#the defense

[charles-leclerc-official]

I'm sorry the only drivers who did anything impressive this race were in red

[nonpsychotic]

[finnbooks]

"Lushins Verteidigung" / "The Defense" by Vladimir Nabokov

Even though the novel has an interesting theme - the rise and fall of a young chess player - it is written without suspense. There awaits no grand final. The language has it's strengths: chess and it's ways are well used to describe the psyche of Lushin, the main character. But I think Nabokov is not the kind of storyteller I enjoy.

05/10

[data2364]

Andrew Robinson  as Frank Hayes 1991 in  Matlock "The Defense"

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0643998/

[rickeajackson]

[fieriframes]

[caption: Galtsev, give me the defense line map.]

[aswithasunbeam]

I send you by post the title page, table of contents, and one of the pieces, Curtius, lest it should not have come to you otherwise. It is evidently written by Hamilton, giving a first and general view of the subject that the public mind might be kept a little in check till he could resume the subject more at large, from the beginning, under his second signature of Camillus. The piece called ‘the Features of the treaty’ I do not send because you have seen it in the newspapers. It is said to be written by Coxe, but I should rather suspect by Beckley. The antidote is certainly not strong enough for the poison of Curtius. If I had not been informed the present came from Beckly, I should have suspected it from Jay or Hamilton. I gave a copy or two by way of experiment to honest sound hearted men of common understanding, and they were not able to parry the sophistry of Curtius. I have ceased therefore to give them. Hamilton is really a colossus to the antirepublican party. Without numbers, he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile, where they might be finished; but too much security on the Republican part, will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only midling performances to oppose to him. In truth, when he comes forward, there is nobody but yourself who can meet him. His adversaries having begun the attack, he has the advantage of answering them, and remains unanswered himself. A solid reply might yet completely demolish what was too feebly attacked, and has gathered strength from the weakness of the attack.

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 21 September 1795

Jefferson is discussing the various essays that were published during the debate over the Jay Treaty in mid-1795. The funny thing about this letter, where Jefferson famously calls Hamilton “a host within himself,” is that the Curtius essays he’s so concerned about were actually written by Noah Webster and James Kent, not Hamilton. (Introductory Note: The Defense No. 1, 22 July 1795).

Hamilton was far from slacking in his writing at this time, however. He and Rufus King were hard at work on the Camillus series, which totaled thirty-eight essays (characteristically, Hamilton authored all but ten himself, along with four other essays on the topic separate from this series). In fact, when Thomas Greenleaf, editor of the Argus, which had been publishing the essays for Hamilton and King, reduced their columns per week from between eight and twelve to only six, Hamilton angrily pulled the rest of the series from that paper and switched to publishing with the New York Herald. (See Hamilton to Thomas Greenleaf, 6 November 1795).