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For this proposition the principal reasons alleged are these: It is asserted as an "indisputable fact," "that the art of writing, and the use of manageable writing materials, were entirely, or all but entirely, unknown in Greece and its islands at the supposed date of the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey; that, if so, these poems could not have been committed to writing during the time of such their composition; that, in a question of comparative probabilities like this, it is a much grosser improbability that even the single Iliad, amounting, after all curtailments and expungings, to upwards of 15,000 hexameter lines, should have been actually conceived and perfected in the brain of one man, with no other help but his own or others' memory, than that it should in fact be the result of the labours of several distinct authors; that if the Odyssey be counted, the improbability is doubled; that if we add, upon the authority of Thucydides and Aristotle, the Hymns and Margites, not to say the Batrachomyomachia, that which was improbable becomes morally impossible! that all that has been so often said as to the fact of as many verses or more having been committed to memory, is beside the point in question, which is not whether 15,000 or 30,000 lines may not be learned by heart from print or manuscript, but whether one man can originally compose a poem of that length, which, rightly or not, shall be thought to be a perfect model of symmetry and consistency of parts, without the aid of writing materials; that, admitting the superior probability of such an achievement in a primitive age, we know nothing actually similar or analogous to it; and that it so transcends the common limits of intellectual power, as at the least to merit, with as much justice as the opposite opinion, the character of improbability."
Hitherto his tact and his high character had preserved him in a great measure from the social annoyances and curtailments which he would naturally have suffered as the prominent representative of an unpopular cause. But it seemed now as if his judgment had once and fatally played him false, and certainly his good name and his prestige were given over to his enemies, who dealt cruelly with them.
But she looked mischievously away, and do what I would I could not get her to promise. Just then the striking of the village clock awoke within me another clamorous timepiece, reminding me of mid-day mutton a good half-mile away, and of penalties and curtailments attaching to a late appearance.
One version of what transpired at the conference referred to by Senator Gore credited the President with making these statements to the Senators and Congressmen who consulted him: That the way to avoid war was to convince the rest of the world that the people of the United States were standing solidly behind the executive; that the course Congress was seeking to pursue would lead toward war rather than away from it, because yielding to Germany on the present issue would result in further curtailments of American rights; that the only course the United States could safely pursue now was to abide by international law; that any other course would result in making circumstances themselves the sole guide, and this policy would eventually cause the fabric of international law itself to crumble and disappear; that any concession to Germany, abridging the right of Americans to travel on the seas, would necessitate a concession to Great Britain; and that such a weakening of American policy would cause the country to drift toward war.
"That if these poems could not have been committed to writing during the time of their composition, it is a much grosser improbability that even the single Iliad, amounting, after all curtailments and expungings, to upwards of 15,000 hexameter lines, should have been actually conceived and perfected in the brain of one man, with no other help but his own or others' memory, than that it should, in fact, be the result of the labours of several distinct authors."
Yes Jail.... What proportion of truth could there be in the firmly-held belief of the men that "crimes" are made so numerous and so inevitable, to the best-meaning and most careful, because there exist a great Military Prison System and a great Military Prison personnel and that "criminals" are essential to the respective proper inhabitation and raison d'être thereof that unless a good supply of military "criminals" were forthcoming there might have to be reductions and curtailments loss of snug billets.... Certainly soldiers got years of imprisonment for "crimes" for which civilians would get reprimands or nominal fines, and, moreover, when a man became a soldier he certainly lost the elementary fundamental rights guaranteed to Englishmen by Magna Charta among them the right of trial by his peers....
There are the rolling canteens which it has instituted, which follow the French armies. There are the rest houses it has built on the French line of communications for poilus who are going on leave or returning. There is the farm for the mutilated, where they are taught to be specialists in certain branches of agriculture, despite their physical curtailments.
The cutting off of buttons and extra parts of our clothing, as well as the shaving of our heads and faces, was also included by our friends in the list of curtailments. For the same reason one of our cameras, which we always carried on our backs, and refilled at night under the bedclothes, we sold to a Chinese photographer at Suidun, to make room for an extra provision-bag.
In order to ensure the repetition of my opera, therefore, I took the only course open to me by arrogating to myself all blame for the failure. I could thus make considerable curtailments, whereby, of course, the dramatic significance of the leading role was considerably lessened; this, however, did not interfere with the other parts of the opera, which had been favourably received.
Of course there were various alterations of detail, changes in the metres, curtailments, and disfigurements; in the Latin edition of the -Iphigenia- of Euripides, for instance, the chorus of women was either after the model of another tragedy, or by the editor's own device converted into a chorus of soldiers.
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