H.G. Wells, The Autocracy of Mr. Parham (Garden City: Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., 1930), p. 35:
There was something in this experience that reminded Mr. Parham of Horace and the naughtier side of the Latin poets, and anything that reminded him of Horace and the naughtier side of the Latin poets could not, he felt, be altogether vulgar or bad.
Goethe, Faust 566-569 (tr. Walter Kaufman):
Parchment—is that the sacred fount
From which you drink to still your thirst forever?
If your refreshment does not mount
From your own soul, you gain it never.
Das Pergament, ist das der heil'ge Bronnen,
Woraus ein Trunk den Durst auf ewig stillt?
Erquickung hast du nicht gewonnen,
Wenn sie dir nicht aus eigner Seele quillt.
John Stuart Blackie, Saintship, from The Day-Book of John Stuart Blackie (London: Grant Richards, 1902), p. 148:
If to unmake the work so grandly made
By God, to turn self-torture to a trade,
Be saintship; to hate all things fair and fine,
And, with my back turned to the bright sunshine,
To mope in mouldy cell or grimy shrine;
To hear with horror when a tuneful fiddle
Calls nimble legs to trip it down the middle;
To count it sin to kiss a pretty maid
When eyes are blind, or neath a leafy shade;
To put peas in my shoes and drink no wine,
And teach my stomach to despise my dinner;
If to such saintship your chaste heart incline,
Be you the saint, and let me be the sinner.
Man Was Never Made for Books John Stuart Blackie (1809-1895), Gaudeamus!, from his Musa Burschicosa: A Book of Songs for Students and University Men (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1869), pp. 100-103:
To be sung at the close of the Winter Session.
AIR—'Gaudeamus igitur!'
'The end of woman or of man, I think,
Is not a book.'—MRS. BROWNING.
Gaudeamus, Burschen brave,
Tune your throats and blithely sing!
Where the hedge is greenly sprouting,
Where the angler goes a-trouting,
Walk we forth and greet the Spring!
Man was never made for books;
Books may not give law to him:
Not Agamemnon, nor old Homer,
Nor Ulysses, that wise roamer,
Made their eyes with reading dim.
Happy birds, that to the sky
Rise, and sing in tuneful bands,
While we sit in dingy places,
Polishing the rusted graces
Of dead men in distant lands!
Why should I disturb the dead?
Let the slain lie where he fell!
Why revive forgotten squabbles?
Feuds of Greek and Roman rabbles
From the mouldy record spell?
Shake the dust out from your ears;
Hear the vernal chorus swell!
Thrush and blackbird, lark and swallow,
While you ponder o'er the tallow
That from last night's candle fell!
What's the fruit of learned pains?
Value stock, and you will find
Thorny problem, prosy lecture,
Subtle substanceless conjecture,
Swelling systems big with wind!
Men from thistles cull no grapes,
Reap no health from bookish toil;
Blinking eyes, and bad digestion,
Sleepless nights and brain-congestion,
That's the fruit of midnight oil!
Fare-ye-well, ye old grey walls,
Inky benches, dusty chairs,
Learnèd tutors, grave professors,
Chancellor, rector, and assessors,
You are named in all my prayers!
Fare-ye-well, old Attic plays,
Whose cross-readings tortured me,
Grindings, crammings, preparations,
Saturday examinations,
When the student should be free!
Vivat home, and home's dear haunts,
Wooded walk and flowery dell!
Welcome father, sister, mother,
Everything that makes no bother,
And the girl that loves me well!
Vivat Highland glen and ben,
Sweeping breeze and sunny sky,
Rapid torrent grandly swirling,
Deep broad current darkly curling,
Where the big trout gulps the fly!
Vivat all that frees the soul
From the cumbrous chains of art,
All the living founts of knowledge
Which no books at school or college
Ever gave to thirsting heart!
Pereat who sneaks to-day
In dull rooms and sunless nooks!
Who, devoid of rummelgumption,
Courts dyspepsy and consumption,
Poring over bloodless books!
You have heard my song, brave boys!
Let no pedants clip your wing;
While green life is all before us,
March we forth and swell the chorus
Of blithe birds that greet the Spring!
"A world of disorderly notions, picked out of his books, crowded into his imagination" (Clark: I, 1, p. 3)
No comments:
Post a Comment