#Lorde Biography

[fictionadventurer]

The more I learn about Civil War politics, the more I'm convinced that Lincoln's most impressive and useful leadership trait was that he never let his pride get in the way of doing his job.

Other people in Lincoln's position would have come to Washington with something to prove. They'd have resented the insults and tried to disprove them. They'd have tried to seize power and credit, rejected help, spent a lot of time trying to reach a certain level of respect.

Lincoln's response to, "You're just a backwoods lawyer with no executive experience who makes too many dumb jokes," was pretty much always, "Yeah. And?" He had no interest in petty personal power plays. He had a country to run. There was a war on. It didn't matter what people thought of him so long as the job got done.

He was aware of his personal shortcomings and was always willing to accept advice and help from people who had more knowledge and experience in certain areas. He presided over a chaotic Cabinet full of abrasive personalities who thought they were better and smarter than him, but he kept working with them because they could get the job done. For example: Stanton was absolutely horrible to him when they were both working as lawyers. Just incredibly mean on a personal level. But when Lincoln needed someone to replace Cameron, he swallowed his pride and appointed Stanton as Secretary of War, where Stanton proceeded to be mean to everyone in the world, but he whipped that department into shape and kept it running efficiently through a very chaotic war. Pretty much no one except Lincoln would have been able to put up with that. He could put up with people who were personally difficult if they could do the job he needed them to do--which he was only able to do because his own ego didn't get in the way.

Lincoln's example is a prime demonstration of how humility isn't underrating yourself--it's being so secure in your own abilities and identity that you don't need to attack anyone or defend yourself to prove your worth. He knew his shortcomings, but he also knew his strengths. He was willing to give other people credit for successes and take blame upon himself for failures if it kept things running smoothly. He was secure enough in his own power that he could deal generously--but firmly--with people who tried to undermine him. In a city full of huge egos, in a profession that rewards puffed-up pride, that levelheaded humility is an extremely rare trait--which is what made it so impressive and effective.

#history is awesome #presidential talk #so i went to a teeny backwater thrift store today #their tiny history book section just happened to have an old lincoln biography #i opened to the page about the cabinet #which describes the situation like 'seward was calling himself premier and lording it over everyone' #'blair was causing problems everywhere' #'welles was insulting everyone in his diary and especially hated stanton grant and seward' #'and stanton hated absolutely everyone in the whole wide world' #and as i was reading this i was internally kicking my legs with excitement and cackling with glee because this is the good stuff #i don't know why but i love these horrible petty men #they're like a bunch of raccoons fighting over territory in a dumpster fire it's so great #i read the whole chapter right there in the store #and it impressed upon me yet again how impressive lincoln was to put up with all these guys #(the writer was a bit simplistic and made a lot of these guys come off as worse than they were) #(like he made seward sound like a complete incompetent when he was a pretty good secretary of state) #(he had some grandiose ideas but the man deserves a lot of credit for keeping england out of the war) #(but for a one-chapter summary of these guys it wasn't exactly wrong and it was a ton of fun) #i very much did not want another book especially another american history book #but it was only fifty cents and i have a pouch full of spare change #and the writer's style was so much fun that i decided to take the book with me #i don't plan to read the whole thing (i'm sick of lincoln bios) but it's fun to dip into for things like this #and i had to talk to you about it

[burningvelvet]

i thought nothing could be worse than the burning of byron’s memoirs but i stand corrected after reading jane austen’s poor wikipedia page

because at least we still have thousands of byron’s letters and journals which are mostly uncensored and which reveal his personality in all of it’s aspects, flaws and all, and everyone in his circle documented every detail of his life because he was a huge celebrity. his letters are considered some of the most brutally transparent ever written. i'm just using him as an example; him and austen shared the same publisher, lived during the same time, both very studied.

but with jane austen? we don’t get that honesty or that truly full picture. her relatives are the main sources of information, and all her surviving letters were carefully selected by them to portray her according to a specific agenda which would favor them, and so the true extent of her personality can never be as fully ascertained.

but at the same time... i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. she doesn't seem to have wanted attention for herself but to have likely preferred privacy, and her books have gotten more acclaim that she ever could have comprehended -- her books are the way we access her, her life, her thoughts and her voice. i think that about all writers, though i do love biographical criticism and biography.

