Laudator Temporis Acti

Thomas Campbell, letter to his cousin (January 9, 1824):

I love you too much, my dear Gray, not to accept a present; but I cannot be a beggar of presents; and I know you have too much delicacy to let me be so. Your procuring these for me is a real favor; for every second time that I buy a kit of herrings in London, I am cheated with a bad article; and eating a pickled herring, like reading Homer, at breakfast time, is become by long habit a thing necessary to my existence.

Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Notas, 210 (tr. Michael Hendry):

The reading of Homer every morning, with the serenity, the tranquillity, the deep sensation of moral and physical well-being which it instills in us, is the best provision to endure the vulgarities of the day.

La lectura matutina de Homero, con la serenidad, el sosiego, la honda sensación de bienestar moral y físico, de salud perfecta, que nos infunde, es el mejor viático para soportar las vulgaridades del díia.

Charles Spencelayh, Morning Chapter