1800

Not sure where this will fit in or if it does.  Just consider it part of  a character sketch of Elijah in Moby Dick.

Elijah:
Truth's a dog must take to kennel or cage.
As I am a wise fool listen to my rage:

Have more than thou showest,
Speakless than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,
Ride more than thou goest,
Learn more than thou trowest,
Set less than thou throwest;
Leave the drink thy whore,
And keep in - a - door,
And thou shall have more
Than two tens in a score.*



Quote from the Book: Elijah rantings annoys Ishmael terribly.  He wants to shut Elijah's pie-hole, instead of listening to the airing of cheesy laundry.

"This was strangely heightened at times by the ragged Elijah's diabolical incoherences uninvitedly recurring to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before conceived of.   But Poorly could I withstand them, much as in other moods I was almost ready to smile at the solemn whimsicalities of the that outlandish prophet of the wharves." (Melville 118)

I began writing so that I could be less like Elijah in Moby Dick; I would often tell tale after tale to my wife and she would begin to have an exhausted look from all of the stories told.  I find that writing has been a cure to my continuous stream of wise/foolish musings.

*Fool in King Lear by William Shakespeare Act I Scene IV (Lines 130-140).