Literature

Trollope: The Security of Cynicism

(I suppose it is worth pointing out that flattering is perhaps even more secure.) From Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now: “The ‘Evening Pulpit’ was much given to politics, but held strictly to the motto which it had assumed; —  Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri*— and consequently had at all times the invaluable privilege of …

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Quotable: Walker Percy

Leroy Ledbetter stands by companionably. Like me he is seventh-generation Anglo-Saxon American, but unlike me he is Protestant, countrified, sweet-natured. He’s the sort of fellow, don’t you know, who if you run in a ditch or have a flat tire shows up to help you. We were partners and owners of the old Paradise Bowling …

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Notes on The Prelude to Middlemarch, by George Elliot (by Mary Ann Evans)

This is a really good Prelude. I’ll make a few comments, which may be to the benefit of a reader, or for my own recall. The “mysterious mixture” seems to be the carry over of Galenic physiology where an ideal disposition is referred to as eukrasia, lit. well mixed as of wine. It refers to the mixture …

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