"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).
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Sunday, December 31, 2017
A Wretched Echo
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), Faust, Part 2, Act 3, lines 9637-9640 (tr. David Luke):
All that ever is done
Nowadays is no
More than a wretched echo
Of the more glorious age of our forebears.
Alles, was je geschieht
Heutigen Tages,
Trauriger Nachklang ist's
Herrlicher Ahnherrntage.