Some of the evils of which you complain are real and can be to a certain degree remedied, but not by the remedies you propose; others are imaginary, and others, though real, can only be gotten over through that capacity for steady, individual self-help which is the glory of every true American, and can no more be done away with by legislation than you could do away with the bruises you receive when you tumble down, by passing an act to repeal the laws of gravitation.
"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, January 08, 2023
Legislation
Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Denis Donahue, Jr. (October 22, 1886):