Birthday-April 25

Happy Birthday!
April 25

Born on April 25

Walter de la Mare
Poet
4-25-1873
Guglielmo Marconi
Inventor
4-25-1874
Wolfgang Pauli
Nobel Physicist
4-25-1900
Ella Fitzgerald
Singer
4-25-1917
Cy Trombly
Artist
4-25-1928
Al Picino
Actor
4-25-1940

Events on April 25

April 25, 1719: Daniel Defoe
publishes "Robinson Crusoe",
first English novel
April 25, 1886: Sigmund Freud
opens psychiatric office
at Rathausstrasse 7, Vienna
April 25, 1953: Watson & Crick
publishes DNA double-helix
structure in "Nature"

April 25 Postmarks on Postage Stamps

April 25, 1912: Great Britain 151
King George V, Half-Penny on
Titanic Postcard

April 25, 1945: U.S. 928
United Nations Opens in San Francisco
First Day Cover
April 25, 1962:
U.S. 1196 Seattle World's Fair
First Day Cover

April 25: Journal Writings on this Date

Goethe
(1749-1832) Sicily, April 25, 1787:
At sunrise we were at last permitted to walk down the hill, and at every step the
scenery became more picturesque. Convinced that he was only serving our best
interests, the little man led us through the lush vegetation without stopping once,
though we passed thousands of singular views, any one of which would have made
a subject for an idyllic picture. The ground beneath our feet undulated like waves
over the hidden ruins... The Temple of Juno stands on a foundation of weathered
rock. From this point the city wall ran due east along the edge of a limestone hill
which falls in precipices to the shore plain. The sea which once washed the base
of these cliffs must have receded to its present shoreline in a fairly remote age.
The city walls were party built of quarried stone & party hewn out of solid rock.
Behind the walls rose the temple. It is easy to imagine what a stupendous sight the
rising tiers of Girgenti must have looked from the sea... The Temple of Aesculapius,
standing in the shade of a lovely carob tree and almost walled in by some kind of
small farm buildings, makes a pleasant picture. Last we climbed down to the Tomb
of Theron and felt happy to be standing in the presence of a monument we had seen
in so many reproductions. It provides the foreground to an extraordinary vista.
— Italian Journey (1786-1788), pp. 260-262

Eugène Delacroix
(1798-1863)
Paris, April 25, 1847:
[Léon] Riesener says a thing that is very precise concerning the exaggeraed
enthusiasm that the paintings of Michelangelo can inspire. I was speaking to him
of what Corot had told me of the prodigious superiority of those works. Riesener
very well says that the gigantic, the swollen quality, and even the monotony that
such objects contain, necessarily crush what one sets beside them. The antique,
when set beside Indian or Byzantine idols, appear shrunken, materialistic; how
much more so is this the case with paintings like those of the Lesueur type, and
even those of the Paul Veronese type. He is right in claiming that that should not
trouble us, and that each thing in its place is right.
Paris, April 25, 1857:
"Jacob divided into two troops his servitors, his sheep, his oxen and his camels.
Thirty camels with their young were part of the presents sent to his brother [Esau]
in the hope of softening his heart." (Genesis XXXII)
[Delacroix paints "Jacob Wrestling the Angel" at Saint-Sulpice, 1856-1861]
— Journal, 4-25-1847, pp. 161-162; 4-25-1857, p. 582

Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862) Concord, Massachusetts, April 25, 1841:
A momentous silence reigns always in the woods, and their meaning seems just
ripening into expression. But alas! they make no haste. The rush sparrow, Nature's
minstrel of serene hours, sings of an immense leisure and duration. When I hear a
robin sing at sunset, I cannot help contrasting the equanimity of Nature with the
bustle and impatience of man... for Nature is always silent and unpretending as at
the break of day. She but rubs her eyelids... All the discoveries of science are
equally true in their deepest recesses; nature there, too, obeys the same laws.
— Journal (1841), pp. 252-253

Concord, Massachusetts, April 25, 1852:
The frogs peep at midday. The bees are on pistillate flowers of the early willows,—
the honey-bee, a smaller, fly-like bee with very transparent wings and bright-yellow
marks on the abdomen, and also a still smaller bee, more like the honey-bee. They all
hum like summer. The water in the meadow beyond Hosmer's is still and transparent,
and I hear the more stertorous sound or croak of frogs from it, such as you associate
with sunny, warmer, calm, placid spring weather. The tortoises are out sunning...
Yarrow is started. Saw the first kingfisher, and heard his most unmusical note...
What different tints of blue in the same sky! It requires to be parted by white clouds
that the delicacy & depth of each part may appear. Beyond a narrow wisp or feather
of mist, how different the sky! Sometimes it is full of light, especially toward the
horizon. The sky is never seen to be of so deep and delicate a blue as when it is
seen between downy clouds. — Journal (1852), pp. 464-468

