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PROVERBS AND PHRASES OF ALL AGES
By ROBERT CHRISTY
TWO VOLUMES, LARGE I2MO, HALF LEATHER, $5.00
"If Mr. Christy has not, in his two interesting volumes,
exhausted the wisdom of every age and language, he has at
'least come nearer doing so than any previous gleaner in his
special field " — Atlantic Monthly.
" They fill two big volumes and are the result of an almost
incredible amount of research and learning." — N. Y. World.
" The present collection has many little-known sayings and
all the common proverbs, and shows both industry and taste
on the part of the compiler." — Christian Union.
"Such books as these are of great value for reference, and
we know of no compilation of proverbial sayings that is so de-
sirable on all accounts as this one." — Hartford Courant.
"It exhibits a very considerable knowledge of proverbial
literature, discrimination in the choice of material, and intel-
ligence in the arrangement of it." — N. Y. Sun.
"It is without a doubt the most comprehensive and conve-
niently arranged compilation on the subject." — A^ew Haven
Faltadit(?ii.
" Diligence, long continued, has made a valuable, and, in a
certain sense, indispensable, collection : for public libraries
cannot afford to neglect to place on their shelves such a
helper for readers." — Critic.
" He has unearthed many literary gems that lay buried
in the writings of once famous but now forgotten or neglected
authors. " — Montreal Witness.
" The volumes are admirable in their arrangement for easy
reference. . . . For the reference library their value
could hardly be overestimated." — Toledo Blade.
"It is certainly the best arrangement that has yet been
given to tlie public, and will undoubtedly be much sought
after Ijy literary people." — Washington l^ost.
"This was never better illustrated than in these two
volumes, which present the most complete array of choice
proverbs, maxims, and phrases that has yet appeared." — Bos-
ton Journal of Education.
" The book is a monument of the compiler's industry, and
deserves a place in every library, public and private." — Evan-
gelist,
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers
New York and London
A LITERARY MANUAL
OF
FOREIGN QUOTATIONS
ANCIENT AND MODERN
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM AMERICAN AND ENGLISH
AUTHORS AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
COMPILED BY
JOHN DEVOE BELTON
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK LONDON
27 WKST TWENTY-THIRD ST. -7 KING WILLIAM ST., STRAND
STbt ^nickftbotkrr |3rts3
1891
Copyright, 1890
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
z^^/ "2^5 3
■Cbc Tknichciboclicr iPrces, IRcnx' .l!}oifc
HIcctrotypcii, Printed, and Bound by
G. P. Putnuiu'b Sons
pA/eo9
B4^
PREFACE.
This volume is to be distinguished in some respects
from what is commonly known as a Dictionary of Foreign
Quotations. There are already in existence several books
of various degrees of merit and demerit in which phrases
and sentences from Latin, Greek, and some of the modern
languages are collected and done into English. The com-
pilers of these volumes have cast out drag-nets, bringing
to the surface many samples of the good, the bad, and
the indifferent in foreign authors. The greater part of
their quotations, however, are unrelated to English litera-
ture, either because they have never been quoted or
referred to by English writers, or because they are legal
phrases and maxims, useful indeed in the arguments of
lawyers and opinions of courts, but in no sense literary.
Why should such phrases as Actio personalis moritur cum
persona, or Ubi Jus ibi rcmcdium, find a place in a non-
professional work ? These chaotic '' omnium gatherums "
have their uses, and provided one knows beforehand
pretty well what he wants to find, and what it really
means, they enable one to recover the precise words of a
dimly remembered line.
I do not think there is any reason, except " hunger and
.the request of friends," for adding another to the books
of this character, and the Manual now offered to the
public differs from them in at least three important par-
ticulars. First. This is a selection of quotations from
Latin and the languages of continental Europe, which are
iv PREFACE.
or have been used or referred to by modern writers. Only
those quotations are here given which have a distinct!}-
Hterary flavor. Legal maxims, which in some of the dic-
tionaries alluded to occupy a third of the space, are ex-
cluded. Lawyers look for these in such books as Broom's
" Legal Maxims," while those who are not lawyers do not
employ them without great danger of saying something
they do not mean. Nor have I thought it desirable to
include such phrases as dc facto, de jure, sine die, pro tem-
pore, which are really adopted into the language, and
which at all events cannot be characterized as literary
quotations. This volume, therefore, is a selection, and
not merely a collection ; but, although a selection, my
aim has been to make it a comprehensive if not a com-
plete collection of literary quotations.
Secondly. The quotations in this Manual are, as a
general rule, followed by extracts from modern authors
in which they are used. It is now held that a dictionary
without examples is a skeleton. These illustrative ex-
tracts serve many purposes. They show the proper man-
ner of employing the quotation, they show how it has
often become an intimate part of English literature, and
they are frequently themselves of an entertaining char-
acter. In some of these illustrations it will be seen that
the quotation is not repeated in its very words, but is
held, to use Birrell's phrase, in solution. Such, for in^
stance, is the extract from Heine under the line, Eripuii
coelo fidvien sccptrtiniqiic tyrannis, and such is also the
case in the extract from George Eliot under Tantcene
aniuiis ccelestibiis ine.
The advantages of this system of illustrations are obvi-
ous. One of its results is that it makes a book of this
character readable, while that quality cannot, I think, be
predicated of any of the existing dictionaries. The only
PREFACE. V
work where this plan has been in any degree followed,
so far as I know, is Larousse's " Grand Dictionnairc du
XlXme Si6cle." In the case of the not very numerous
Latin quotations scattered through the seventeen folio
volumes of that great collection of useful information and
entertaining misinformation, it will be found that the
quotations are followed by extracts from French authors
in whose works they are used.
I have chosen the illustrative extracts from a great
variety of sources ; from English and American authors
of eminence as well as from contemporary English and
American journals, from French and German writers, and
occasionally from the opinions of courts and from the
sayings of orators and statesmen. They have been so
chosen as to show that Latin phrases, as well as those
from modern tongues, are not the exclusive property of
pedants, but that they belong to men of the world as
well. It has been observed that a pedant's most tiresome
affectation is that of being a worldling. The converse
affectation would be equally fatiguing, but this volume
affords proof that to make an apt quotation does not
cause one to run the risk of incurring such a reproach.
These extracts as a whole exhibit very clearly how pro-
foundly our culture is still penetrated by the classical
spirit, how much there is in common between English and
American writers on the one hand and French and German
writers on the other, and how all culture has come to the
modern world from Rome, which received it in turn from
Greece. A contemporary jurist of Germany has said that
three times Rome has conquered the world, once by force
of her arms, again by her church, and thirdly by her juris-
prudence. A compiler of quotations may be permitted
to add that a fourth Roman world conquest is that of
Latin phrases.
vi PREFACE.
The third respect in which this Manual differs from
similar books is that the origin of the quotation is, when
necessary, explained, and the context of the author set
forth. Under ab ovo, for instance, it is shown why that
phrase means from the very beginning, and under, Le vrai
Ai)ipJiitryon est cehii oil Von dine, one may see why a
dinner giver is called an Amphitryon.
I wish to say, in conclusion, that the two books from
which I have derived the greatest assistance are Fournier's
"L'Esprit des Autres " and Biichmann's " Gefliigelte
Worte," — works very characteristic of the Gallic and
Teutonic genius respectively. Fournier's book is written
with continuity, and the quotations are woven into his
text, often with great skill. There are some extracts
from his work in this Manual which will serve to exhibit
its style. Fournier devotes at least two thirds of his
volume to quotations from French authors. Biichmann's
plan is to take up the writers of different countries in
turn and to group together the quotations from each
author without explanation or illustration. I have in a
few instances followed this plan. Buchmann's chief merit
is the industry with which he has traced to their sources
well-known phrases of uncertain origin.
I have endeavored in all cases to refer with exactness to
the precise source of the quotation, and I have generally
given a similar reference to the origin of the illustrative
extracts.
The Manual is completed by four indexes, one of
Italian, one of German, one of French, and the fourth of
Latin quotations. In these indexes the same quotation
is sometimes repeated under different catch words for the
purpose of facilitating reference.
J. D. B.
A LITERARY MANUAL
FOREIGN QUOTATIONS
Abeunt studia in mores, (ovid, heroides, xv., 83.)
Studies affect inanjiers and character.
Histories make men wise, poets witty, the mathematics sub-
tle, natural philosophy deep, moral grave, logic and rhetoric
able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores. Nay, there is no
stond or impediment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit
studies, like as diseases of the body may have appropriate
exercises.
Bacon : " Essay on Studies."
General Gage states that all the people in his government
are lawyers or smatterers in law, and that in Boston they have
been enabled, by successful chicane, wholly to evade many
])arts of one of your capital penal constitutions. . . . Abeunt
studia in mores. This study renders men acute, inquisitive,
dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of resources.
Burke : "Speech on Conciliation with America."
Ab imo pectore. (virgil, ^eneid, passim.)
From the bottom of the heart.
The poor young man opened a part of his heart to Steele,
than whom no man, when unhappy, could find a kinder hearer,
or more friendly emissary ; described (in words which were
no doubt pathetic, for they came imo pectore, and caused honest
2 A LITERARY MANUAL
Dick to weep plentifully) his youth, his constancy, his fond
devotion to that household.
Thackeray : " Henry Esmond," book ii., chap. 2.
Ab OVO. (HORACE, ARS POETICA, I47.)
From the egg — i.e., from the earliest beginning. Horace
praises Homer for hurrying his reader at once into the
midst of interesting events, and ridicules a certain poet
for tracing the rise of the Trojan war to Leda's &^^ ;
Helen, the cause of that war, having been born, according
to mythology, from an &%^. The expression is used to
indicate the tracing of a matter to its remote source.
Most historians of literature present to us a literary history
resembling a well arranged menagerie, and always show us,
distinctly separated from one another, mammiferous epic
poets, lyrical poets of the air, dramatic water poets, prose
amphibians, who write land romances as well as sea stories,
humorous mollusks, etc. Others, on the contrary, treat the
history of literature pragmatically ; they begin with the origi-
nal instincts of mankind, which are developed in different
epochs and finally assume an artistic form ; they begin ab ovo,
like the historian who opened the narrative of the Trojan war
with the story of Leda's egg. And like him, they act foolishly.
For I am persuaded that if Leda's egg had been used to make
an omelette, still Hector and Achilles would have met before
the Scsean gate and fought gallantly. Great events and great
books do not arise from trifling causes, but they come because
they are necessary ; they depend upon the orbits of the sun,
moon, and stars, and they arise perhaps from their influence
on the earth.
Heine : " Die romantische Schule," Drittes Buch, s. 3.
The genesis of " A Good Fight " ab ovo is rather obscure.
Before it dazzled the public no living being could have
accredited Charles Reade with a plunge into the moycn age.
C. L. Reade : '' Life of Charles Reade."
OF FORRTGN Q UO 7V / TU hVS. 3
Ab ovo usque ad mala, (horace, sat., i., 3, 6.)
From tlw egg to tJic apples — i.e., from the beginning
to the end. This was a proverbial expression, drawn
from tlie custom prevailing at Roman dinners of begin-
ning the repast with eggs and ending it with apples.
Horace is speaking of singers who will never sing when they
are asked, but, if they begin of their own accord, never
stop ; and refers to Tigellius, who would not sing, even
in compliance with Caesar's request, but if he himself were
so disposed, would chant lo Bacche ob ovo usque ad Diala.
As you will send here, ladies, I must tell you, you have a
much worse chance than if you forward your valuable articles
to Cornhill. Here your papers arrive at dinner-time, we will
say. Do you suppose that is a pleasant period, and that we
are to criticise you between the mnim and the ?na/um, between
the soup and the dessert ?
Thackeray : " Roundabout Papers."
Ab uno disce omnes. (virgil, ^neid, ii., 65.)
From one learn all. ^neas is telling Dido of the
tricks of the Greeks, and as he is about to .speak of the
crafty Simon, who induced the Trojans to admit the
famous wooden horse within the walls, he says, learn now
the treachery of the Greeks, and from one of their crimes
understand all. The quotation is applied to an act
which characterizes a man, or to a person who represents
a class.
Abusus non tollit usum.
Abuse is no argument against use.
" Not so, replied the young Englishman, " it (astrology) is
a general and well-grounded belief."
" It is the resource of cheaters, knaves, and cozeners," said
Sampson.
4 A LITERARY MANUAL
" Abusus non tollit usuni. The abuse of any thing does not
abrogate the lawful use thereof."
Scott : " Guy Mannering," chap. 3.
Ad captandum vulgus.
To catch the crowd. The words ad captandum^ alone,
are used as an adjective to describe an action, or saying,
designed to stir popular feeling, such as Disraeli's " Peace
with Honor."
He admired the artificial and elaborately ornate periods,
and witty, though somewhat ad captandum, epigrams of Mr.
Fox.
Ad hoc.
For this purpose. The phrase indicates the special ap-
plication of a person or thing, as an envoy accredited to a
foreign court with power to conclude a treaty, and sent
ad hoc.
Lycurgus was the legendary judge who, according to tradi-
tion, codified the secular uses and customs of his tribe,
and not the inventor of a brand new constitution planned ad
hoc like that of the Abb^ Sieyes.
Ad majorem Dei gloriam.
