Lanterna Rally

Author: Maurice Hewlett

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-02

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 9781330316535

Excerpt from Extemporary Essays Certainly, the parent of the Essay draped no maypoles with speech. Montaigne was a sedentary philosopher, of the order of the post-prandials; a wine-and-walnuts man. One thing would open out into another, and one seem better than the other, at the time of hearing. 'Je n'enseigne point; je raconte, ' he tells you of himself; and it is true. To listen to him is a liberal education; yet you can hardly think of Montaigne footing it on the green. Bacon's line, again, was the aphoristic. He shreds off his maypole rather than clothes it: but he has one set up. He can give his argument as witty a turn as the Frenchman when he pleases - 'There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake, but thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honour, or the like. Therefore why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me?' That is the turn his thoughts take upon Revenge, and a fair sample of his way with an abstract idea - shredding off it all the time, getting down to the pith. But he can be very obscure: 'A single life doth well with Churchmen; for charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool.' That is proleptic reasoning. We are to caper about the pole before the ornaments are on. But since his time the Maypole has gone out of use. The modern essayist has had a column reared for him instead, which he is required, not to drape, but to fill. That kind of column is no symbol of the earth's fertility, but too often the grave of it. It has been, however, the opportunity of the babbler, the prater, the prattler, and the agreeable rattle: all's one to the Column so that it be filled. You may write on something, or nothing; you may grind axes on your column, or roll logs on it. But you must fill it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.