some writers we know nothing about and some writers we know everything about -- at least they all live on in their writing, yes. but on the one hand, i'm grateful all writers live on in their work (as a fan of history and literature) and on the other hand, my unquenchable curiousity does get annoyed with the lack of available information. i would really love to read an extensive series of austen diaries. there is something sort of voyeuristic about this, i know, but there is also a love of preserving the niche parts of history, the parts that others overlook, the undervalued parts (letters, diaries, receipts, notes, scraps, drafts, juvenilia, etc.)

marcus aurelius wanted his diaries burned but perverse curiousity, likely driven by excessive admiration, led to their preservation, and thus we have his meditations which is now one of the most valued pieces of literature ever. so i think letters and diaries, and any piece of writing, does have immense value, even when it borders on a violation of privacy or has the potential to ruin a reputation.

i think this all simply ties in to the fact that i don't believe in book-burning in any form. embarrassing love letters from 1812 ARE important, depressing diary entries from 1818 ARE important. i could go on and on and on but the point is that i think all words and all history are imporant. in my classes we've discussed how archival technology is at the forefront of all human knowledge: what do we keep, what do we preserve, what do we spend more time on salvaging?

it just kills me that so much has been burned and destroyed, regardless of all the intense ethical discussions which could derive from all this, which could go on for a million years. my point is that it is tragic that so much of austen's work was destroyed, and it is tragic that byron's memoirs were destroyed even though we have so much of his work any way. any loss of writing is a loss to posterity.

#ramble #thoughts #jane austen #literature #english literature #romanticism #lord byron #letters #history #english lit #lit #writing #literary history #womens history #censorship #journals #biography #my analysis #my essays #my writing #pride and prejudice #ji

[john-laurens]

In the collection "Biographical and genealogical research on Francis J. Kinloch" from the South Carolina Historical Society archives, there was an 8-page mini biography of Francis Kinloch written by his granddaughter Sarah Lewis Lesesne (née Simons). Sarah was the daughter of Franics's daughter Anne Cleland Kinloch, who married Colonel Keating Lewis Simons. Included in this biography is a physical description of Francis Kinloch.

He is described as "tall & slender with delicate features, black hair & eyes, and a most agreeable expression of countenance." He also had "brilliant powers of conversation" and "was very fond of raillery."

#Francis Kinloch #I've always pictured him with brown/auburn hair so I must create a new mental image #As short as this little biography is #There are so many interesting tidbits #Like a little more info on him saving Lord North's son from drowning #Anne Cleland Kinloch #Anne Cleland Simons #Sarah Lewis Simons #Sarah Lewis Lesesne

[imswansong]

((Sorry sudden rant/analysis about Evilive episode 8, if you haven’t watched yet pls ignore))

//////

Episode 8 just showed how fucked up Doyoung’s sense of friendship/partnership/love is. Like at this point he obviously wants to work with Dongsoo as partners for a long time — he wouldn’t be spending so much time and money and effort on him if he wasn’t interested — but at the same time, he doesn’t want to be equals with Dongsoo. He wants him to remain submissive to him because he’s done with being the second in command for someone else.

But ironically, Doyoung sees so much potential and a twisted feeling of closeness in Dongsoo that he wants Dongsoo to be just like him. Now normal people would be happy with just working together, but no, Doyoung’s a creep and therefore he NEEDS this attorney to be as cruel and violent as him, because idk he’s weird like that lmao

And again, he’s sick of working FOR other people. So when Dongsoo keeps asking Doyoung to move the body, kill Moon Sangguk (or use a random guy to do it for them), do this do that; it pisses him off because he thinks 1) Dongsoo is trying to win against him, 2) Dongsoo is acting like those old farts who use their power to have other people do their dirty work, and 3) He’s still trying and/or pretending to be guiltless.

That’s why Doyoung got excited when Dongsoo suggested that they kill Moon, because he was hoping Dongsoo would be willing to kill the man himself and get blood on his hands. So when Dongsoo was like “let’s just pay someone else to do it!” Doyoung got ticked off and threw him in a box with Moon.

(Oh and he totally knew Dongsoo would be the one to survive that, that was the whole point of him setting all that up)

What I’m trying to say is Doyoung’s desire to make Dongsoo just like him actually contradicts his desire to keep Dongsoo beneath him, because now that Dongsoo’s the same as him in terms of viciousness, what’s stopping him from going against Doyoung?