For the greater glory of God. This is the motto of the
Society of Jesus, and in some of the Jesuit schools in
France the initials A. M. D. G. were engraved on the
whip, so that the pupils were flogged ad viajoron Dei
gloriam.
Ad perpetuam rei memoriam.
For the perpetual renievdiraiice of the tiling. A phrase
frequently inscribed upon monuments. These were also
the first words of certain bulls emanating from the
Vatican.
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TIONS. 5
Ad usum Delphini.
For the use of the Dauphin. This was the designation
of a celebrated edition of classical authors originally pre-
pared by order of Louis XIV. for the use of the Dauphin
of France ; and formerly much used in America. As the
edition was rigorously expurgated, the phrase has come
to mean an expurgated book.
We write for men who wish to inform and benefit them-
selves ; we do not publish an encyclopoedia ad usum Delphini.
Larousse : Preface of the " Grand Dictionnaire
du ipme Siecle."
Ad unguem factus homo, (horace, sat,,i., 5, 32.)
A man polished to the nail. The metaphor is derived
from the practice among sculptors of passing the finger-
nail over a delicately finished surface. We may speak of
such a work as Gray's " Elegy " as polished ad u?tguem.
There must be, one would say, in the natural economy of
literature, at least as many accomplished men of culture as
gifted men of genius. What more fit and more fruitful intel-
lectual alliance could be fancied than one which should bring
the two classes together in well-mated pairs ? A man of cul-
ture — ad unguem factus homo — a sort of Admirable Crichton
— if he were also a man of sense, should esteem it a privilege
to fulfil the office of literary valet to an agreeable man of
genius.
W. C. Wilkinson : "A Free Lance," p. 166.
Advocatus Diaboli.
The Devil's advocate. In the ceremony of canonization
in the Roman Catholic Church, the person appointed to
examine and oppose the claims of the one it is proposed
to make a saint of, is popularly called the advocatus
Diaboli. The term is applied to any one who urges
objections to what seems to be right and proper.
6 A LITERARY MANUAL
Earl Grey frequently regards it as a duty to play the part of
advocatus Diaboli to any measure which may be before the
House.
Frasers Magazine.
iEquam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem.
(HORACE, ODES, II., 3, I.)
Remember to preserve a ealm soul amid difficulties. " The
Renaissance," says Fournier (" L'Esprit des Autres," chap.
6), " which was an awakening for so many others, was not
one for Horace. His glory had never slept, but it then
became more brilliant, as it will always be in the most
splendid centuries. Horace was the breviary of wit for
the courts. The Constable de Montmorency made him
the friend of his leisure and the counsellor of his solitude.
Over the gate of his most magnificent castle, he caused
this verse of his beloved poet to be inscribed : Aiquam
memento rebus in arduis servare mentem. This citation
was a baptism ; the first word of the verse became the
name of the cJidteau ; they called it Aiquam, then Ecouen!'
A mouth of inflexible decision, a face pale and worn, but
serene, on which was written, as legibly as under the great pic-
ture in the Council Chamber at Calcutta, mens cBqiia in arduis j
such was the aspect with which the great proconsul presented
himself to his judges.
Macaulay : " Essay on Warren Hastings."
-.,the morning
is the best time for study and reflection. So the Germans
say: Morgenstunde hat Gold ini Munde, "The morning
hour has gold in its mouth." A late riser said that the
men who got up early were proud all the morning and
sleepy all the afternoon.
Au royaume des aveugles les borgnes sont rois.
/;/ the eojintry of the blind the one-eyed are kings.
Two things are absolutely necessary for every young man
who has a laudable ambition to make a figure in the world.
They are learning and politeness, and they should always go
i8 A LITERARY MANUAL
together ; for learning without politeness makes a disagreeable
pedant, and politeness without learning makes a superficial,
frivolous puppy. I am sorry to say that in general the youth
of the present age have neither. Their manners are illiberal,
and their ignorance is notorious. They are sportsmen, they
are jockeys, they know nor love nothing but dogs and horses,
racing and hunting. They seem even afraid of being taken for
gentlemen, and therefore dress themselves like blackguards.
This gives you a fine opportunity of distinguishing yourself
among your growing contemporaries, and should you even fall
short of perfection, you will still shine ; for you know the
French saying, que dans le royaimie des aveugles tin borgne est roy.
Lord Chesterfield : " Letters to his Godson," p. 245.
Aut Caesar, aut nihil.
Either emperor or nothing. The inscription on the bust
of one of the Roman Caesars.
There are persons whom no success, no advantages, no ap-
plause, can satisfy. They go beyond the old motto, Aut
CcBsar, aut nihil j they not only want to be at the head of
whatever they undertake, but if they succeed in that, they
immediately want to be at the head of something else.
Hazlitt.
Aut inveniam viam aut faciam.
/ shall cither find a zvay or I shall make one.
Doth he think I am to abide in this old castle like a bulfinch
in a cage, fain to sing as oft as he chooses to whistle, and all
for seed and water ? Not so, aut ifiveniam viam aut faciam,
I will discover or contrive a remedy.
Scott : " Quentin Durward," chap. 13.
Autres temps, autres mceurs.
OtJicr times, other customs.
The young bloods of those days thought it was no harm to
spend a night in the watch-house, and I assure you it has ac-
OF FOREIGN O UO TA T/OJVS. 1 9
commodated a deal of good company. Autrcs temps, autres
ma'iirs. In our own days, my good Bob, a station-house bench
is not the bed for a gentleman.
Thackeray : " Sketches and Travels in London."
To judge of such a man with some approach to truth, we
must not read our own age into him ; we must read him in the
light of his individual origin and education, his intellectual
and theological environment. Autres temps, autres j/ioeurs. To
forget this is to risk doing injustice somewhere.
Edinburgh Review.
Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant.
Hail, Ccesar, those who are about to die salute thee. This
was the cry with which the gladiators addressed the
emperor when they entered the arena. (Suetonius :
Claud, c. 21.) It is the name of a fine picture of a
Roman show by G^rome. Longfellow's ode commem-
orating the fiftieth anniversary^ of the graduation of his
college class is addressed to the alma mater and entitled,
Morituri salutamus.
Never will this picture disappear from my remembrance. I
still see him (Napoleon) on his fine horse, with those everlast-
ing eyes and the imperial marble face, looking down, with the
calmness of fate, upon the Guard filiiig by before him ; he was
sending them then to Russia, and the old Grenadiers gazed at
him so profoundly devoted, so earnest, so scornful of death —
Te C(zsar, morituri salutant.
Heine : " Englische Fragmente," chap. n.
There was something sinister and superb in the song of these
shipwrecked and condemned creatures, something like a prayer
and also something grander, and comparable to the ancient and
sublime, Ave, Casar, morituri te salutant.
Guy de Maupassant : *' La Petite Roque," p. no.
20 A LITERARY MANUAL
A verbis ad verbera.
From words to blows.
No one has been put in possession of the floor in a recum-
bent attitude ; but members have announced their intention of
committing manual or pedal assaults on the heads of political
opponents, proceeding a verbis ad verbera.
London World.
Beaute du diable.
Beauty of the devil. This means the transitory beauty
of youth and freshness.
In her first youth, Eleanor Karpowna may have had that
kind of beauty which the French, God knows why, have named
beautd du diable, that is to say, a certain physical freshness ; but
when I made her acquaintance she reminded one involuntarily
of a savory quarter of beef which a butcher has spread out on
a clean marble table.
TouRGENEFF : '' L'Abandonnee."
In spite of hard and scanty fare the girls often shoot up
strong and healthy. Their good looks, such as they are, may
be merely the beaute du diable, but, with their red lips, their
laughing eyes, their blooming complexions, and their heavy
shocks of thick long hair, they are as different as possible
from the stunted, shrivelled-up little careworn creatures who
are being reared in the rookeries of the Seven Dials, or East
London.
Saturday Review.
Bis dat qui cito dat.
He gives tzuice who gives quickly. This proverb is
shortened from the 245th Sentence of Publius Syrus :
Inopi bencficiiim bis dat qui dat celeritcr. "He gives a
double benefit to the needy who gives quickly."
Queen Elizabeth was dilatory enough in suits, of her own
nature ; and the Lord Treasurer Burleigh, to feed her humor,
would say to her, " Madam, you do well to let suitors stay, for I
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TR )NS. 2 1
shall tell you, /'/s dat qui cito dat ; if you grant them speedily,
they will come again the sooner."
Bacon : "Apophthegms," No. 71.
Bon chien chasse de race.
A good dog hunts from blood.
We want a prompt, unreflecting bias towards good. The
option between virtue and vice cannot be left an open ques-
tion. As we see good dogs chasser dc race, so we need citizens
whose leanings are to virtue's side.
James Cotter Morison : " The Service of Man."
Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio, (horace, ars poetica,
25.)
In endeavoring to be eoncise, I become obscure. When
Madame de Stael asked the Comte de S<^gur which he
liked best, her conversation or her writings, he replied :
"Your conversation, madame, for then you have not the
leisure to become obscure."
In fact, my style has nothing easy and flowing ; it is rough,
of a free and undisciplined character ; and I like it thus — if
not with my judgment at least with my inclination. But some-
times. I feel that I give way too much in this direction and that
by dint of wishing to avoid art and affectation I fall into them
from another side. Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio. Plato says
that elaborateness and conciseness are not qualities which
either take away, or give, value to style.
Montaigne.
Cacoethes scribendi. (juvenal, sat., vn., 52.)
The itch of writing. " An incurable itch of writing," says
Juvenal, " holds many fast, and grows old in their sick
hearts."
There is a certain distemper, which is mentioned neither by
Galen nor Hippocrates, nor to be met with in the London
22 A LITERARY MANUAL
Dispensary. Juvenal in the motto of my paper terms it a
cacocthes J which is a hard word for a disease called in plain
English, the itch of writing. This cacoethes is as epidemical as
the small-pox, there being very few who are not seized with it
some time or other in their lives.
Addison : Spectator, No. 582.
Calomniez, calomniez, il en restera toujours quelque
chose.
Calumniate, caliunniate, sojne of it zvill always stay.
This saying is founded on the Latin proverb: Audacter
calmnniare, semper aliquid hcsret. " Calumniate boldly,
something always sticks."
In " Le Barbier de Seville " (Act 2, Scene 8), Basile says :
" Calumny ! Sir, you hardly know what it is that you disdain.
I have seen the most respectable people nearly crushed by it.
Understand that there is no common meanness, no horror, no
absurd story, that you cannot make the idlers of a great city
adopt if you set about it skilfully ; and we have at hand
fellows of such skill ! At first a slight rumor, skimming the
surface like a swallow before a storm, it murmurs and flies
pianissijno, and sows broadcast the poisoned dart. Such an
one's mouth receives it and piano, piano, whispers it to you
adroitly. The evil is done, it germinates, it travels, it crawls,
ri?iforzatido, from mouth to mouth ; it goes like the devil.
Then suddenly, nobody knows how, you see calumny stand
erect, hissing, inflating itself, growing before your very eyes.
It leaps forward, extends its flight, envelops, seizes, carries
away, bursts and thunders, and becomes, thanks to Heaven,
a general cry, a public crescendo, a universal chorus of hate
and proscription. Who the devil could resist it ?"
Capiat qui capere possit.
Let Jiim take wJio can. So Wordsworth says :
Because the good old rule
Sufficeth them ; the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TIONS. 23
Caput mortuum.
A dead head. The term was originally applied by the
alchemists to the solid residuum of an analysis, from
which distillation was supposed to have taken life and
spirit. It is now applied to any valueless or lifeless
object.
There are some individuals all of whose ideas are in their
hands and feet — make them sit still and you put a stop to the
machine altogether. The volatile spirit of quicksilver in them
turns to a caput mortuum.
Hazlitt.
Carent quia vate sacro. (horace, odes, iv., 9, 28.)
Jyecaiisf tJicy lack a sacred bard. Many brave men, says
Horace, lived before Agamemnon, but all of them are
unwept and unknown because they were without an
inspired poet to celebrate their achievements.
The vague and colorless praise of history leaves on the mind
hardly any impression of Antoninus Pius ; it is only from the
private memoranda of his nephew that we learn what a disci-
plined, hard-working, gentle, wise, virtuous man he was ; a
man who, perhaps, interests mankind less than his immortal
nephew only because he has left in writing no record of his
inner life — caret quia vate sacro.
Matthew Arnold.
If he was employed at all in the last years of the century,
no vates saccr has been found to celebrate his work, and no
clue is left to guide us.
Froude.
Carpe diem, (horace, odes, i., h, 8.)
Enjoy the present day. Do not ask, says Horace, how
long your life is to be. It is much better to endure
patiently whatever may happen, and not to ask more of
life than its shortness allows. While we are talking en-
vious age is flying away. Enjoy to-day, and trust as little
as possible to the morrow.
24 A LITERARY MANUAL
So far we have gone on very well ; as to the future I never
anticipate, — carpe diem — the past at least is one's own, which
is one reason for making sure of the present.
Byron.
How my new loves speeded I neither informed her, nor any
other members of my maternal or paternal family, who, on
both sides, had been bitter against my marriage. Of what use
wrangling with them ? It was better to carpere diem and its
sweet loves and pleasures, and to leave the railers to grumble,
or the seniors to advise, at their ease.
Thackeray : " The Virginians," vol. ii., chap. 30.
Castigat ridendo mores.
