3 ms·

The letter has nothing to do with quarantine at all, it's just a series of one liner bits of advice of the calibre you find on those one page per day calenders.

kjakm 6y ago
While I agree the title is complete clickbait (this has nothing to do with quarantine - it's a letter about depression) dismissing the letter as "advice of the calibre you find on those one page per day calenders" is disingenuous. I found it quite interesting that most (not all) of the tips for coping with depression are exactly what people are told today, almost 200 years later.
- blackhaz 6y ago
  Drink loads of wine? :-)
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    While no longer advertised as such, alcohol is still a common pasttime ingrained in a lot of cultures. In informal advertising (e.g. Reddit memes), weed is a recurring theme and ingrained in a lot of people's daily routines. And on HN, articles and comments about how great psychedelics are make a regular appearance.
pryce 6y ago
I found the letter contents unremarkable, and article that precedes the letter insipid and grating. Other readers rightly point out that the advice is for depression, and the supposed link to "quarantine" is disingenuous. More interesting than the content of the letter (to me) are the ways it seems to have been altered or even censored in different versions, for example I see the version published by the Independent (ie) in 2013 [1] doesn't mention drink "as much wine as you dare". When we publish advice like this 200 years later, are we interested in providing helpful advice to modern readers, or are we trying to impart an accurate understanding of what the advice of that age actually was? With trigger-happy editing, we achieve neither. [1] https://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/health/letter-from-rev-sydney-smith-to-lady-georgiana-cavendish-daughter-of-the-duke-of-devonshire-29637570.html https://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/health/letter-from-rev-...

kjakm 6y ago

While I agree the title is complete clickbait (this has nothing to do with quarantine - it's a letter about depression) dismissing the letter as "advice of the calibre you find on those one page per day calenders" is disingenuous. I found it quite interesting that most (not all) of the tips for coping with depression are exactly what people are told today, almost 200 years later.

blackhaz 6y ago
Drink loads of wine? :-)
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  While no longer advertised as such, alcohol is still a common pasttime ingrained in a lot of cultures. In informal advertising (e.g. Reddit memes), weed is a recurring theme and ingrained in a lot of people's daily routines. And on HN, articles and comments about how great psychedelics are make a regular appearance.

pryce 6y ago

I found the letter contents unremarkable, and article that precedes the letter insipid and grating. Other readers rightly point out that the advice is for depression, and the supposed link to "quarantine" is disingenuous. More interesting than the content of the letter (to me) are the ways it seems to have been altered or even censored in different versions, for example I see the version published by the Independent (ie) in 2013 [1] doesn't mention drink "as much wine as you dare". When we publish advice like this 200 years later, are we interested in providing helpful advice to modern readers, or are we trying to impart an accurate understanding of what the advice of that age actually was? With trigger-happy editing, we achieve neither. [1] https://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/health/letter-from-rev-sydney-smith-to-lady-georgiana-cavendish-daughter-of-the-duke-of-devonshire-29637570.html https://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/health/letter-from-rev-...