What an eminence from which to view the outspread plain of events of the chapter, and what harmony of mind and emotion he has given us, by the powerful placing of words and the unfolding of idea.
The old writing has kinship with plastic art; it was of line and form and surface, instead of color, emotion, nerves. Thought is a plastic thing when it is not chipped, sliced thin, like cheap cheese. That sense of plasticity, the need of a different moulding process, is something lost in word-craft. It helps give that which is deathless to much antique art. That, and a sincerity which is priceless.
I can read Tertullian and Procopius over and over. They are always new; they are filled with the essential of thought, which is something inexhaustible. They inspire. They give comfort and courage.
But the old writers wrote because they had something to say, not for applause, popularity, nor money.
The Bible tells us somewhere, that in the end of the world there will be many gods. As writing, as an art, a conveyance of thought, of idea, comes to an end, before all writing is used for purely scientific matter, there are many writers.
It is too bad they do not make children’s books for grown people today, delightful, unreal fables for adults, to temper the prosaic duties of living, to make them forget the regrettable, cast off care, and be joyous. There are none who need such books more than grown people. I am thinking of Ariosto, his Orlando Furioso. How long ago Ariosto was born! Before the discovery of America.
I like the name an old Italian historian applied to him in his youth, uno gentiluomo ferrarese. His charm of manner won him appointment as gentleman in waiting at the Court of Cardinal Hippolyte of Este. He was grateful for this. It meant life among lettered men, nobles, beauties, at Court of a powerful Cardinal.
In the first Canto of the Furioso he thanks him.
Ippolito aggradír questo che vuole