It latigJiingly criticises manners and morals. This ad-
mirable description of the true function of comedy was
composed by the French poet Jean de Santeuil as an
epigraph for a theatre curtain.
Point out his fault and lay bare the dire consequences
thereof ; expose it roundly, and give him a proper solemn,
moral whipping — but do not attempt to castigare ridendo. Do
not laugh at him writhing, and cause all the other boys in the
school to laugh.
Thackeray : " Roundabout Papers."
The important thing is to notice that M. Augier, while
writing in very various forms and on all sorts of subjects, con-
stantly observed the Molieresque tradition of castigat ridendo
mores. This is observable even in La Cigiie, and the note
rarely fails in the voluminous work of the author. Some-
times, no doubt, it is insisted on too much. The fault of con-
temporary French drama, just as the fault of our own, has
long been the representation of manners which are not, and
never were, on land or sea.
Saturday Review.
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 2$
Cedant arma togae. (cicero, de off., i., 22, and philip.,
II, S.)
Li-/ ar)iis yield to tJic toga, that is, let the military power
of a state yield to the civil government. This is the
maxim of constitutional states even in war, while in times
of revolution it is the master of the legions who seizes
upon every thing and the rule is, silent leges inter arma.
(Cicero, Pro Milone, iv., 10.) " The laws are silent amid
arms."
Cedant arma toga is a motto that is nowadays read in reverse
by most newspaper editors who know their public. When wars
with war correspondence come to the front, literary criticism
goes to the wall, or rather it is hustled aside altogether.
Naturally that must be more or less the case when men's
minds are profoundly agitated with the fluctuations of a great
national struggle.
Blackwood^ s Magazine.
Cela va sans dire.
TJiat goes ivithoiit saying, i.e., it is to be taken for
granted. The corresponding German expression is. Das
versteht sick von selbst.
"My uncle's situation," said Waverley, "his general opinions,
and his uniform indulgence, entitle me to say that birth and
personal qualities are all he would look for in such a connexion.
And where can I find both united in such excellence as in
your sister?"
" O nowhere ! — cela va sans dire," replied Fergus, with a smile.
" But your father will expect a father's prerogative in being
consulted."
Scott : "Waverley," chap. 27.
Certum est quia impossibile. (tertullian, de carne
CHRISTI, C. 5.)
// is eertain because it is impossible. The element of
truth in this saying is, that things which we fully under-
26 A LITERARY MANUAL ..
stand make no demand on our faith, but only those which
are above the natural reason. The expression, Credo quia
absiirdiun, — I believe because it is absurd, — is sometimes
attributed to St. Augustine. A few years ago, when an
orator in the French Assembly quoted this strange credo
as coming from the great African saint, Bishop Dupanloup
indignantly denied that St. Augustine ever said any thing
of tlie kind. A newspaper controversy thereupon arose
by which it seemed to be established that the phrase of
Tertullian was the real origin of the credo attributed to St.
Augustine.
I love to lose myself in a mystery ; to pursue my reason to
an O cdtitiido ! 'T is my solitary recreation to pose my appre-
hension with those involved enigmas and riddles of the
Trinity, incarnation, and resurrection. I can answer all the
objections of Satan and my rebellious reason with that odd
resolution I learnt of Tertullian, certum est quia impossibile est
Sir Thomas Browne.
When one thinks that such delicate questions as those
involved fell into the hands of men like Papias (who believed
in the famous millenarian grape story) ; of Ireneeus with his
"reasons " for the existence of only four gospels ; and of such
calm and dispassionate judges as Tertullian, with his Credo
quia impossibile, the marvel is that the selection which consti-
tutes our New Testament is as free as it is from obviously
objectional matter.
Huxley.
C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.
// is magnificent, but it is not war. This was the criti-
cism of one of the French generals upon the charge of the
Light Brigade celebrated by Tennyson.
There are some defeats which are more glorious than
victories ; some failures which are grander than the most
brilliant success. The charge of the Light Brigade at Bala-
^ Pi OF J'C )A7:7c;.V (J('( ) TA Th KVS. 27
h
iava was a useless waste of life ; yet we doubt if any feat of
rms in modern times ever had so fine a moral effect as that
.iece of heroic stupidity. In like manner these gallant seamen
(' lave failed to reach the pole ; but they have won a proud
\olace in their country's annals. They have done Englishmen
;ood. Pity it is that we should have to say, as the military
critic did of that other deed we spoke of but now, C'esi
niagnijique^ jnais ce n'est pas la guerre.
Quarterly Review.
Once I spent some twenty-eight hours in an effort to reach
a liigh snow peak, and came back legitimately baffled, though
I was conscious of a praiseworthy and most unpleasant two
and a half hours on the curl of a frozen cornice some 12,000
feet high, with a fall into space on either side. . . . Either
way a slip would have been about 3,000 feet down. Of course
the view was magnificent. I was in intellectual company,
being tied (we were in rope) to Mr. Frederic Harrison, but I
did n't enjoy it at the time, though I was too great a coward
to say so, and only (in my mind) reversed the Frenchman's
remark and thought, C'est la guerre, fnais c' n'est pas magnifique.
Cornhill Magazine.
Chateau qui parle, femme qui ecoute, sont prets ^ se
rendre.
TJie castle that parleys and the ivoinan ivJio listens are
ready to surrender. But a different view is taken by Mrs.
Amelia E. Barr, who writes in the North American Re-
view : " It is said, ' The woman who deliberates is lost.'
The truth is, women are lost because they do not de-
liberate. Thackeray had the profoundest insight into a
woman's heart when he made the miserable wife of
Barnes Ncwcome leave her husband and home in an
hour when she had no such intention. Cruelly tempted,
perplexed, and bewildered, when passion is stronger than
reason, women do not think of consequences, but go
blindfold, headlong to their ruin."
28 A LITERARY MANUAL
The success of this convenient friend had been such that he
had obtained from Sir William, not indeed a directly favorable
answer, but certainly a most patient hearing. This he had
reported to his principal, who had replied by the ancient
French adage, Chateau qui parle et femme qui e'coute Vun et
tautre va se retidre. A statesman who hears you propose a
change of measures without reply was according to the
Marquis' opinion in the situation of the fortress which par-
leys and the lady who listens, and he resolved to press the
siege of the Lord Keeper.
Scott : " The Bride of Lammermoor," chap, 20.
Cherchez la femme.
Look for the zuoman. This is the maxim of those who
believe that a woman is at the bottom 'of, or at least con-
cerned in, every difficulty in life. Biichmann thinks that
the saying comes from a line of Juvenal (Sat., vi., 242) :
Nulla fere causa est, in qua non femina litem
Moverit.
"There is hardly any litigation of which a woman was
not the cause." This is rather far-fetched, and the ex-
pression might with equal propriety be derived from the
oft quoted phrase of Virgil (/En., i., 364), Dux fanina
facti. " A woman was the leader in the deed."
Che sara, sard.
WJiat will be, ivill be. An expression of fatalism. It is
the motto of the ducal house of Bedford, and was in-
scribed over one of the entrances to Covent Garden
market, the property of the Bedfords.
It was the kind of thing which had always possessed para-
mount interest for her ; she had always thought that she would
start up on her dying bed if she heard of a change of ministry,
or shake off scarlet-fever itself to go down to the House on the
night of a close division. But now it all seemed to her very
OF FOREIGX QUOTA TIOXS. 29
much like the rattling of peas in a dry bladder, like the
bustling and buzzing of flies in a paper cage. What would
they really change in the history of the world ? What would
they really alter in the oscillations of nations ? Che sarh, sara,
despite Downing Street and the Treasury Bench.
OuiDA : " Syrlin," chap. 24,
Chi va piano va sano, chi va sano va lontano.
He ivho goes gently goes safely, Jie li'ho goes safely goes
far. A man who, like many others, deprecated the all
but universal practising on pianos by people utterly
destitute of talent for music commented this prov^erb
thus : Chi va piano, he who plays the piano, va sano,
does well, ehi va sano, he who would do well, va lontano,
should go a long way off when he plays on a piano.
Civis Romanus sum.
~- / am a Roman eitice>i. This was the proud saying in the
days of the Republic and early Empire before Caracalla
had conferred citizenship upon all the subjects of Rome.
This must make all Germans abroad more than ever proud
of the Chancellor, who, when inaugurating his colonial policy,
avowed his determination to imbue all its promoters with the
consciousness expressed in the reflection, civts Rofnanus sum.
The Nation.
Clarum et venerabile nomen. (lucax, phar., ix., 203,)
An illustrious and venerable name.
The state, in the condition I have described it, was delivered
into the hands of Lord Chatham, a great and celebrated name,
— a name that keeps the name of this country respectable in
every other on the globe. It may be truly called
clarum et venerabile nomen
Gentibus, et multum nostrre quod proderat urbi.
Burke : Speech on " American Taxation."
30 A LITERARY MANUAL
Coelum, non animum, mutant, qui trans mare cur-
runt. (HORACE, EP., I., II, 27.)
TJiey change their skies, not their viindSy who cross the
sea. So Goldsmith says :
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart iintravclV d fondly turns to thee.
My admirable cousin, . . . Mr. William Esmond, re-
turned along with our troops and fleets ; and, being a gentle-
man of good birth and name, and well acquainted with the
city, made himself agreeable to the new-comers of the Royal
army, the young bloods, merry fellows, and macaronis, by
introducing them to play-tables, taverns, and yet worse places
with which the worthy gentleman continued to be familiar in
the New World as in the Old. Coelum non anitniim. However
Will had changed his air, or whithersoever he transported his
carcass, he carried a rascal in his skin.
Thackeray : " The Virginians," vol. ii., chap. 42.
Ah, Rolando, Rolando ! thou wert a gallant captain, a
cheery, a handsome, a merry. At me thou never presentedst
pistol. Thou badest the bumper of Burgundy fill, fill for me,
giving those who preferred it champagne. Cxliim ?ion animum,
etc. Do you think he has reformed now that he has crossed
the sea, and changed the air ? I have my own opinion.
Thackeray ; "Roundabout Papers."
Cogito, ergo sum.
/ think, therefore I exist. Descartes treated this as the
most direct of human certainties, and therefore made i.
the keystone of his philosophical system.
Who am I ; what is this me ? A Voice, a Motion, an Ap-
pearance ; some embodied, visualised Idea in the Eternal
Mind ? Cogito, ergo sum. Alas, poor Cogitator, this takes us
but a little way. Sure enough I am ; and lately was not ; but
Whence ? How ? Whereto ?
Carlyle ; ''Sartor Resartus," book i., chap. S.
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 3 1
Comme il faut.
As it sJiouId be, seemly, proper. The phrase is appHca-
ble both to men and things. Either a dinner or the giver
of it may be spoken of as being comnic il faut. The
French use the expression with a certain fine nuance,
difficult to explain. There is, for instance, considerable
difference between a grande dame and a fevivic covivic
il faut.
But I have said enough and more than enough to explain
his dilemma to an unassisted bachelor, who, without mother,
sister, or cousin, without skilful housekeeper, or experienced
clerk of the kitchen, or valet of parts and figure, adventures
to give an entertainment, and aspires to make it elegant and
comme il faut.
Scott : " St. Ronan's Well," chap. 10.
He complimented them upon being seen at church ; again
he said that every conuue il faut person made a point of
attending the English service abroad ; and he walked back
with the young men prattling to them in garrulous good-
humor, etc.
Thackeray : *' Pendennis," vol. ii., chap. 18.
Consule Planco. (horace, odes, hi., 14, 28.)
When Plancus was consul. " I would not have endured
such treatment," says Horace, " in the days of my fiery
youth, when Plancus was consul." The poems of Horace
have always been so well known by men of the world, as
well as by men of letters, that many of his apparently
insignificant expressions have become common quotations,
because they instantly suggest the context to every reader.
This phrase, consule Planco, is one of them, used either in
English or Latin. It means : " the good old times when
I was young."
Moselle and sparkling hock have few votaries ; yet in Paris
some of us have known a very similar wine served at dinner —
32 A LITERARY MANUAL
a wine which, when Plancus was consul, was the champion
wine of the student in the Latin Quarter, where it had a chan-
son all to itself, each stanza ending with the refrain. Give me
the vinous St. Peray.
Neiv York Times.
Coram populo. (horace, ars poetica, 185.)
Before the people, or, in sight of the public. Horace is
speaking of what actions should not be represented on the
stage, and says that Medea does not slay her children
coram populo.
Just consider what life would be if every rogue was found
out and flogged coram populo! What a butchery, what an
indecency, what an endless swishing of the rod !
Thackeray : " Roundabout Papers."
I have always liked those Parisian restaurants where the
tables are out on a terrace in summer or on the trottoir itself,
and you eat and drink cor atn populo.
Cordon bleu.
A blue ribbon. Unless the context indicates otherwise,
a cordon bleu means a good cook, especially a woman
cook, because in France those cooks who passed a good
examination received a medal held by a blue ribbon. In
England a blue ribbon is one of the insignia of the Order
of the Garter, as it was also of the old French Order of
the Holy Ghost. To become a knight of the Garter is
spoken of as obtaining the blue ribbon. By a natural
figure of speech the term is applied to other prizes of life.
Thus Lord Beaconsfield called the Derby the blue ribbon
of the English turf.
Corruptio optimi pessima.
