The Wine Commonsewer

Hamilton Mabie on the Coming New Year

New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe on Thanksgiving

The king and high priest of all the festivals was the autumn Thanksgiving. When the apples were all gathered and the cider was all made, and the yellow pumpkins were rolled in from many a hill in billows of gold, and the corn was husked, and the labors of the season were done, and the warm, late days of Indian Summer came in, dreamy, and calm, and still, with just enough frost to crisp the ground of a morning, but with warm traces of benignant, sunny hours at noon, there came over the community a sort of genial repose of spirit - a sense of something accomplished.

Honest Abe on Thanksgiving

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

Thoreau on Fear of the Dark

I have heard of many going astray even in the village streets, when the darkness was so thick you could cut it with a knife, as the saying goes….

Leave Your Body At The Door

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

There's no escape from death's embrace, though you lead it on a merry chase.—The Book of Counted Sorrows

This is a particularly creative mash up of scenes from the Corpse Bride and Nightmare Before Christmas.

Video here.

Wayne had this played at his funeral.

As Always,

TWC

From The Book of Counted Sorrows

Winter that year was strange and gray. The damp wind smelled of Apocalypse, and morning skies had a peculiar way of slipping cat-quick into midnight.

Adam Smith on Government Spending & Regulation of the Private Sector

It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense. ..…They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs.

Gerald Barzan on Taxation Without Representation

Taxation WITH representation ain't so hot either.

Paying The Freight: H L Mencken From 1937

Soon or late the money to pay the State’s mounting bills will have to be found, and there is only one place to look for it. That is in the pockets of persons who earn the communal income by doing some sort of useful work. Politicians never earn it, and neither do the uplifters. It must always come, in the last analysis, from men who go to work in the morning and labor hard all day.

Will Rogers on Taxes

The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.