#icb my first post about evilive is a long ass analysis on two gay criminals…. anyway #all the shipping aside i think evilive is a really really good drama #and a proper corruption arc??? lord #evilive #biography of a villain #seo do young #han dong soo #their names are too similar #they shouldve made hakyun’s name han heesoo just like they originally intended #also is that how you romanize moon sang guk’s name? i never read the eng subs so idk

[kelvingemstone]

rip lord byron you'd have loved roman roy

#lord byron #roman roy #succession #reading childe harold and a biography and girl... #hbo succession

[alexanderpearce]

house of reps at 25 years old is kind of fucking insane though

#lord help me im having such a good time with this keating biography #shut up ulrike #paul keating #political yaoi tag

[marryat92]

I have included Frederick Marryat, the most famous of naval novelists, not merely because he spent the first few years of his life afloat under Cochrane's command in the Impérieuse; but because the year 1829 saw the publication of his first novel, Frank Mildmay, and he was probably the best recruiting agent the Royal Navy ever had. His career, of which little seems to be known to the general public, was also full of incident.

— Captain Taprell Dorling, in the preface to his book Men o' War (1929), which contains short biographies of John Jervis (Earl of St. Vincent), Lord Thomas Cochrane, Frederick Marryat, John Fisher, and Lord Charles Beresford. The author's favourite Royal Navy men, in other words.

#frederick marryat #captain marryat #age of sail #royal navy #naval history #men o' war #biography #lord thomas cochrane #taprell dorling

[theinfinitedivides]

hold tf on this f*cker can wear suits????? serve in something other than that jacket and those trousers/the brief gym look we got????? what is his f*cking excuse for the so-called capsule wardrobe when we are looking at his wardrobe as we speak and none of it is capsule sized

#tv: biography of a villain #biography of a villain #evilive #evillive #shin ha kyun #shin hakyun #kim young kwang #kdrama #local gay watches k-dramas.txt #he really said seduce that old man with the bomber jacket and then (hopefully) show him the tiny waist with the threepiece #why are gays so over the top over nothing Lord

[saintacephale]

Lord Byron about himself, from Select Poems

#mine #anger’s my meat — i sup upon myself #lord byron #george gordon byron #baron byron #selected poems #don juan #romanticism #to keep #romantic age #percy bysshe shelley #percy shelley #mary shelley #romantic period #byronic #literature #biography #quotes #q

[amarrymeinbostonwriter]

Wow. Sometimes I'm very lucky and my bipolar doesn't always affect me much. But no such luck lately. I'm worried that I might have to retake my modern lit course because I was so late with many of my assignments. I've been mentally messed up more or less with a mixed mood episode since last September. I'm currently on the line of passing and not passing the class (granted there are a few ungraded assignments, including my final so it's still possible that I'm overreacting). I'm usually a good student too so it's a point of pride for me. I went from the honor roll to this all due to me fighting with an illness... :/ (It is my fault for not managing things better so I'm not looking for pity here- just talking).

I cannot imagine how horrible this disorder is for people who didn't have the option of medication (I am medicated, believe it or not). I think about that about that a lot since I study history and look into many writer's and artist's biographies in my spare time. I feel very bad for them since they basically had to live with this disorder without the fixes I have simply because I was born late enough for treatments to exist.

Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath both haunt me. Other people too. Yes, Lord Byron was extremely shocking but consider- we don't actually know what he would have been like if he could have been treated. He wouldn't have died at 36, I'm almost certain of that. I am highly aware of what this disorder has done to people before me. It doesn't make it better. But I keep looking back any way, to see that many of them did incredible things, in spite of it all.

I just keep thinking that if they could do so much without any treatment- that I should be able to function with treatment??? I know: don't compare yourself to other people but I'm desperate to know that I can be successful even with this illness. That it's not going to force me to leave school (the one thing I have been historically good at) and waste my life toiling away for nothing.

So if it seems as if I have been hitting my head against something lately, you aren't wrong. The fall is not generally my friend, pretty as the leaves are. I have not been having a good time of it but we must go on any way because what other option is there? None, I tell you.