TJie corruption of the best is the worst. It is true in
politics and morals, as in physics, that the deterioration
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TIONS. 33
of the best types produces something worse than the
ordinaril)- inferior types.
The extraordinary thing (and yet to those who know their
Frenchmen it is not so extraordinary) is that they have felt
the need of making this demonstration. That curious corrup-
tion of modesty which takes the form of vanity {corruptio
optimi pc'ssima, you know) has given the French agonies of
pain during the last few years, and they have at last been
driven to do something conspicuous, just to show themselves
and the world that they are alive. Saturday Revieiv.
Coup de grdce.
A finisliing stroke, — the blow that kills or completes the
ruin.
When Murchison was selling off his hunters the chemical
precipitation theory was rapidly passing away in favor of the
Huttonian views. It had indeed received its coup de grace
from the researches of William Smith, a civil engineer, born in
Oxfordshire, who earned the proud title of the father of Eng-
lish geology by the publication, in 1801, of his "Tabular View
of the British Strata," and by the subsequent publication of a
series of geological maps of England and Wales.
Edinburgh Review.
Coup de main.
A bold and sudden attack.
Hoping to bring the war to a rapid conclusion by a coup de
main, the French general suspended the operations of the
siege to give chase, and on one occasion Victor was overtaken
and surrounded by a superior force. Quarterly Review.
Coute que coiite.
Cost ivJiat it may.
Since I began my letter we hear that France is determined
to try a numerous invasion in several places in England and
Ireland, coute que coiite, and knowing how difficult it is.
Horace Walpole : " Letters to Sir Horace Mann."
3
34 A LITERARY MANUAL
Credat Judaeus Apella. (horace, sat., l, 5, 96.)
The jfeiv Apella may believe this. " At Gratia," says
Horace, describing a journey, " they wanted to persuade
us that incense melted upon the sacred threshold without
the aid of fire. The Jew Apella may believe this, but not
I, for I have learned that the gods live in tranquillity, and
if any wonderful thing happens it is not sent by them
from the lofty vault of heaven." Apella was a common
name among the Jews, who were regarded by the Romans
as a very credulous and superstitious race. But Renan
says (" Les Apotres," chap. 6) : " It is not credulity which
is most striking in the Talmudist Jew. The credulous
Jew, the lover of the marvellous, known to the Latin
satirists, is not the Jew of Jerusalem ; it is the Hellenized
Jew, at the same time very religious and very ill-informed,
consequently very superstitious. Neither the half-scepti-
cal Sadducee, nor the rigorous Pharisee, could have been
much impressed by the theurgy which was so popular in
the apostolic circle. But the Judaeus Apella, at whom
the epicurean Horace smiled, was there to believe."
They seem then to have made their option, and to have given
some sort of credit to their paper by taking it themselves ; at
the same time, in their speeches, they made a sort of swagger-
ing declaration, something, I rather think, above legislative
competence, that is, that there is no difference in value be-
tween metallic money and their assignats. This was a good,
stout proof article of faith, pronounced under an anathema by
the venerable fathers of this philosophic synod. Credat who
will — certainly not Judceus Apella.
Burke : " Reflections on the Revolution in France."
Creme de la creme.
The cream of the cream — i.e., the very best.
In the case of the organ, be it recollected that many who
form part of the crhyie de la crime of Protestantism have now
OF FOREIGN Q Uc ) T, I T/ONS. 3 5
begun to use that which the Pope does not hear in his own
chapel or his sublime Basilica, and which the entire Eastern
Church has ever shrunk from employing in its services.
Gladstonk.
Cui bono ?
What 's the good of it ? In its classical use this phrase
meant, For whose advantage ? (Cicero, Sext. Rose, 30).
But the modern sense is that of the above translation.
Would I resume it ? Oh ! no.
Four acts are done, — the jest grows stale,
The waning lamps burn dim and pale,
And reason asks, ciii bono?
James Smith.
Cum grano salis.
With a grain of salt — that is, with some allowance or
abatement.
The pudding I eat or refuse, that is neither here nor there ;
and between ourselves, what I have said about batter-pudding
may be taken cum grano — we are not come to that yet, except
for the sake of argument or illustration.
Thackeray : " Roundabout Papers."
Cur in theatrum, Cato, severe venisti ? (martial, ep.,
I., 3.)
Why have you come to the theatre, Cato, with such a severe
countenance ?
You must trifle only with the triflers ; and be serious only
with the serious, but dance to those who pipe. Cur in theatrum,
Cato, sei^ere venisti? was justly said to an old man ; how much
more so would it be to one of your age ?
Chesterfield.
Although for the last thirty years I have only been able to
enjoy the theatre by making a little journey, yet, even now, if
I lived in a city I would spend the long winter evenings sitting
36 A LITERARY MANUAL
in the parterre, for the sake of the play and of the play-goers,
and I would not be disturbed by Martial's exclamation to
Cato, Cur in theatrum severe venisti?
Weber's " Demokritos."
Curiosa felicitas. (petronius, satyricon, cap. ii8.)
Careful Jiappincss (of phrase). The expression originally
referred to the diction of Horace, and has been since
applied to many writers who deserve it less. It is some-
times translated, " curious felicity " ; but this conveys an
idea of preciosity which is not in the original.
The curiosa felicitas of Horace in his lyric compositions, the
elaborate delicacy of workmanship in his thoughts and in his
style, argue a scale of labor that, as against any equal number
of lines in Lucretius, would measure itself by months against
days. There are single odes in Horace that must have cost
him a six-weeks' seclusion from the wickedness of Rome.
De Quincey.
I would try a man's knowledge of the world, as I would try
a schoolboy's knowledge of Horace : not by making him con-
strue Mcece7tas atavis edite regibus, which he could do in the
first form, but by examining him as to the delicacy and curiosa
felicitas of the poet.
Chesterfield.
Currente calamo.
With a TJinning pen — i.e., off-hand.
The man who writes currente calamo, who works with a
rapidity which will not admit of accuracy, may be as true, and
in one sense as trustworthy, as he who bases every word upon
a rock of facts.
Anthony Trollope : "Autobiography."
Dabit deus his quoque finem. (virgil, ^neid, i., 199.)
God will put an end to these also. These words are from
the address with which ^neas sustains the courage of
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TR \VS. 37
his companions in adversity, who had suffered greater
evils, passi graviora.
I cannot address the people of this country in the language
of the quotation used by the noble lord, O passi grainora ; for
never was a country cursed with a worse, a more reckless, or a
more dangerous government. The noble lord, the Secretary
for Ireland, talks of lubricity ; but, thank God, we have at last
pinned you to something out of which you cannot wriggle ;
and, as we have the melancholy satisfaction to know that there
is an end to all things, so I can now say with the noble lord,
dabit deus his quoque finem ; thank God we have at last got rid
of such a government as this.
Sir James Graham.
Das Ewig-Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan. (goethe, faust, 2 teil, 5 akt.)
The eternal fcuiininc drazvs us on.
For the rest the Princess Lieven was a very woman. She
frankly confesses that she lost all interest in the Turkish war
of 1828 after the death of her brother, Constantine Benken-
dorf, by fever. The slaughter too before Shumla disgusted
her with the war, which she had rejoiced to see begin. There
is das Ewig- Weiblich commenting on politics.
Saturday Review.
When they smiled and showed their white teeth, and their
eyes peeped from beneath the curly hair, which hung in the
modern fashion over their foreheads, it was not difficult for
the author to believe that even in the Australian wilds women
do not wholly lack the fascination ascribed by Goethe to their
sex in general.
New York Sun.
Dat Galenus opes ; dat Justinianus honores. (Bu-
Galen gives riches ; Justinian gives honors — that is,
physicians acquire wealth and lawyers honors.
38 A LITER A RY MA NUA L
The rich physician, honour'd lawyers ride,
Whil'st the poor scholar foots it by their side.
Poverty is the Muses' patrimony ; and, as that poetical
divinity teacheth us, when Jupiter's daughters were each of
them married to the gods, the Muses alone were left solitary,
Helicon forsaken of all suters ; and I believe it was because
they had no portion.
Burton's " Anatomy," pt. i., sec. 2, mem. 3.
Davus sum, non CEdipus. (terence, andria, i., 2, 23.)
/ am Davits, not Qidipiis. Davus, in Roman comedy,
was the type of a simple-minded, devoted slave, while
CEdipus was extremely clever, having guessed the riddle
of the Sphinx.
There was evidently some trick in this, but what, is past my
conjecturing. Davus sum, non CEdipus.
Chesterfield.
Your Achilles should, all through, from beginning to end,
be impatient, fiery, restless, keen. Your Achilles, such as he
is, will probably keep up his character. But your Davus
should always be Davus, and that is more difficult. The
rustic, driving his pigs to market, cannot always make them
travel by the exact path he has intended for them.
Anthony Trollope : " Autobiography."
Debemur morti, nos nostraque. (horace, ars poetica,
Wc\ and all that is ours, arc condemned to death. And
so Manilius says (Astron., iv., 16), Nascoites morimur,
finisquc ah origine pendct.
Physiology writes over the portals of life, Debemur morti,
nos nostraque, with a profounder meaning than the Roman
poet attached to the melancholy line. Under whatever guise
it takes refuge, whether fungus or oak, worm or man, the
C )F I'ORliIGN Q UL )TA T/C h\ 'S. 39
living protoplasm not only ultimately dies, and is resolved
into its mineral and lifeless constituents, but is always dying,
and, strange as the paradox may sound, could not live unless
it died.
Huxley.
Quotations of a similar import might be indefinitely mul-
tiplied ; but it will be enough to add to this the statements
quoted already, that agnosticism is to theologic religion what
death is to life ; and that physiology does but deepen and
complete the gloom of the gloomiest motto of paganism —
Debemur morti.
W. H. Mallock.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
There is no disputing about tastes. The quotation from
one of Edgar Allan Poe's book-reviews, given below, ex-
presses his dissent from this maxim of uncertain origin,
which would seem to give everybody an equal right to
pass judgment on any work of art or literature. Four-
nier quotes the following eloquent passage on Taste
from Chateaubriand's, " Essay on English Literature " :
" Genius creates, taste preserves. Taste is the good sense
of genius. Without taste, genius is only a sublime mad-
ness. That sure touch, at which the lyre gives forth
only the sound which it ought to render, is more rare than
the creative faculty. Wit and genius, scattered about,
hidden, latent, unknown, often pass among us without
unpacking, as Montesquieu says ; they exist in the same
proportion in all ages ; but in the course of centuries
there are only certain nations, and in these nations only a
certain moment when taste shows itself in its purity. Be-
fore that time, after that time, every thing sins by a
deficiency or by an excess. That is why perfect works
are so rare ; for they must needs be produced in the
happy days of the union of taste and genius. Now this
40 A LITERARY MANUAL
great conjunction, like that of certain stars, seems only to
arrive after the lapse of several centuries, and lasts only
an instant."
One would be safe in wagering that any given public idea
is erroneous, for it has been yielded to the clamor of the
majority ; and this strictly philosophical, although somewhat
French, assertion has especial bearing upon the whole race of
what are termed maxims and popular proverbs, nine tenths of
which are the quintessence of folly. One of the most de-
plorably false of them is the antique adage, De gustibus non est
disputafidum, — there should be no disputing about taste. Here
the idea designed to be conveyed is that any one person has
as just right to consider his own taste true as has any one
other — that taste itself, in short, is an arbitrary something,
amenable to no law, and measurable by no definite rules.
POE.
De haut en has.
From above, below — i.e., haughtily.
Did you hear Captain Hotham's bon mot on Sir Thomas
Robinson's making an assembly from the top of his house to
the bottom ? He said, he wondered so many people would go
to Sir Thomas's, as he treated them all de haut en bas.
Horace Walpole.
De I'audace, encore de I'audace, toujours de I'audace.
(danton.)
Audacity, more audacity, ahvays audacity.
Even in those days when so many men were so astonishing
in their eloquence, Danton stands out as a master of com-
manding phrase. One of his fierce sayings has become a
proverb. Against Brunswick and the invaders, // «i]ifuu /idS already half finished. This is
like the Greek proverb, The beginning is the half of the
■vvTiolc. A German saying runs : Frisch gewagt ist Jialb
geivonnen. " Boldly ventured is half won."
Dis aliter visum, (virgil, ^neid, ii., 428.)
To tJie gods it seemed at herzvise. /Eneas is speaking of
the death of Riphaeus, the most just of the Trojans, the
idea being that since prosperity should wait on goodness
Riphaeus could not have seemed just to the gods. This
raises the great question of why the good should suffer,
which was discussed by Job and his friends. As a quota-
tion, the phrase, dis aliter visum, means that the gods
have ordained differently from our wishes.
He prefaced his inauguration of the junior Caesar by the
following tender words : Let us confound the rapine of the
grave and let the empire possess amongst her rulers a second
^lius Verus ! Dis aliter visum j the blood of the ^lian
family was not privileged to ascend or aspire ; it gravitated
violently to extinction. De Quinxev.
After one of those delays which always were happening
to retard our plans and weaken the blows which our chiefs
intended to deliver, an expedition was got under weigh from
New York at the close of the month of September, '77 ; that
could it but have advanced a fortnight earlier, might have
saved the doomed force of Burgoyne. Sed Dis aliter visum.