April 25: Birth Flower, Birthstone, Zodiac Sign

Birth Flower: Daisy
Innocence, loyal love, purity,
beauty, keeper of secrets

Birthstone: Diamond
Love, strength, courage,
Imagination & illumination

Zodiac Sign: Taurus, the Bull
Patience, persistence, reliable,
hard work, strength, tenacity

Goethe (1749-1832)	Sicily, April 25, 1787: At sunrise we were at last permitted to walk down the hill, and at every step the scenery became more picturesque. Convinced that he was only serving our best interests, the little man led us through the lush vegetation without stopping once, though we passed thousands of singular views, any one of which would have made a subject for an idyllic picture. The ground beneath our feet undulated like waves over the hidden ruins... The Temple of Juno stands on a foundation of weathered rock. From this point the city wall ran due east along the edge of a limestone hill which falls in precipices to the shore plain. The sea which once washed the base of these cliffs must have receded to its present shoreline in a fairly remote age. The city walls were party built of quarried stone & party hewn out of solid rock. Behind the walls rose the temple. It is easy to imagine what a stupendous sight the rising tiers of Girgenti must have looked from the sea... The Temple of Aesculapius, standing in the shade of a lovely carob tree and almost walled in by some kind of small farm buildings, makes a pleasant picture. Last we climbed down to the Tomb of Theron and felt happy to be standing in the presence of a monument we had seen in so many reproductions. It provides the foreground to an extraordinary vista. — Italian Journey (1786-1788), pp. 260-262
Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)	Paris, April 25, 1847: [Léon] Riesener says a thing that is very precise concerning the exaggeraed enthusiasm that the paintings of Michelangelo can inspire. I was speaking to him of what Corot had told me of the prodigious superiority of those works. Riesener very well says that the gigantic, the swollen quality, and even the monotony that such objects contain, necessarily crush what one sets beside them. The antique, when set beside Indian or Byzantine idols, appear shrunken, materialistic; how much more so is this the case with paintings like those of the Lesueur type, and even those of the Paul Veronese type. He is right in claiming that that should not trouble us, and that each thing in its place is right. Paris, April 25, 1857: "Jacob divided into two troops his servitors, his sheep, his oxen and his camels. Thirty camels with their young were part of the presents sent to his brother [Esau] in the hope of softening his heart." (Genesis XXXII) [Delacroix paints "Jacob Wrestling the Angel" at Saint-Sulpice, 1856-1861] — Journal, 4-25-1847, pp. 161-162; 4-25-1857, p. 582
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)	Concord, Massachusetts, April 25, 1841: A momentous silence reigns always in the woods, and their meaning seems just ripening into expression. But alas! they make no haste. The rush sparrow, Nature's minstrel of serene hours, sings of an immense leisure and duration. When I hear a robin sing at sunset, I cannot help contrasting the equanimity of Nature with the bustle and impatience of man... for Nature is always silent and unpretending as at the break of day. She but rubs her eyelids... All the discoveries of science are equally true in their deepest recesses; nature there, too, obeys the same laws. — Journal (1841), pp. 252-253 Concord, Massachusetts, April 25, 1852: The frogs peep at midday. The bees are on pistillate flowers of the early willows,— the honey-bee, a smaller, fly-like bee with very transparent wings and bright-yellow marks on the abdomen, and also a still smaller bee, more like the honey-bee. They all hum like summer. The water in the meadow beyond Hosmer's is still and transparent, and I hear the more stertorous sound or croak of frogs from it, such as you associate with sunny, warmer, calm, placid spring weather. The tortoises are out sunning... Yarrow is started. Saw the first kingfisher, and heard his most unmusical note... What different tints of blue in the same sky! It requires to be parted by white clouds that the delicacy & depth of each part may appear. Beyond a narrow wisp or feather of mist, how different the sky! Sometimes it is full of light, especially toward the horizon. The sky is never seen to be of so deep and delicate a blue as when it is seen between downy clouds. — Journal (1852), pp. 464-468