Laudator Temporis Acti

To enjoy a book like that thoroughly I find I have to treat it as a sort of hobby and set about it seriously. I begin by making a map on one of the end leafs: then I put in a genealogical tree or two. Then I put a running headline at the top of each page: finally I index at the end all the passages I have for any reason underlined. I often wonder—considering how people enjoy themselves developing photos or making scrap-books—why so few people make a hobby of their reading in this way. Many an otherwise dull book which I had to read have I enjoyed in this way, with a fine-nibbed pen in my hand: one is making something all the time and a book so read acquires the charm of a toy without losing that of a book.

In early youth we sit in front of our impending course of life like children at the theatre, in cheerful and tense expectation of the things to come. How fortunate that we do not know what is actually to come. For to anyone who knows, children at times would seem like innocent delinquents who are not condemned to death, to be sure, but to life, and have not yet heard the terms of their sentence. — Nevertheless everyone wishes himself an old age, thus a state of which it can be said: 'Today it is bad and it will get worse every day — until the worst arrives.'

In früher Jugend sitzen wir vor unserm bevorstehenden Lebenslauf, wie die Kinder vor dem Theatervorhang, in froher und gespannter Erwartung der Dinge, die da kommen sollen. Ein Glück, daß wir nicht wissen, was wirklich kommen wird. Denn wer es weiß, dem können zu Zeiten die Kinder vorkommen wie unschuldige Delinquenten, die zwar nicht zum Tode, hingegen zum Leben verurtheilt sind, jedoch den Inhalt ihres Urtheils noch nicht vernommen haben. — Nichtsdestoweniger wünscht Jeder sich ein hohes Alter, also einen Zustand, darin es heißt: „es ist heute schlecht und wird nun täglich schlechter werden, — bis das Schlimmste kommt.”

Caesar's Commentaries is the dullest book in Latin. It is like making a road to read it. It is not a book; it is a stone-crushing machine. The teacher, a two-dollar-a-day man, stands beside the machine and runs it. And this is the Classics.

Ye cities likewise, though ye might by parley end your mischief,
yet ye choose the sword instead of reason to settle all disputes.

πόλεις τ᾿, ἔχουσαι διὰ λόγου κάμψαι κακά,
φόνῳ καθαιρεῖσθ᾿, οὐ λόγῳ, τὰ πράγματα.

Hot bread and coffee, eggs and preserves for breakfast; soup and hot meat, vegetables, dumplings, gravy, brown bread and white, huckleberry pudding, chocolate cake and buttermilk for dinner; muffins, tea, sausage rolls, blackberries and cream, and doughnuts for supper—that's the kind of menu I had been preparing three times a day for years.

Best of all not to force the gods,
but to be content with one's lot. Desire for the impossible
makes many lose what they have now.

πάντων ἄριστον μὴ βιάζεσθαι θεούς,
στέγειν δὲ μοῖραν· τῶν ἀμηχάνων δ᾿ ἔρως
πολλοὺς ἔθηκε τοῦ παρόντος ἀμπλακεῖν.

For domestic and public purposes, and all professional skills, no single branch of a child's education has such an enormous range of applications as mathematics; but its greatest advantage is that it wakes up the sleepy ignoramus and makes him quick to understand, retentive and sharp-witted; and thanks to this miraculous science he does better than his natural abilities would have allowed.

πρός τε γὰρ οἰκονομίαν καὶ πρὸς πολιτείαν καὶ πρὸς τὰς τέχνας πάσας ἓν οὐδὲν οὕτω δύναμιν ἔχει παίδειον μάθημα μεγάλην, ὡς ἡ περὶ τοὺς ἀριθμοὺς διατριβή· τὸ δὲ μέγιστον, ὅτι τὸν νυστάζοντα καὶ ἀμαθῆ φύσει ἐγείρει καὶ εὐμαθῆ καὶ μνήμονα καὶ ἀγχίνουν ἀπεργάζεται, παρὰ τὴν αὑτοῦ φύσιν ἐπιδιδόντα θείᾳ τέχνῃ.

What a difference there is indeed between our beginning and our end! The former in the delirium of craving and the rapture of lust, the latter in the destruction of all organs and the musty odour of corpses. The path between these two also goes steadily downhill with respect to well-being and enjoying life. Blissfully dreaming childhood, cheerful youth, toilsome manhood, frail, often pitiful old age, the torments of final illness and finally the struggle with death — does it not look exactly as if existence were a blunder whose consequences inevitably and increasingly become apparent?

Welch ein Abstand ist doch zwischen unserm Anfang und unserm Ende! jener in dem Wahn der Begier und dem Entzücken der Wollust; dieses in der Zerstörung aller Organe und dem Moderdufte der Leichen. Auch geht der Weg zwischen Beiden, in Hinsicht auf Wohlseyn und Lebensgenuß, stetig bergab: die seelig träumende Kindheit, die fröhliche Jugend, das mühsälige Mannesalter, das gebrechliche, oft jämmerliche Greisenthum, die Marter der letzten Krankheit und endlich der Todeskampf; sieht es nicht geradezu aus, als wäre das Daseyn ein Fehltritt, dessen Folgen allmälig und immer mehr offenbar würden?

The part of air nearest earth is fired by thunderbolts, and the low-lying places of the world are visited by gales and long flashes of flame; but Olympus rises above the clouds. It is heaven's law, that small things are troubled and distracted, while great things enjoy peace.

fulminibus propior terrae succenditur aer,
imaque telluris ventos tractusque coruscos        270
flammarum accipiunt: nubes excedit Olympus.
lege deum minimas rerum discordia turbat,
pacem magna tenent.

It is more often the tall pine that is shaken by the wind; the collapse is more devastating when high towers fall, and it is the mountain peaks that are struck by lightning.

saepius ventis agitatur ingens
pinus et celsae graviore casu        10
decidunt turres feriuntque summos
        fulgura montis.

CLEINIAS: By heaven, sir, you're quite right. You've the sharp eye of an old man for these things.

ATHENIAN: Yes, when we're young, we're all pretty blind to them; old age is the best time to see them clearly.

Κλεινίας. ναὶ μὰ Δία, ὦ ξένε· καθ᾽ ἡλικίαν γὰρ ὀξὺ βλέπεις.

Ἀθηναῖος. νέος μὲν γὰρ ὢν πᾶς ἄνθρωπος τὰ τοιαῦτα ἀμβλύτατα αὐτὸς αὑτοῦ ὁρᾷ, γέρων δὲ ὀξύτατα.