Thackeray : " The Virginians," vol. 2, chap. 43.
Disce, puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem ;
Fortunam ex aliis. (virgil, ^neid, xii., 435.)
Learn, O youth, virtue from me and true labor ; fortune
from others.
" If you are ever brought before a court-martial, sir," he said
somewhat sternly to his son George St, Patrick, when leaving
48 A LITERARY MANUAL
England, a man afterwards known to Sikhs and Afghans alike
as a model of cool courage and chivalrous honor, " if you are
ever brought before a court-martial, sir, never let me see
your face again ! " With greater pathos and with equal truth
might the tough and travel-worn veteran have addressed each
one of his sons, as he sent them off to the country which had
proved so cruel a stepmother to him, in the words that Virgil
puts into the mouth of the Trojan warrior, —
Disce, puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem ;
Fortunam ex aliis.
H. BoswoRTH Smith : " Life of Lord Lawrence," vol. i., ch. i .
Discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere divos. (virgil,
^NEID, VI., 620.)
Warned by my example, learn justice, and not to despise
the gods. These are the words which were constantly
being cried out in the infernal regions by Phlegyas, who
had been killed by Apollo, and put in hell for burning his
temple at Delphi. A mediaeval story recounts that when
a certain saint asked the Devil what the finest line in
Virgil was, he immediately answered, Discite justitiam
moniti, et non temnere divos.
Against these I would have the laws rise in all their majesty
of terrors, to fulminate such vain and impious wretches, and
to awe them into impotence by the only dread they can fear
or believe to learn that eternal lesson, Discite jtistitiam moniti,
et non temnere divos.
Burke : " Speech on Relief of Protestant Dissenters."
Disjecta membra.
Scattered parts. Horace speaks (Sat. i., 4, 62) of the
disjecti menibra poetcs.
" If we do not make this effort to recover our dignity, we
shall only sit here to register the arbitrary edicts of one too
powerful subject." Don't you at once know the style ?
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TJONS. 49
Shake those words all together and see if they can be any
thing but the disjecta membra of Pitt? In short, about a fort-
night ago this bomb burst.
Horace Walpole.
You are right, Gifford is right, Crabbe is right — you are all
right and I am all wrong ; but do pray let me have that pleas-
ure. Cut me up root and branch ; quarter me in the Quart-
erly ; send round my disjecti membra poctcB like those of the
Levite's concubine ; make me, if you will, a spectacle to men
and angels ; but don't ask me to alter, for I won't ; — I am
obstinate and lazy, and there 's the truth.
Byron.
Dis moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es.
Tell me zi'hat you cat, and I xuill tell you tuhat you are.
This is one of the aphorisms with which Brillat Savarin
begins his " Physiologic du Gout." Ludwig Feuerbach
imitated this by the well-known phrase, Der MenscJi ist,
was er isst. " Man is what he eats."
Cuvier was able, it is said, from the appearance of one or
two bones of an extinct animal to reconstruct the whole. An
old story shows how this skill of his once saved him from a
great fright. A being of dreadful shape once stood before
him as he was pursuing his midnight studies. "Who are you,
asked Cuvier ** and what do you want ? " "I am the devil," was
the reply, "and I have come to devour you." "You have,"
said the undismayed savant, " a cloven hoof and the structure
of a ruminant ; you are only herbiverous ; you do not eat
flesh. Dis moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es." And
thereupon the evil spirit being caught in a lie disappeared
while the philosopher quietly continued his studies.
Divide et impera. (the motto of louis xi.)
Divide and govern. Create dissensions among your
enemies, set off one force against another, in order to
assure your own sovereignty.
4
50 A LITERARY MANUAL
Montreuil, on his entrance into our family, not only fell in
with, but fostered and favored, the reigning humor against
me ; whether from that divide et inipera system which was so
grateful to his temper, or from mere love of meddling and in-
trigue, which in him, as in Alberoni, attached itself equally to
petty and to large circles, was not then clearly apparent.
BuLWER : '' Devereux," vol. i., chap. 3.
When tranquillity was restored, there was a general hope
that the monarchy might be restored. Which ? asked M.
Thiers in his thin and mocking voice. The ex-minister of
Louis Phillipe played an equivocal role, governed by the
maxim divide et impera. Firmly resolved to act only in the
interest of his personal ambition, he opposed the parties to
one another, sure of being able to reign over their divisions.
He encouraged the hopes of Legitimists, Orleanists, and Re-
publicans in turn, although decided to gratify none of them.
Dolce far niente.
Tlie szveetncss of doing nothing.
This respect for truth and the fixity of desires are, in my
opinion, the two leading characteristics which most dis-
tinguish a Roman from a Parisian. Paul said yesterday, very
truly : this sincerity of Roman society, to which we are un-
accustomed, gives it, on first impression, an aspect of unkind-
ness ; it is however the source of bonhoviie. Your friend does
not receive you every day with a slightly different manner.
That would disturb the dreaminess and the dolce far niente
which are the first of pleasures in this climate and the fertile
soil in which delight grows.
Stendhal : " Promenades dans Rome," vol. i., p. 150.
Domus et placens uxor, (horace, odes, ii., 14, 21.)
Your house and lovely wife. " No passages," says
Matthew Arnold, " have moved and pleased me more,
than, in poetry, the lines describing the pity of Zeus for
OF FOREIGN QUO TA TIONS. 5 1
the horses of Achilles, and the famous stanza of Horace,
Linqucnda tcllus ct douuis ct placeits uxor" etc. The fol-
lowing is his translatiiMi of the stanza :
Your land, your house, your lovely bride
Must lose you : of your cherished trees
None by its fleeting master's side
Will travel, save the cypresses.
Donee eris felix, multos numerabis amicos ;
Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris. (ovid, trist., i.,
9, 5-)
As long as yo2i arc fortunate yon %vill have many friends,
but if the times become cloudy you will be alone.
All goes well while your money lasts. You lead a joyous
life ; you have the companionship, often very agreeable, of the
many with whom friendship is a lively sense of favors, present
and to come. Donee eris felix. But once let it be known that
you need assistance and your experience is much more apt to
be like that of Timon of Athens than like that of the unjust
steward in the Bible who had made friends of the mammon
of unrighteousness and was not deserted in the days of his
misfortune.
Dulce est desipere in loco, (horace, odes, iv., 12, 28.)
It is agreeable to revel on a fit occasion.
Any taste for pleasure which Esmond had (and he liked to
desipere in loco neither more nor less than most young men of
his age), he could now gratify to the utmost extent, and in the
best company which the town afforded.
Thackeray : "Henry Esmond," book ii., chap. 10.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. (horace, odes,
III., 2, 13.)
// is sweet aftd glorious to die for one's country.
I deferred writing to you as long as they deferred the exe-
cution of old Lovat, because I had a mind to send you some
52 A LITERARY MANUAL
account of his death, as I had of his trial. He was beheaded
yesterday, and died extremely well, without passion, affectation,
buffoonery, or timidity ; his behavior was natural and intrepid.
He said he was glad to suffer for his country, duke est pro
patria mori ; that he did not know why, but he had always
loved it, etc.
Horace Walpole.
Dum spiro, spero.
While I live I hope. Respiration is aspiration.
The idea which we have expressed about the scaffold's
dominating all the heads had struck both of them.
" See," said Maurice, " how the hideous monster raises its
red arms ; would you not say that it is calling us, and that it
smiles through its opening as if it were a terrible mouth ? "
''Ah, indeed," said Lorin. "I own I am not one of that
poetical school that sees everything en rouge. I see things en
rose, and even at the foot of this hideous machine I still feel
like singing and hoping. Dum spiro spero."
Alexander Dumas : " Le Chevalier de la
Maison Rouge," chap. 49.
Dum vivimus, vivamus.
Whilst we live let tis live.
To-morrow is Amin Bey's dinner. Then I go to Marshfield
for a day, and then South. I have been quite well since you
left, though I must confess all the time melancholy at leaving
a place which is dear to my recollection and which I cannot
expect to see often. But away with low spirits ! Dum vivi-
mus, vivamus.
Daniel Webster : " Private Correspondence,"
vol. 2, p. 399.
Eheu ! fugaces labuntur anni. (horace, odes, ii., 14, i.)
A las ! the fleeting years are passing aivay.
They ought to be written ; they ought to be read. They
should be written and then they would be read. But time is
wanting :
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TIOXS. 53
Eheu ! fugaces, Postume, Postume,
I.abuntur anni,
and time is a commodity of which the value rises as long as we
live. We must be contented with doing not what we wish, but
what we can — our possible, as the French call it.
SouTHEV : " The Doctor," chap. 25, p. i.
Entre la poire et le fromage.
Bctzvccn the pear and the eheese — that is, at dessert.
They resumed the discussion of the matter when they dined
together the next day, and it is a fact that this important reso-
lution to send Gordon to Khartoum was reached efttre la poire
ei le froviage.
Eo ipso praefulgebant quod non visebantur.
They shone all the more because they zuere not seen. " To
be conspicuous by their absence " is the corresponding
English expression ; and briller par Icur absence, the French.
The idea comes from a phrase of Tacitus (Annals, book
iii., ch. 76) in referring to the funeral of Junia, the sister of
Brutus and the wife of Cassius, under Augustus, at which
the images of some of her family were carried, " but Cas-
sius and Brutus shone forth brilliantly precisely because
their images were not seen," — sed prcsfulgebant Cassius
atque Brutus, co ipso, quod effigies eoruni non visebatitur.
This only I will add, that learned men forgotten in States
and not living in the eyes of men, are like the images of Cas-
sius and Brutus at the funeral of Junia ; of which, not being
represented as many others were, Tacitus saith, Eo ipso
prcEfulgebant quod non visebantur.
Bacon ; " Advancement of Learning," book i.
E pluribus unum.
Oyie out of many. The motto of the United States. The
phrase e pluribus una, or luius, is found in several classical
54 A LITERARY MANUAL
authors (Horace, Ep., ii., 2, 212; Virgil's Moretum, i.,
103). The Gentleman s Magazine in the last century bore
E pluribns nmun as a motto on its title-page, and it was
probably taken from this source when first put on our
national coinage in 1796. The Revised Statutes of the
United States (Sec. 3,517) provide that on one side of cer-
tain coins there shall be the figure or representation of an
eagle with the inscriptions : United States of America
and E pluribus unum, and a designation of the value of
the coin.
When the motto was adopted, it may have been intended to
mean that there was a new nation among the many in the
world. But the general conception as to the signification of
the phrase is that expressed in the following extract from
Alexander H. Stephens' ''War between the States," vol. i., p.
484 : " In this sense Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson
spoke of the United States under the Constitution as a Nation
as well as a Confederated Republic. In this sense it is properly
styled by all a Nation. This was the idea symbolized in the
motto, E pluribus uuum. One from many. That is, one State
or Nation — one Federal Republic — from many Republics,
States, or Nations."
E pur si muove.
But it does move ! This is the exclamation attributed
to Galileo as he rose from his knees after having abjured
his theory of the diurnal motion of the earth. The story
is, of course, entirely apocryphal.
The author of the " Abbesse de Jouarre " has somewhere
said that a man has no need of dying for his discoveries, for
they are certain without that testimony. He who has discov-
ered a law of nature may afterwards deny it, c pur si muove.
If he were to suffer martyrdom for it, that would not add any
thing to the force of the proof. Let him write his discovery
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIL WS. 5 5
on parchment, and whoever understands the subject will see
that it is true.
Eripuit cceIo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis.
Ill- siiaicJud tJic lightning from heaven and their sceptre
from the tyrants. This was the epigraph which the illus-
trious Turgot wrote for Houdon's bust of Franklin. In
Fournier's " L'Esprit des Autres " there is a letter from
Franklin to a translator of the line into French, in which
Franklin says ; " Notwithstanding my experiments with
electricity, the thunderbolt continues to fall under our
noses and beards, and, as for the tyrant, there have been
more than a million of men engaged in snatching away his
sceptre."
We know what a flogging is, but what love is, no one has
found out. Some natural philosophers have maintained that
it is a kind of electricity. That is possible, for at the moment
of falling in love we feel as if an electrical spark had suddenly
penetrated our heart from the eye of the beloved one. Ah !
this lightning is the most destructive of all, and I shall esteem
him who can find a conductor for it higher than Franklin. O
that there might be little lightning rods which would conduct
the dreadful fire elsewhere. I fear, however, that little Amor
cannot be as easily robbed of his arrows as Jupiter of his
lightning or the tyrants of their sceptre.
Heine : " Reisebilder — Die Bader von Lucca," Kap. 7.
Ernst ist das Leben, heiter ist die Kunst. (schiller,
WALLENSTEIN.)
Life is earnest , art is joyful. And so Jean Paul said:
Die Ktinst ist szuar nicht das Brad, aber der Wein des
Lebens. "Art is not indeed the bread but the wine
of life." Another favorite maxim, expressive of the true
function of art, is : hi der Kunst das Sehone ; in der
56 A LITERARY MANUAL
Wissenschaft das Wahre. " In art the beautiful ; in
science the true."
The Muses, as Hesiod says, were born that they might be a
forgetfulness of evils and a truce from cares, and it is not
enough that the poet should add to the knowledge of men ; it
is required of him also that he should add to their happiness.
