even the children I saw at the Arboretum appeared to be interested, even engaged.

Rain in the Offing

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Statue of a Frog at the LA Arboretum

This being Valentine’s Day and facing a prediction of several days of rain, I took Martine to the Los Angeles Arboretum in Arcadia. Our last visit there was in 2017. As I looked at the many turtles basking on the shore of Baldwin Lake and the statue of a frog in the Meadowbrook section of the park, the thought of rain was not far from my thoughts. To my mind, turtles and frogs were symbols of wet weather to come.

A less mythical harbinger of rain were the fluffy stratus clouds I noticed as I looked up. To me, that meant that I should curl up with a good book and enjoy the storm, which the local weathermen are already referring to as an “atmospheric river.”

Stratus Clouds Over the Arboretum

Because I am not so mobile as Martine is, at several points along the trail I picked out a shady bench and finished reading Peter Harris’s excellent edition of Zen Poems. Meanwhile, Martine walked around and explored the many sections of the Arboretum. This way, we both got the most out of our visit.

Rain does not deter me as it used to. Now I see a rainy winter as not only a protection against raging wildfires, but a brush that paints the surrounding hills and mountains green and dots them with lovely wildflowers. Otherwise, Southern California takes on a desertlike tinge of brown and gives us hot summers smelling of burnt dust.

“Leaves of Three …”

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Sign Warning of Poison Oak at Descanso Gardens

I remember the old Boy Scout saying, “Leaves of three, leave them be,” referring to how to recognize Poison Ivy and Poison Oak. As I sat on a bench overlooking the lake at Descanso Gardens, I noticed the sign, which was next to a thicket of highly suspicious plants, presumably poison oak.

It would have been tempting to touch one of the plants, but I have already been troubled by itchy legs attributable to my Type 2 Diabetes. So I just sat there for about half an hour waiting for Martine. She never came that way, so presumably she detoured onto another trail.

Descanso is riddled with trails going in all directions. That is one of the charms of the place, along with the large number of benches fronting scenic viewpoints. We eventually met at the Chinese garden, where I sat reading Zen Poems in a perfect location surrounded by camellias. Then we met yet again by a pond which used to have a dual fish fountain (see image below) years ago that we used to watch.

Fish Fountains at Descanso in 2007

Although the fish fountains are long gone, we still like to think about them. So it goes.

England in 1819

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English Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1790-1822)

In his sonnet entitled “England in 1819,” Percy Bysshe Shelley evinced as great a disgust of what was happening in England during the last days of George III as I do when I look at Trump’s America. Sadly, Shelley did not outlive George III by much: He died in an 1822 boating accident off the coast of Italy.

England in 1819

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King;
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring;
Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,
But leechlike to their fainting country cling
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.
A people starved and stabbed in th’ untilled field;
An army, whom liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
A senate, Time’s worst statute, unrepealed—
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

Meditation

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I am currently reading one of the Buddhist scriptures in its entirety, written in the Pali language as The Questions of King Milinda somewhere between 100 BCE and 200 CE. The book’s description of meditation caught my eye:

The king said: “What, Nâgasea, is the characteristic mark of meditation?”

“Being the leader, O king. All good qualities have meditation as their chief, they incline to it, lead up towards it, are as so many slopes up the side of the mountain of meditation.”

“Give me an illustration.”

“As all the rafters of the roof of a house, O king, go up to the apex, slope towards it, are joined on together at it, and the apex is acknowledged to be the top of all; so is the habit of meditation in its relation to other good qualities.”

“Give me a further illustration.”

“It is like a king, your Majesty, when he goes down to battle with his army in its fourfold array. The whole army—elephants, cavalry, war chariots, and bowmen—would have him as their chief, their lines would incline towards him, lead up to him, they would be so many mountain slopes, one above another, with him as their summit, round him they would all be ranged. And it has been said, O king, by the Blessed One: ‘Cultivate in yourself, O Bhikkus, the habit of meditation. He who is established therein knows things as they really are.’”

“Well put, Nâgasena!”

In the Land of Camellias

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Perfect Camellia Blossom at Descanso Gardens

Today was Super Bowl Sunday. Yesterday, I said to Martine, “Let’s go somewhere. Everyone will be watching football, so traffic will be light.” And it was—except for the fact that Caltrans shrank the I-405 from six lanes to three for about six miles.

We had lunch at Martine’s favorite Armenian rotisserie chicken restaurant, Sevan Chicken in Glendale. Then we drove to Descanso Gardens and spent three hours there wandering around.

February is not normally known for flowers, but that doesn’t apply to camellias. According to the garden’s website:

There are more than 3,000 kinds of camellias ranging in color, form, and size. Native to Asia, camellias are hardy and have a long blooming season. The two most common species at Descanso are Camellia sasanqua that bloom in fall/winter and Camellia japonica that bloom in winter/spring.

