Saturday, December 03, 2011
All the Good Things at Once
Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915), The Life of the Fly, with which are interspersed some Chapters of Autobiography, tr. Alexander Teixera de Mattos (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1913), pp. 459-460:
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The principal of the school, the soul of kindness, has grasped my passion for knowledge. He encourages me in my determination; he proposes to make me renew my acquaintance with Horace and Virgil, so long since forgotten. He knows Latin, he does; he will rekindle the dead spark by making me translate a few passages. He does more: he lends me an Imitation with parallel texts in Latin and Greek. With the first text, which I am almost able to read, I will puzzle out the second and thus increase the small vocabulary which I acquired in the days when I was translating Aesop's Fables. It will be all the better for my future studies. What luck! Board and lodging, ancient poetry, the classical languages, all the good things at once!