All art, says Schiller, is dedicated to joy, and there is no
higher and no more serious problem than how to make men
happy. The right art is that alone which creates the highest
enjoyment.
Karl Hillebrand.
Est modus in rebus, (horace, sat., i., i, io6.)
There is a due measure in things.
But there is a modus in rebus j there are certain lines which
must be drawn ; and I am only half pleased, for my part, when
Bob Bowstreet, whose connection with letters is through Po-
licemen X. and Y., and Tom Garbage, who is an esteemed
contributor to the Kennel Miscellany, propose to join fellow-
ship as brother literary men, slap me on the back, and call me
old boy, or by my Christian name.
Thackeray : " The Virginians," vol. i., chap. 43.
Esto perpetua.
May she be perpetual.
Spirit of Swift — spirit of Molyneux — your genius has pre-
vailed, Ireland is now a nation ; and in that new character I
hail her, and, bowing to her august presence, I say : Esto
perpetua.
Grattan, in 1782.
Et tu, Brute.
Aud thou too, O Brut7ts ! This is the exclamation said
to have been uttered by Caesar when he saw Brutus
among the conspirators attacking him. According to
Suetonius, Caesar's exclamation was : Kai tu, teknon.
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 5 7
(" And thou too, my son ! " ) Shakespeare quotes the ct
tUy Brute in " Julius Caisar " (Act iii., scene i).
I believe I told you that the Edinburgh Review had attacked
me in an article on Coleridge (I have not seen it). Et tu,
Jeffrey — there 's nothing but roguery in villainous man. But
I absolve him of all attacks, present or future ; for 1 think he
had already pushed his clemency in my behoof to the utmost,
and I shall always think well of him.
Byron.
Exegi monumentum aere perennius. (horace, odes,
III., 30, I.)
/ have raised a monuvient more lasting than brass.
Horace is referring to his own poems. In like manner
Ovid concludes the " Metamorphoses " by saying that he
has completed a work which neither the wrath of Jove,
nor flames, nor the sword, nor rapacious time shall de-
stroy. And Shakespeare exclaims :
Not marble nor the gilded monuments of princes
Shall outlive this powerful rhyme.
George, who has been thinking about theatrical triumphs,
about monumentum are perennius, about lilacs, about love
whispered and tenderly accepted, remembers that he has a
letter from Harry in his pocket, and gayly produces it.
Th.\ckerav : " The Virginians," vol. ii., chap. 15.
Far be it from me to set myself up as a judge of any such
delicate question as that put before me ; but I think I may
venture to express the conviction that, in the matter of
courage. Dr. Wace has raised for himself a monument are
perennius. For, really, in my poor judgment, a certain splen-
did intrepidity, such as one admires in the leader of a forlorn
hope, is manifested by Dr. Wace, when he solemnly affirms
that he believes the Gadarene story on the evidence offered.
Huxley.
58 A LITERARY MANUAL
£x nihilo, nihil fit.
0?(t of notJiing nothing is made. This maxim sums up
the physical theory of Lucretius. Nihil igitiir fieri de
niJiilo posse, fatendiini est, he says (i., 206). In his phi-
losophy it meant that nothing was created. In its ordinary
application the phrase means that there is no effect without
a cause, nothing from nothing.
The dogma of creation, as Christianity teaches it, is the pure
and sublime truth revealed by G©d, for reason unaided could
not attain to it. The Christian creation is the creation ex
nihilo; but reason on the contrary says with the ancient
philosopher, ex nihilo, nihil. Bautain.
Force, then, like matter, is immortal. It may be transformed
but never destroyed. From these considerations materialism
concludes that, as that which is indestructible can have had no
beginning, matter and force cannot have been created. Ex
nihilo nihil, in nihiliun nil posse reverti. The transformation of
something into nothing is as inconceivable, says Lebon, as is
the creation of something from nothing.
Edgar Saltus : "The Anatomy of Negation," 182.
Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor. (virgil,
^N., IV., 625.)
May some avenger arise from onr ashes. The great
Elector, says Biichmann (" Gefliigelte Worte," 294), is
said to have cited these words when, abandoned by the
Emperor, he signed the Peace of St. Germain-en-Laye, on
the 29th June, 1679. And the Spanish general, Diego
Leon, at his execution in 1841, cried them out to the
soldiers of Espartero firing upon him.
Ex pede, Herculem.
From the foot, Hereules. Just as we may recognize a
statue of Hercules merely by the size of the foot, so we
may judge of the whole of a thing from a part.
OF J'( miiIGN Q UO TA Tie hVS. 59
£x pede^ Ilercuhm, is an old and true saying, and very
applicable to our present subject ; for a man of parts, who has
been bred at courts and used to keep the best company, will
distinguish himself, and is to be known from the vulgar by
every word, attitude, gesture, and even look.
Chesterfield.
Hence the people of this metropolis are under the necessity
of pronouncing their definitive judgment from the first glance,
and being thus habituated to shoot flying they have what
sportsmen call a quick sight. Ex pede, Herailem. They know
a wit by his snuffbox, a man of taste by his bow, and a states-
man by the cut of his coat. Gouverneur Morris.
Experto crede. (virgil, ^neid, xi., 283.)
Believe one who kas had experience.
" That is to say, you think yourself a fine horseman."
" I would not willingly," answered Lovel, " confess myself a
very bad one."
" No, all you young fellows think that would be equal to
calling yourselves tailors at once. But, have you had expe-
rience, for crede experto, a horse in a passion is no joker."
Scott : "The Antiquary," chap. 16.
Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius.
A Mercury is not to be )nadc out of any piece of wood.
This corresponds with the English saying: You cannot
make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
I am in this haste to answer your letter which I received but
this morning, because I believe that my answer will give you
almost as much satisfaction as your letter gave me. Go on so,
my dear Boy, and I will promise both myself and you, that you
will do in that sphere of life to which I destine you. It is a
common saying that ex quovis ligno non fit Alcrcurius, but I see
with pleasure that ex tuo ligtio fiet tandem Mercurius.
Chesterfield : "Letters to his Godson," p. 227.
6o A LITERARY MANUAL
Ex ungue leonem.
We rcxognize a lion by his claiv, that is, a single deed or
a single verse may be so significant as to show that it is
the production of a master-mind.
Gibbon's next appearance made a deeper impression. It
was the first distinct appearance of the lion's foot. Ex ungue
leonem might have been justly said, for he attacked, and
attacked successfully, the redoubtable Warburton.
Faber est quisque fortunae suae, (sallust, de rep., or,
I., CAP. I.)
Every inait is the architect of his ozvn fortune.
It cannot be denied but outward accidents conduce much
to fortune ; favor, opportunity, death of others, occasion fitting
virtue. But chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own
hands. Faber quisque fortunes sucb saith the poet.
Bacon : " Essays."
Facile princeps.
Easily t lie first.
Goethe, the greatest literary critic that ever lived, was more
comprehensive and universally tolerant ; but De Quincey was
facile prijiceps, to the extent of his touch, among the English
critics of his generation.
D. Masson : " Life of De Quincey," p. i8o.
Facilis descensus Averni. (virgil, .eneid, vi., 126.)
Tlie descent to Averniis is easy. Some ancient MSS.
read Avcrno.
As he approached the entrance to that den of infamy, from
which his mind recoiled even while in the act of taking shelter
there, his pace slackened, while the steep and broken stairs
reminded him of 'Cn^ facilis descensus Averni, and rendered him
doubtful whether it were not better to brave the worst which
could befall him in the public haunts of honorable men than
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIOXS. 6i
to evade punishment by secluding himself in those of avowed
vice and profligacy.
Scott : " The Fortunes of Nigel," chap. i6.
Society says to the moralist, as Scrooge said to Marley's
ghost : Don't be hard upon me ; don't be flowery, Jacob.
But unless we have made up our minds, conclusively and in
despair, that we must take t\\c fiicilis descensus, without thought
of where it leads, it is clear that some one must look upward
and point upward.
S. T. Wallis.
Thus he will inevitably commit himself at once to his
political destruction. His do\vnfall, too, will not be more
precipitate than awkward. It is all very well to talk about
the facilis descensus Averni j but in all kinds of climbing, as
Catalani said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to
come down.
POE : " The Purloined Letter."
Facit indignatio versum. (juvenal, sat., i., 79.)
Indignation produces the verse. In contemplation of the
crimes against which he is about to write, Juvenal ex-
claims that if nature denies the poetic faculty, indignation
will make the verses. And so Boileau says, in imitation
of this : La colere suffit, et vatit un Apollon. " Anger
suffices, and is worth an Apollo."
The inspiration of wrath spoke through him as through a
Hebrew prophet. The same inspiration spoke now in me.
Facit indignatio versum, said Juvenal. And it must be owned
that indignation has never made such good verses since as she
did in that day.
De Quixcey.
Faire de la prose sans le savoir.
To speak prose zi'ithout knoz^'ing it. This is an allusion to
an amusing scene in Moliere's " Bourgeois Gentilhomme "
62 A LITERARY MANUAL
(Act ii., scene 6). Monsieur Jourdain, an ignorant
fellow who has made money, wants to shine as a man
of fashion, and calls in to his aid teachers of dancing,
philosophy, and fencing. To the teacher of philosophy
he says :
I must make you a confession. I am in love with a person
of high quality, and I wish you would help me to write some-
thing in a little note, which I will drop at her feet.
Teacher. — All right.
M. JouRDAiN. — It will be gallant, won't it ?
Teacher. — Certainly. Do you wish to write to her in
verse.
M. JouRDAiN. — No, no. No verse.
Teacher. — You only want prose then ?
M. Jourdain. — No. I want neither prose nor verse.
Teacher. — It must be one or the other.
M. Jourdain. — Why ?
Teacher. — Because one can only express himself in prose
or in verse.
M. Jourdain. — There is only prose and verse ?
Teacher. — Yes, sir. All that is not prose is verse, and all
that is not poetry is prose.
M. Jourdain. — And when we talk, what is that ?
Teacher. — Prose.
M. Jourdain. — What ! — when I say, Nicholas, bring me my
slippers and night-cap — that is prose ?
Teacher. — Yes, sir.
M. Jourdain. — Good Gracious ! Here I have been talking
prose for more than forty years without knowing it {sans que
J'en susse rieii) ; I am deeply obliged to you for teaching me
that.
Kepler and Galileo used the inductive and experimental
method somewhat as M. Jourdain spoke prose — sans le savoir.
Karl Hillebrand.
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TIOXS. C3
Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra.
Do ichat is right, cotiic i<'hat may.
Even if there were no holy and merciful God, if there was
only the great universal being, the law of all, the ideal without
distinct existence or reality, Duty would still be the solution
of the enigma, and the polar star of humanity in its march.
Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra.
Amiel : " Journal Intime."
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.
False in o/w thing, false in all.
You offer no reparation, nor even make an excuse, for the
wanton and unprovoked injury which you tried to commit
upon the character of the living and the memory of the dead.
You sullenly permit judgment to be rendered against you by
nil dicit. I mention this only to say that it very seriously
affects your credibility upon other points. Falsus in uno,
falsus in omnibus.
J. S. Black.
Fas est ab hoste doceri. (ovid, met., iv., 428.)
// is laxcfnl to be taught by an enemy.
In the thorough-going reorganization of the army, which
was begun immediately after the suppression of the Coramane,
the Third Republic did not disdain to copy, even servilely, the
German system, and showed its faith in the maxim, fas est ab
hoste doceri.
Fatti maschii, parole femine.
Actions become a man, a wotnan has zi'ords ; or, deeds
are manly, words are womanly. This is the motto of the
State of Maryland, as it was of Lord Baltimore, the
founder of the colony. The full Italian form of the
proverb is : Le parole son femine e i fatti son inascht,
which is sometimes erroneously taken to mean : Manly
deeds and womanly words.
64 A LITERARY MANUAL
Festina lente.
Hasten sloivly. This, according to Suetonius (chap.
25), was a Greek proverb often quoted by the Emperor
Augustus.
Sir John Lawrence was not so anxious for an immediate and
wholesale development of the railway system as for the exten-
sion of irrigation, for the construction of ordinary roads, the
building of improved barracks, and the introduction of sanitary
measures generally. He thought that many of the proposed
railways might stand over till the finances were in a more
satisfactory condition. Festina letite j Eile niit IVeile, was the
maxim with which he was disposed to act in the matter of rail-
ways. But that in spite of this maxim, or rather perhaps owing
to it, a vast stride was made even in the construction of railways
during his administration I shall be able to show hereafter.
H. BoswoRTH Smith : " Life of Lord Lawrence,"
vol. ii., ch. 12.
Fiat experimentum in corpora vili.
Let the experiment be tried 7ipon a zvorthless subject.
It is neither regular Parliamentary taxation, nor colony grant.
Experimetitum in corpore vili is a good rule, which will ever
make me adverse to any trial of experim^ents on what is
certainly the most valuable of all subjects, the peace of this
empire,
Burke : "Speech on Conciliation with America."
She had long learned the value of her bright eyes, and tried
experiments in coquetry, i?i corpore vili, upon rustics and
country squires, until she should prepare to conquer the world
and the fashion.
Thackeray : " Henry Esmond," book i., chap. 11.
This is an experience which we may all verify every day.
For instance, I myself (I again take myself as a sort of corpus
vile to serve for illustration in a matter where serving for
OF FORRIGN Q UO TA TR hVS. 6$
illustration may not by every one be thought agreeable), I
myself am properly a Philistine.