#leaves pretty brain shitty has been my fall for the last few years since 2018 at least... #consistently fall has been bad for my cycle though I like that time of year normally #granted a lot of things kept happening every fall since 2018 too #bipolar disorder #actually bipolar #I probably am a closet perfectionist in some cases #I am exhausted thanks for asking! #and yes for a few semesters I was an honor roll student in my grad school- not any more though LOL #seriously I'm going into debt for this degree and uh that promise to waive our debt never came to light so I'm very fucked rn #I have to finish this degree so I can work off my debt and build a good reputation for myself #I'm honestly afraid my illness might take away my ability to have a career at all; I'm desperate for a living wage! #it's not good #but this could be anxiety talking tbh #for real I'm amazed that like Virginia Woolf and others were able to do as much as they did in their lives #because without my medication I'd probably be useless??? Mania is not fun 10/10 would NOT suggest #I actually pity Lord Byron after reading his biography; he just seems like if mania was a person and um it explains his behavior completely #do you ever look back at other peoples' lives and see pieces of yourself in them and then feel really bad for them? cuz I do all the time #mychatter #I'm stubborn in that I refuse to quit school since I am aware that my family needs to know I can do this #please don't take this personally this is my problem and a pointless rant probably

[vintonharper]

Gotta get them started early. Get you a kindergarten teacher like me.

#tolkien #jrrtolkien #john ronald's dragons #tolkion biography #kindergarten #kindergarten books #lord of the rings #no lie it's one of their faves #and yes that's a narnia picture book too #surprise i'm a real person

[queerstuffonscreen]

Il signore delle formiche (Lord of the Ants) (2022)

134 min.

Country: Italy

Genre: History, Biography, Drama

Language: Italian (stream with English subtitles)

Based on true events of the late 60s in Italy, poet, playwright and myrmecologist Aldo Braibanti is prosecuted and sentenced to prison for the love he shares with his barely-of-age pupil and friend, Ettore. Amidst a chorus of voices of accusers, supporters and a largely hypocritical public, a single committed journalist takes on the task of piecing together the truth, between secrecy and desire, facing suspicion and censorship in the process.

Watch or rent when available

#Il signore delle formiche #Lord of the Ants #History #Biography #Drama #G #gay #drama #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtq films #lgbtq movies #queer movies #queer films #gay movies #gay films

[burningvelvet]

Read good portions of The Art of the Brontës by Christine Alexander (https://archive.org/details/artofbrontes0000alex) and The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects by Deborah Lutz https://archive.org/details/brontcabinetthre0000lutz.

I highly recommend both. They're very well-written books which explore the Brontës through the lens of material culture, which I love. Both novels are essentially collective biographies inspired by and centered around the personal artifacts of the Brontës, which may sound like a limited method of exploration, but by no means is! They contain a wealth of information which I feel has expanded my knowledge bank as a relative beginner to Brontë biography.

#book reviews #book review #book recommendations #the brontes #the brontë sisters #the bronte sisters #emily bronte #charlotte bronte #anne bronte #branwell bronte #fanart #19th century #victorian #lord byron #byronic hero #byronic heroes #book recs #literature #english literature #biographies

[overly-specific-byron-memes]

#lord byron #not a meme #dare I tag this #dark academia #this is so staged my life is not aesthetic #but look I have the 3-volume Marchand biography!

[silmarillionwritersguild-art]

This unusual and delightfully whimsical depiction of Ulmo is by @chechula.

In this first part of Ulmo's character biography, @anerea-lantiria dives into his nature, his realm, and his relationship with the other Ainur, as well as the role that the sea took in Tolkien's own imagination.

Published by the @silmarillionwritersguild.

#silmarillion writers guild #swg art #swg #tolkien fanart #tolkien fandom #tolkien fanworks #silmarillion fanart #character bio #character biography #tolkien meta #silmarillion meta #artists on tumblr #chechula #ulmo #valar #lord of waters #anerea

[werewolfetone]

Right I'm not sure which two Macbeth paintings by Fuseli this is referring to as he did more than two of them but here's what came up when I searched "Henry Fuseli Macbeth paintings" and woww yeah

#lord edward fitzgerald #william macneven #united irishmen #1798 rebellion #books #biography #s tillyard #henry fuseli #undescribed #jory.txt