(things which forever delight: remembering that nelson sometimes referred to the junior officers under his command as “the children”)
Because I feel morally obliged to provide supporting documentation:
“All my children are well, except one, young Andrews. He came out in the Unicorn: do you remember him? On the 11th of November last, he was forced by Mr. Stainsbury to fight a duel…” – Letter of 20 February 1785 (in Nicolas, Dispatches and Letters, 124-5)
Andrews is obviously a mid, but he’s at least 18, and I’m fairly sure I’ve seen “the children” extended to include lieutenants. Troublingly charming.
my current project is consolidating my birding life list so it doesn’t live half in one old field guide and half in the back of various sketchbooks, and oh my god little 12-year-old mica’s annotations were so cute.
I would use the margins of the guide to include field notes on the behavior of the bird I’d spotted, so I’ve got all this misspelled marginalia in my blocky kid handwriting. Things like “mateing pair” or “whoel flock mobbing a great horned owl!!” or “she’s nesting in the same spot as last year :D” or, my favorite, where I indignantly crossed out the “sparrow” in the common names of the two invasive european finches in north america and wrote in “finch”
Franklin’s camp at the mouth of the Coppermine River by George Back. Back was an accomplished artist who created several images of the arctic expeditions he participated in.
A Pretty Taste for Paradox 