Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The danger of mixing moral philosophy with coffee: Pride

From How I Found Livingstone, by Sir Henry M. Stanley:

We drew our canoe ashore here, and, on a limited area of clean sand, Ferajji, our rough-and-ready cook, lit his fire, and manufactured for us a supply of most delicious Mocha coffee. Despite the dangers which still beset us, we [presumably, Stanley and Livingstone] were quite happy, and seasoned our meal with a little moral philosophy, which lifted us unconsciously into infinitely superior beings to the pagans by whom we were surrounded—upon whom we now looked down, under the influence of Mocha coffee and moral philosophy, with calm contempt, not unmixed with a certain amount of compassion.

2 comments:

  1. That would explain more than a few problems with (us) lawyers....

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  2. "...with calm contempt, not unmixed with a certain amount of compassion."

    That's how Barack Obama sees me...however, that is also how I view him. Is this tolerance?

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