We are in the world to laugh.
In purgatory or in hell we shall no longer be able to do so.
And in heaven it would not be proper.
Nous sommes ici-bas pour rire.
Nous ne le pourrons plus au purgatoire ou en enfer.
Et, au paradis, ce ne serait pas convenable.
"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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Monday, December 18, 2017
Laugh While You Can
Jules Renard, Journal (June 25, 1907; tr. Louise Bogan and Elizabeth Roget):