A cultural guide to new year’s resolutions
Lots of writers and fictional characters make them. Few keep them
“Every man hath two birth-days,” proclaimed Charles Lamb, a Romantic essayist, in 1821: his personal one and New Year’s Day. “It is that from which all date their time,” Lamb wrote, “and count upon what is left.” The turn of the year was an occasion to “encounter pell-mell with past disappointments”. But it was also a prompt to look ahead to the years that remained to him, which seemed to pass ever more quickly.
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This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “A short guide to resolutions”
From the January 6th 2024 edition
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