Martine walked around a lot more than I did, but I found several comfortable benches and read from Zen Poems, a collection edited by Peter Harris, in which I found this apt poem:

Camellia Blossoms

My ancient hut’s a ruin, half-hidden under moss—
Who’d have his carriage pause before my gate?
But my servant boy understands that I’ve beckoned an honoured guest
For he leaves unswept the camellia blossoms that fill the ground.

An interesting sidelight: Unlike most Americans, I am not a coffee drinker. My beverage of choice is tea. Interestingly, tea is made from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis, or Chinese camellia.

Winter Scene

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“Winter Scene” by Hendrik Meyer (Dutch, 1744-1793)

Here is one of my favorite paintings in the collection of Los Angeles’s Getty Center. I thought it would be my tribute to the icy winter storms of 2026 (even though I, in Southern California, dis not experience them). According to the Getty website:

Hendrik Meyer illustrated the subject of this watercolor–an idealized version of winter in a Dutch village–in great detail. A barren tree rendered in crisp lines and white highlights, dominates the foreground. The sky is filled with gray clouds, smoke pours from a cottage chimney, and a nearby stream is frozen over. A partially submerged rowboat is covered with snow and ice. Despite the frigid weather, people are outside, keeping warm with activities such as chopping and gathering wood, sledding, and ice-skating. Other elements in the scene also suggest movement: a windmill, chimney smoke, and birds circling or flying in formation. The landscape is filled with delicate textures: grass peeking through snow, a thatched roof, and skaters’ trails on ice.

Meyer’s figured landscapes were produced as finished works for sale. They revived a seventeenth-century tradition of such scenes, hearkening back to Dutch painters such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder, as well as calendar illustrations in medieval books of hours. Artists represented times of the year by showing people engaged in seasonal activities. Winter depictions often featured peasants felling trees, gathering wood, and ice-skating.

I have always loved Dutch painting of the 17th and 18th centuries. Martine and I visited the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam over twenty years ago featuring Dutch painters of the Golden Age. The exhibit, and the exhibition catalog, has had a major influence on my appreciation of Dutch art.

Introducing Lord Byron

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British Poet George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)

In that wonderful peak into the lives of two of England’s greatest poets we are indebted to Edward John Trelawny’s Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author for eyewitness accounts. Although Trelawny was not altogether truthful at times, what would we give to have similar accounts of Shakespeare, Montaigne, and Erasmus, however imperfect?

I forgot that great actors when off the stage are dull dogs; and that even the mighty Prospero, without his book and magic mantle, was but an ordinary mortal. At this juncture Shelley joined us; he never laid aside his book and magic mantle; he waved his wand, and Byron, after a faint show of defiance, stood mute; his quick perception of the truth of Shelley’s comments on his poem transfixed him, and Shelley’s earnestness and just criticism held him captive.

I was, however, struck with Byron’s mental vivacity and wonderful memory; he defended himself with a variety of illustrations, precedents, and apt quotations from modern authorities, disputing Shelley’s propositions, not by denying their truth as a whole, but in parts, and the subtle questions he put would have puzzled a less acute reasoner than the one he had to contend with. During this discussion I scanned the Pilgrim [Byron] closely.

In external appearance Byron realised that ideal standard with which imagination adorns genius. He was in the prime of life, thirty-four; of middle height, five feet eight and a half inches; regular features, without a stain or furrow on his pallid skin, his shoulders broad, chest open, body and limbs finely proportioned. His small highly-finished head and curly hair had an airy and graceful appearance from the massiveness and length of his throat: you saw his genius in his eyes and lips. In short, Nature could do little more than she had done for him, both in outward form and in the inward spirit she had given to animate it. But all these rare gifts to his jaundiced imagination only served to make his one personal defeat (lameness) the more apparent, as a flaw is magnified in a diamond, when polished; and he brooded over that blemish as sensitive minds will brood until they magnify a wart into a wen.

His lameness certainly helped to make him sceptical, cynical, and savage. There was no peculiarity in his dress, it was adapted to the climate: a tartan jacket braided—he said it was the Gordon pattern, and that his mother was of that race. A blue velvet cap with a gold band, and very loose nankeen trousers, strapped down so as to cover his feet; his throat was not bare, as represented in drawings.

Pong

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Sea Lions at Chace Park

It was a hot day, so I decided to take a book and lunch with me to Chace Park. When I arrived there, I was assailed by the pong of scores of sea lions resting on the docks of the Marina. It was decidedly a fishy aroma, and it was noisy with their incessant barking, so I cut my visit short.

As usual, I wondered: Were these seals or sea lions? A quick check of the Internet revealed that they were in fact sea lions. They hung out on the piers in large noisy groups, and they appeared to have small ears.

The park was also crowded with the usual suspects: arrogant crows, watchful sea gulls, and spindly squirrels. Other suspects included a large contingent of the homeless with loud radios. It was exactly conducive for reading. I read a couple of chapters of G. K. Chesterton’s Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens and made my way to my parked car to return home.

It was approximately 80° Fahrenheit (27° Celsius) at Chace Park; but the whole vibe was different from the summer, when the sea lions and homeless were less in evidence.