Roget, Peter Mark

‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.’ You see, even Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a bit of a list-maker. Of course, our love affair with lists goes back a lot further than her. Think of the first Book of Chronicles in the Old Testament: ‘And Nahshon begat Salma, and Salma begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse . . .’ And so the begetting goes on and on. Surely, when Moses came down from the mountain top with the Ten Commandments he was bringing us an important early example of a not-to-do list.