Laudator Temporis Acti

W.J. Woodhouse (1866-1937), The Composition of Homer's Odyssey (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930), p. 7:

For over thirty years two Greek books, the Odyssey of Homer and the Description of Greece by Pausanias, the one from the golden springtime, the other from the mellow autumn of that ancient world, have been my loved companions, at home and on my journeyings. To read and read again the Odyssey itself has ever to me seemed more profitable, as it is indubitably more entertaining, and never more so than now, to one that is ἐπὶ γήραος οὐδῷ, than to read books written about the Odyssey. And still at each reading once more is recaptured the fascination, the exhilarating sense of discovery and adventure with which, nearly half a century ago, as a self-imposed labour of love, I first spelt out the magic lines.

Doubtless, one's knowledge must have been enriched by countless rills from forgotten sources; but the main stream flows deep and strong and untroubled from a single spring, which is the poem itself.

Id., p. 8:

If any one, retorting my own avowal, resolves to read the Odyssey itself rather than to spend time over what is here said about it, so much the better—provided only that the Odyssey be read. Should the reading of my book lead others to the divine poet—well, with that again I should be content, and more than content. For if my book does that, what other merit need it claim?