United States or Fiji ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Historical work is, then, pre-eminently critical; whoever enters upon it without having first been put on his guard against his instinct is sure to be drowned in it. In order to appreciate the danger it is well to examine one's conscience and analyse the causes of that ignavia which must be fought against till it is replaced by a critical attitude of mind.
Indeed, since Proust's death last year the two have frequently been compared, and on more than the mere alliterative ground that is in their names. Of Petronius we are told "illi dies per somnum, nox officiis et oblectamentis vitae transigebatur; utque alios industria, ita hunc ignavia ad famam protulerat, habebaturque non ganeo et profligator, ut plerique sua haurientium, sed erudito luxu.
Every candid man must admit that it requires a violent effort to shake off ignavia critica, that common form of intellectual sloth, that this effort must be continually repeated, and is often accompanied by real pain.
At present, as was said, while Red Republic but clashes with foul Bureaucracy; and Nations, sunk in blind ignavia, demand a universal-suffrage Parliament to heal their wretchedness; and wild Anarchy and Phallus-Worship struggle with Sham-Kingship and extinct or galvanized Catholicism; and in the Cave of the Winds all manner of rotten waifs and wrecks are hurled against each other, our English interest in the controversy, however huge said controversy grow, is quite trifling; we have only in a handsome manner to say to it: "Tumble and rage along, ye rotten waifs and wrecks; clash and collide as seems fittest to you; and smite each other into annihilation at your own good pleasure.
The pity that proves so possible and plentiful without that basis, is mere ignavia and cowardly effeminacy; maudlin laxity of heart, grounded on blinkard dimness of head contemptible as a drunkard's tears. To see our Supreme Scoundrel hung upon the gallows, alas, that is far from us just now!
Word Of The Day