Geoffrey Madan (1895–1947)

These are not aphorisms, but a selection from Geoffrey Madan's notebooks. Effectively, the type of reading is similar and so is my frustration, because what you get is page upon page of clever whitticisms which you cannot read at a stretch, and no matter how you dose them you won't be able to remember. The only thing you could do is copy some into your own scrapbook. Some of the notes in this collection are so dated that it requires a great deal of erudition or a bibliographic dictionary to understand the reference. The notes are categorized and one of the most interesting categories was called "viniana" consisting of a small collection of notes on (mainly port) wine. Several sections of the book comprised of notes taken down from French books (in French) .… (mais)