[M]uch profit or, what is the same thing, much delight can be gained by communion with one or two authors, large-margined or interleaved for the reporting of observations or fancies. To this end a fresh copy is desirable so that previous notes may not interfere with the directness of vision. 'Musst immer thun wie neugeboren'—and this is the nearest approach an old scholar can make to Goethe's 'new birth' or Victor Hugo's remade maidenhood. The contemplation of such a work of art as a Pindaric ode or a Platonic dialogue, undisturbed by the impertinences of commentators or one's own previous fancies, is great gain.
"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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Saturday, February 18, 2023
Great Gain
Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, "Brief Mention," American Journal of Philology 26.3 (1905) 358-362 (at 358-359):