Matthi'.w Arnold.
Fiat justitia, ruat ccelum.
ZtY justice be doiu\ though the licavcns fall. The inotto
of the Emperor Ferdinand I.
Man believes in good, and in order to establish it upon
justice, he affirms that the injustice which touches him is only
an appearance, a mystery, an illusion, and that justice will be
done. Fiat justitia^ pereat mundus. It is a great act of faith.
And since humanity did not make itself, this protestation has
some chance of expressing a truth.
Amiel : " Journal Intime," vol. ii., p. 79.
Fidus Achates, (virgil, .eneid, passim.)
Faithful Achates. The customary designation of the
companion of .^neas.
" He is old enough to govern himself," answered the Master.
"Old enough, perhaps, but scarce wise enough, if he has
chosen this fellow for his fidus Achates."
Scott : "The Bride of Lammermoor," chap. 17.
Fin de Si^cle.
E)id of the Century. This phrase is much used in con-
temporary French to designate the ideas, persons and
things characteri.stic of the closing years of the nineteenth
century. A pessimistic novel, like Paul Bourget's " Men-
songes," or a play whose motif is the Darwinian theory
of the struggle for existence, like Daudet's " Lutte pour
la vie," is described as trcs fin de siicle. And so a man
thoroughly en rapport with modern views and customs,
like the Prince of Wales, may also be called fin de sih'le.
An essay in the Contemporary Review, for August, 1890,
upon the present condition of England, is entitled,
" Britain, Fin de Si^cle."
5
66 A LITERARY MANUAL
Flectere si nequeo Superos, Acheronta movebo.
(viRGIL, ^NEID, VII., 312.)
If I cannot bend the pozuers above, I zvill move the lower
world.
Flectere si nequeo Superos, Acheronta movebo. If Mr. Glad-
stone and Mr. Odger are indifferent, we appeal to Mr. Disraeli.
Froude.
Breakfasted with the Bishop of Oxford. It was remarkably
pleasant ; a little on derivations. As an instance of unlucky
quotation I gave Lord Fitzwilliam's when calling on the
Dissenters to join the Established Clergy in subscribing for
the rebuilding of York Minster, Flectere si nequeo Superos^
Acheronta movebo.
Lord Carlisle, in Trevelyan's *' Life of
Macaulay," ii., 175.
Foenum habet in cornu. (horace, sat., l, 4, 34.)
He has hay on his horns — i.e., he is dangerous. The
allusion is to the Roman custom of fastening a wisp of
hay to the horns of dangerous cattle as a warning.
Bad company is much more easily defined than good, for
what is bad must strike everybody at first sight ; folly, knav-
ery, and profligacy, can neVer be mistaken for wit, honour and
decency. Bad company have foenum in cornu • longe fuge.
But in^ood there are several gradations from good to the best.
Chesterfield : "Letters to his Godson," p. 175.
Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit. (virgil, .^:neid,
I-, 203.)
Perhaps, hereafter, it will be a delight to remeinber these
things.
Whatever was the cause of your going to the army, I approve
of the effect ; for I would have you, as much as possible, see
everything that is to be seen. That is the true useful knowl-
4
OF FORRIGN QUOTA TfOXS. 67
edge which informs and improves us when we are young, and
amuses u . and others when we are old ; olim hccc Jticminisse
juvabit.
Chesterfield.
Fronti nulla fides, (juvenal, sat., ii., 8.)
There ' s no trusting' to ap/^earaiiees. So Shakespeare
says,
There '.s no art
To find the mind's construction in the face.
During the second act Partridge made very few remarks.
He greatly admired the fineness of the dresses ; nor could he
help observing upon the king's countenance. Well, said he,
how people may be deceived by faces. Nulla fides fronti is I
find a true saying. Who would think by looking in the king's
face that he had ever committed a murder.
Fielding : " Tom Jones," book xvi., chap. 5.
Fruges consumere nati. (horace, epis., i., 2, 27.)
Bor)i to eoiisinne t he fruits (of the earth). Born to eat
and drink.
Well it is that some of those who are fruges consumere nati
think it proper that they should consume books also ; if they
did not, what a miserable creature wouldst thou be, Henry
'Colburn, who art their bookseller.
SouTHEY : " The Doctor," interchapter, 4.
There are two great classes of men ; those who produce
much and consume little ; and those who consume much and
produce nothing. The fruges consumere fiati have the best
of it.
T. L. Peacock : " Crotchet Castle," chap. 6.
Fugit irreparabile tempus. (virgil, georgics, hi., 284.)
The irreclaimable time flies.
If it be against your rules to admit me, repeated Butler in a
68 A LITERARY MANUAL
still louder one, to see the prisoner, I beg you will tell me so
and let me go about my business.
Fugit irrevocabile temptis, muttered he to himself.
Scott : " The Heart of Midlothian," chap. 13.
Fiir einen Kammerdiener giebt es keinen Held.
(hegel, philos. der geschichte.)
No man is a hero to his valet. Biichmann refers to some
similar sayings, quoting, among others, Montaigne, who
wrote (" Essais," liv., 3, ch. 2) : " Many a man has seemed
to the world to be a miracle in whom his wife and his valet
have not even seen any thing remarkable. Few men have
been admired by their servants. The experience of his-
tory says that no one has been a prophet in his own house
or even in his own country." In his " Wahlverwandt-
schaften," 2 Theil, 5 Kap., Goethe refers to the proverb and
says that this is merely because a hero can only be recog-
nized by a hero and that the valet would probably know
how to estimate his fellows. But Schopenhauer contends
that the proverb is true because no man is really great.
Genus irritabile vatum. (horace, epis., ii., 2, 102.)
T/ie irritable raee of poets.
Berkeley, when a young man, went to Paris and called on
Pere Malebranche. He found him in his cell, cooking. Cooks
have ever been a genus irritabile j authors still more so. Male-
branche was both. A dispute arose ; the old father, warm
already, became warmer ; culinary and metaphysical irritations
united to derange his liver, he took to his bed and died.
De Quincev.
Heine had his full share of love of fame, and cared quite as
much as his brethren of the genus irritabile whether people
praised his verses or blamed them.
Matthew Arnold : " Essays in Criticism."
OF FOREIGN QUOTA T/ONS. 69
Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed saepe cadendo.
Drops of water i^'car (i-n'ay d s/oiic not by forcr but by fre-
quently failing.
I have never been a slave to lliis work, giving due time, if
not more than due time, to tlie amusements 1 have loved.
But I have been constant — and constancy in labor will con-
quer all difficulties. Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, etc.
Anthony Trollope : "Autobiography."
Habemus confitentem reum. (cicero, pro ligario, c. i.)
IVe have an accused luho confesses.
Rigaud has preserved for us a great number of these docu-
ments, signed, sealed and sworn to by the penitents, and they
are extremely curious. In the first place, they show, beyond
all doubt or cavil, that the charges are true. Habemus confi-
tentes reos.
J. C. MoRisoN : " The Service of Man."
Following out Sainte-Beuve's personal and physiological
method of criticism, we should say that Swift's vice or weak-
ness (the great French critic adds, " every man has such ")
was the not uncommon one of a self-indulgent propensity
to engage female sympathy, without making the return for
that sympathy demanded by female affection. And on that
point, habemus confitentem reum. In a letter written before he
took orders, Swift rei)lied as follows to some advice of a
Leicester clergymen whom he calls his '* good cousin," referring
to some recent passages of love-making with one of his female
acquaintances there, etc.
Quarterly Review.
Habent sua fata libelli. (terentianus maurus, de syl-
LABIS, ETC., 288.)
Books Jiave their fate.
Terentianus is himself an instance of the truth of his reflec-
tion, for hardly any thing but this fragment of a verse is ever
70 A LITERARY MANUAL
quoted from him, and that is done while thinking it is from
another ; habent sua fata libelli.
Larousse.
Haeret lateri letalis arundo. (virgil, ^neid, iv., 73.)
TJic fatal arroiu sticks in her side. Virgil compares
Queen Dido in her fatal passion for ^-Eneas to a deer which
has been wounded by a shepherd. The deer flies through
the woods, but the deadly dart remains in her flank.
In a Keltic tale, the hero sees in a dream a vision of ravish-
ing loveliness, and he spends his life in running about the
world looking for it again. So the man who has once sat
down to reflect upon the great problems of human destiny
carries an arrow in his heart which he will never pull out.
Hceret lateri letalis arufido.
Hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim. (hor-
ACE, ARS POET., I I.)
This pardon we ask and give in turn.
Even amongst common acquaintances, negligence is a kind
of an insult. It is a capital part of a panegyric in France to
say of a man, qu'il est occupy de ses devoirs, which implies a
great deal more than a mere perfunctory discharge of them.
Whenever you are a little wanting in attentions, let it be only
to me, for I think you and I are so well together that we shall
reciprocally forgive little inadvertencies. Ha7ic veniam datmcs
petimusque vicissijn.
Chesterfield : " Letters to his Godson," p. 255.
Hie jacet.
Here lies. The first words of inscriptions on tomb-
stones.
O eloquent, just and mighty Death ! whom none could
advise, thou hast persuaded ; what none hath dared, thou hast
done ; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TIONS. 71
cast out of the world and despised ; — thou hast drawn together
all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and
ambition of man and covered it all over with these two narrow
words, Hie jacct.
Sir Walter Raleigh, " History of the World."
Hinc illae lacrimae. (terence, andria, l, i, 99, and horace,
KPis., I., 19,41.)
Hence these tears. The expression is used in an ironi-
cal sense, after an explanation of another's conduct which
does not generally impute a praiseworthy motive to it.
The town has been in a great bustle about a private match
but which, by the ingenuity of the ministry, has been made
politics. Mr. Fox fell in love with Lady Caroline Lenox ;
asked her, was refused, and stole her. His father was a foot-
man ; her grandfather was a king : hinc illce lacrymce ! all the
blood royal have been up in arms.
Horace Walpole.
I believe that the loss of teeth may deprave the voice of
a singer, and that lameness will impede the motions of a
dancing master, but I have not yet been taught to regard the
death of a wife as the grave of literary exertions. When my
dear Mrs. Johnson expired, I sought relief in my studies, and
strove to lose the recollection of her in the toils of literature.
Perhaps, however, I wrong the feelings of this i)oor fellow.
His wife might have held the pen in his name. Hinc illce
lacrynicc. Nay, I think I observe throughout his two pieces,
a woman's irritability, with a woman's impotence of revenge.
Dr. Johnson.
Hoc opus, hie labor est. (virgil, ^neid, vi., 129.)
TJiis is work, this is labor. The descent to the infernal
regions is easy, but to climb up the steep again and escape
to the upper regions, hoc opus, hie labor est.
72 A LITERARY MANUAL
In all assemblies, though you wedge them ever so close, we
may observe this peculiar property, that over their heads there
is room enough, but how to reach it is the difficult point ; it
being as hard to get quit of number as of hell ; ei)adere ad auras,
hoc opus, hie labor est.
Swift : "Tale of a Tub," sec, i.
Hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas, (juvenal,
SAT., VI., 222.)
/ will it, I SO order, let my will stand for a reason.
Juvenal puts these words in the mouth of a termagant
wife, whose husband asks her why she orders a certain
slave to be crucified.
When Lady Kew said Sic volo, sic Jubeo, I promise you few
persons of her ladyship's belongings stopped, before they did
her biddings, to ask her reasons.
Thackeray : " The Newcomes," vol. i., chap. 2,Z-
By the death of Wesley, Methodism lost, as we have seen,
not only its founder, but its perpetual dictator. His sic volo,
sic Jubeo, had often been felt as irksome by his subordinates,
and from time to time a preacher, who could not brook some
exercise of despotic authority, would leave the society.
Llewelyn Davies.
Homo sum ; humani nihil a me alienum puto. (ter-
ence, heaut., I., I, 25.)
I am a man, and I deem nothing' that concerns humanity
foreign to me. With this may be compared the Homo
sacra res Jiomini of Seneca (Epis., 95, 33). " In the first
scene of the comedy," says the Spectator, No. 502, " when
one of the old men accuses the other of impertinence for
interposing in his affairs, he answers : ' I am a man, and
cannot help feeling any sorrow that can arrive at man.' It
is said this sentence was received with a universal applause.
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 73
There cannot be a <;reater argument of the general good
understanding of a people than a sudden consent to give
their approbation of a sentiment which has no emotion
in it."
To explain this seeming paradox at once, he was one who
could trul}' say with him in Terence, Homo sum ; humani nihil
a me alienum puto. He was never an indifferent spectator of
the misery or happiness of any one ; and he felt either the one
or the other in great proportion as he himself contributed to
either.
Fielding : "Tom Jones," book xv., chap. 8.
The reader will find that the opium eater boasteth himself
to be a philosopher, and accordingly that the phantasmagoria
of his dreams (waking or sleeping, day dreams or night dreams),
is suitable to one who, in that character, humani nihil a se putat.
De Quixcey.
A Frenchman feels the influence of the beau sexe to such a
degree that with him woman is a fixed idea. Whether he
studies her from the artistic, psychologic, or physiological
point of view, she is continually there before his eyes. It is
his worship. Parodying the verse of Terence, he says to
himself : I am a man, and every thing that concerns woman
interests me.
