Monday, September 20, 2010

 

On the Road

Grant Showerman, Horace and His Influence (Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1922), p. 164 (on Horace, Odes 2.6):
And what numbers of men have taken to their hearts from the same ode the famous
Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes
Angulus ridet,—

Yonder little nook of earth
Beyond all others smiles on me,—
and expressed through its perfect phrase the love they bear their own beloved nook of earth. "Happy Horace!" writes Sainte-Beuve on the margin of his edition, "what a fortune has been his! Why, because he once expressed in a few charming verses his fondness for the life of the country and described his favorite corner of earth, the lines composed for his own pleasure and for the friend to whom he addressed them have laid hold on the memory of all men and have become so firmly lodged there that one can conceive no others, and finds only those when he feels the need of praising his own beloved retreat!"
My favorite corner of earth is in Maine, and I will be on the road for the next couple of weeks, on a trip to that spot. Blogging will be light, as I expect my access to the Internet to be limited, and I will have only a few of my books with me (Horace's Odes among those few).

Asher Brown Durand (1796-1886), Interior of a Wood



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