A Dance to the Music of Time, by Nicolas Poussin, c. 1635.

A Dance to the Music of Time, by Nicolas Poussin, c. 1635. Wallace Collection, London.

Time

Volume VII, Number 4 | fall 2014

Miscellany

In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote, “Four o’ the clock it was, to make a guess; / Eleven foot long, or little more or less, / My shadow was, as at that time and place, / Measuring feet by taking in this case / My height as six.”

We wish away whole years, and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it.

—Joseph Addison, 1711