"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
That fundament resonated with hope and possibility, even in pianissimo.The primary meaning of fundament in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is "buttocks," but Gould wasn't talking about flatulence here — he was talking about the final bass note (a low D-flat) in the song "Madame Jeanette."