Max O'Rell : " Les Chers Voisins," p. 285.
Homo unius libri.
TJic man of one book.
Using such delicate methods of analysis, he does not see
general types ; he knows only individualities. In fact, does
there exist in nature a man with only one passion, who pursues
without deviation the same idea ? He would certainly be
much more redoubtable than the man of one book, whom
Terence feared.
Merimee : " Portraits Historiques et Litt^raires," 342.
74 A LITERARY MANUAL
That volume is probably the most astonishing monument of
literary diligence existing in the world. And however the
hojfio unius libri must, in most cases, be regarded as poorly
furnished with intellectual wealth, that could scarcely be said
to be the case if the single book in question happened to be
the Adagia of Erasmus.
British Quarterly Review.
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Shame to him zvJio evil thiyiks. This is the motto of the
Order of the Garter and of the crown of England, but its
origin is unknown. The common story which connects it
with the Countess of Salisbury's garter is apocryphal. The
following is Max O'Rell's account of the incident : " The
Countess of Salisbury, Edward III.'s mistress, dropped
her garter at a ball. The king picked it up, but, as the
worthy descendant of a bashful race, he did not attempt
to replace it, but, turning to his courtiers said : ' My Lords,
lioni soit qui viollct pince! Then he advanced towards the
countess and gave her the garter. The king's expression
became corrupted into Jioni soit qui nial y pense.''
Honos alit artes. (cicero, tusc. quaest., l, i.)
Honors noiirisJi the arts, and every one, Cicero continues,
is impelled to their study by love of glory ; those arts
which are popularly despised always die out.
Among all these millions born in America, there must needs
be some who are marked with the signet of the Muses, but
their noble rage is extinguished amid the general indifference.
Honos alit artes ; there must be the same admiration and
respect for artists that are now shown to millionaires before
we can expect that love of beauty, which is one of the instincts
of man's nature, to fulfil its perfect work.
OF FOKliIGN Q U( ) TA Tli )XS. 75
Horresco referens. (virgil, iE.vKii), 11., 204.)
/ slnidihr ill rrfi'rrhii^ to if. This is the hmguagc of
idicas when he began to describe the fate of Laocoon.
The quotation is generally made in a playful sense.
But the Comte de Paris, — horresco referens, for it is cer-
tainly one of the worst cards in the hand of Philip VII. — has
the appearance of a German prince.
Vasili : " La Society de Paris."
Ude says an elegant supper may be given with sandwiches.
Horresco referens. An elegant supper !
T. L. Peacock.
Humanum est errare.
To err is human. Riichmann says in his Gefliagelte
Worte that Theognis (circ. 540 B.C.) first brings us the
thought : Mistakes wait on mortal man. Sophocles
(Antig. 1023-4), Euripides (HippoL, 615), and an un-
known tragic poet say the same thing with similar words,
while in the epigram upon those who fell at Chaeronea
(v., 9 in Demosthenes' Pro Corona, sec. 289), it is said that
to err in nothing is the affair of the Gods. Then Cicero
offers us (Philipp. 12, 2), Cujiisvis Jiouiinis est crrarc, mil-
lius nisi insipicntis in crrorc pcrscvcrarc — "Any man may
err, only a fool persists in error," which the elder Seneca
(Controvers. 4, decl. 3) sharpens to the saying : Jiuinantim
est errare.
Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint. (goethe, faust.)
/ am the spirit that ahuays denies. This is the answer
that Mephistopheles gives to Faust at their first interview
when he is asked his name.
In the younger books of the Old Testament Satan is little
more than a detective ; in the New Testament he is an inciter
to evil. But during the intervening period new things seem to
76 A LITERARY MANUAL
have happened. The Hebrews had communicated with the
Parsis, and Satan, banished from heaven, had assumed all the
powers and attributes of Ahriman. Thereafter he was hatred
incarnate, the spirit that stets verfieint, the fallen son of a
mighty father, a disinherited prince who had founded a rival
monarchy and called it Hell.
Edgar Saltus : " The Anatomy of Negation," 87.
Ich habe genossen das irdische GlUck ;
Ich habe gelebt und geliebet. (schiller, piccolomini,
in., 7.)
I have tasted the earthly happiness ; I have lived and loved.
With this sentiment may be compared Lafontaine's Phis
d' amour , part ant plus de joie — " No more love, therefore
no more joy."
Most of us play with edged tools at some period of our
lives, and cut ourselves accordingly. At first the cut hurts
and stings, and down drops the knife, and we cry out like
wounded little babies as we are. Some very, very few and un-
lucky folks at the game cut their heads sheer off, or stab them-
selves mortally, and perish outright, and there is an end of
them. But — heaven help us ! — many people have fingered those
ardentes sagittas which Love sharpens on his whetstone, and
are stabbed, scarred, pricked, perforated, tattooed all over with
the wounds, who recover and live to be quite lively. Wir
auch have tasted das irdische Gliick j we also, have gelebt und —
und so weiter. Warble your death song, sweet Thekla ! Per-
ish off the face of the earth, poor pulmonary victim, if so
minded ! Had you survived to a later period of life, my dear,
you would have thought of a sentimental disappointment
without any reference to the undertaker.
Thackeray : " The Virginians," vol. ii., chap. 2,3-
Thenceforth a new existence opened before Hedwige — an
existence full of surpris.es and perpetual enchantment. At
last she knew das irdische Gliick, she loved, she was loved.
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TIONS. 77
She could reveal the treasures of passion she possessed with-
out fear of provoking lassitude or of encountering the scepti-
cism of a bias/ man, for Roger was not that, in spite of a past
with many gallant adventures and easy triumphs in it.
Yves de Noly : " Le Mari de Lucienne."
Ignoti nulla cupido. (ovid, de arte amaxdi, hi., 397.)
There is no desire for the unknown.
Learning has in truth upon the minds which permit them-
selves to be gradually absorbed by it all the empire of which
Champfort spoke : the more one possesses it the more one is
possessed by it. The ignorant man cannot understand this
love, this indefatigable ardor to know, this thirst for the living
waters of knowledge, which his uncultured lips (and that 's
his excuse) have never approached. Ovid has rightly ex-
pressed this in a charming hemistich in the Art of Loving :
Ignoti nulla cupido, so happily translated by this verse of Vol-
taire's Zaire :
On ne peut desirer ce qu'on ne connait pas.
FouRXiER : " L'Esprit des Autres," chap. 18.
II faut laver son linge sale en famille. (xapoleok i.)
One ought to zi'ash his dirty linen in private — i.e., family
quarrels should not be paraded before the world. Meri-
m^e said that his rule was never to speak evil of himself
because his friends spoke enough. Another well-known
saying of Napoleon is : Du sublime au ridicule il n'j' a
qu'un pas. " It is only a step from the sublime to the
ridiculous." When Napoleon arrived in ^^'a^saw in
December, 181 2, having abandoned the remnant of the
orande armt'e in Russia, it was with this saving that he
spoke to his ambassador de Pradt concerning that awful
catastrophe.
And when Arthur, pursuing his banter, said, And yet, I dare
say, sir, my father was proud enough when he first set up his
78 A LITERARY MANUAL
gig, the old Major hemmed and ha'd, and his wrinkled face
reddened with a blush as he answered, You know what Buona-
parte said, sir, II fain laver son linge sale en famille. There is
no need for you to brag that your father was a — a medical man.
Thackeray : " Pendennis," vol. ii , chap. 23.
Carrel did not proclaim unnecessarily to the world the dif-
ferences in his own party, but preferred the prudent maxim of
Napoleon, II faut laver noire linge sale chez nous.
J. S. Mill.
II n'a pas invente la poudre.
He did not invent giinpoivder. This is equivalent to the
English saying, — he will not set the Thames on fire. The
Germans also say, — cr hat nicJit das Pulver erfiinden. It
was with reference to this French expression that the
diplomatist in Tolstoi's "War and Peace" says, after the
battle of Austerlitz, that the political questions must be
settled, not by gunpowder, but by those who invented
gunpowder.
II n'y a que le premier pas qui coute.
It is 07dy the first step that eosts. In Gibbon's " Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap, xxxix., note 100,
he says : " The Catholic martyr had carried his head in
his hands a considerable way ; yet, on a similar tale, a
lady of my acquaintance once observed. La distance n'y
fait rien ; il ny ague le premier pas qui eoiite. Accord-
ing to Quitard, in the " Dictionnaire des Proverbes," it was
Madame du Deffand who said this to Cardinal Polignac
when he was laying stress upon the long distance that St.
Denis walked with his head in his hands.
In the preface the author must put his best foot foremost,
and this is often t\\Q premier pas qui coilte. A preface should
be appetizing, alluring, enticing.
Brander Matthews : " Pen and Ink "
OF FORIilGX QUOTA TIONS. 79
II se recule pour mieux sauter.
He retreats in order the better to leap.
Descartes spent those years at La Fleche in seeming idle-
ness. But his withdrawal was simply/^///- viieux sauter. He
was driven into solitude by a " fierce and relentless thirst " for
knowledge and fame, and there, far from the distractions of
society, he was able to ponder the problems of philosophy.
Imperium et libertas.
Empire and liberty — /. e., the union of the power and
might of an empire with the liberty of a republic. Lord
Beaconsfield, in his speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet
on November 10, 1879, said that one of the greatest Ro-
mans when asked what his politics were answered : impe-
rium et libertas. Beaconsfield afterw^ards designated the
first book of Bacon's " Advancement of Learning " as the
source of the quotation', where Bacon translates a phrase
of Tacitus by " government and liberty." Biichmann
says that the phrase comes from Cicero's fourth oration
against Catiline (ix., 19), where he says to the Senate:
" Think how in one night the dominion founded with so
much labor {quantis laboribus fnndatum imperium) and
the liberty so excellently established {quaiita virtute stabi-
litam libertatem) were almost destroyed." The oration
concludes with calling upon the Senate to decide de impe-
rio, de libcrtate Italia;.
No statesman of recent times has given curr^cy to so many
epigrammatic phrases (as Lord Beaconsfield) : " organized
hypocrisy," "England dislikes coalitions," "plundering and
blundering," " peace with honor," imperium d libertas, " a scien-
tific frontier," are a few, and not the best, though now the best
remembered, of the many which issued from his fertile mint.
James Bryce, in Tlie Century.
8o A LITERARY MANUAL
The cardinal principle of the Republic is, one is told, thfe
management of one's own affairs. One, being a Brazilian, tries
to do this, and lo ! there appears on this side a grave pundit,
pointing out that it may only be done in one particular way ;
and on that side a valiant marshal still more significantly ready
to stamp out anybody who wants to do it in any other. There
is plenty of imperium so long as a sufficient number of Fonse-
cists are ready to follow their Deodoro ; but where, oh where
is the liber tas ?
George Saintsbury, in The New Review.
In articulo mortis.
In the article of death — i.e., at the point of death.
Most of these Cossacks professed the Greek religion, and
when their little republic grew and their institutions became
regularised, they had a clergy, paid by them, to bless their ves-
sels setting out on a voyage and to absolve the men in articulo
mortis. These priests were equal to their functions and worthy
of their flock. They were still more ignorant than the other
members of the orthodox Russian clergy, and they mingled a
large number of Moslem or pagan superstitions with the prac-
tice of their worship.
Merimee : " Les Cosaques."
Incedis per ignes
Suppositos cineri doloso. (horace, odes, il, i, 7.)
Yoii are walking upon fire covered with deceitful ashes.
The poet is addressing Pollio who was writing a history of
the recent civil war.
There are so many dangerous pitfalls that in order to be safe
one must slip through the world somewhat lightly and super-
ficially, — one must glide and not press too hard on any point.
Pleasure itself is painful in its intensity. Incedis per ignes, etc.
Montaigne.
What do you suppose are those ashes smouldering in the
grate? Very likely a suttee has been offered up there just be-
OF F( ^RlilGX Q I/O TA TJONS;. 8 1
fore you came in ; a faithful heart has been burned out ujion a
callous corpse, and you are looking on the cin i i doloso.
Thackeray : "The Virginians," vol. i., ch. 26.
It seems, from various confident assertions, that the Russian
Government is going to venture on the i^:;ncs suppositos under
the cineri doloso of Prince Bismarck's suggestion and to make
proposals as to Bulgaria.
Saturday Review.
Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdin.
While y oil seek to avoid CJiarybdis you fall upon Scylla.
The line comes to us from the Alexandreis of Philippe
Gaultier (book v., v. 301), a French Latin poet of the thir-
teenth century. The poem was first printed in 1 5 13. The
verse is founded on a Greek proverb derived from the
Odyssey (xii., 85 ct seq.), where the dangers of a whirl-
pool (Charybdis), on the one hand, and the rock where the
monster Scylla dwelt, on the other, were described by the
goddess to Ulysses. The Straits of Messina were local-
ized as the scene of these dangers, of which the modern
traveller sees nothing.
To judge the France of 1 S90 fairly, and forecast its future in-
telligently, we must thoroughly rid ourselves of the notion that
the masses of the French people had any thing more to do with
the dethronement and murder of Louis XVI. than the masses
of the English people had to do with the dethronement and
murder of Charles I. Neither crime was perpetrated to en-
large the liberties or to protect the interests of the people. We
long ago got at the truth about the great English rebellion.
" Pride's Purge," the " elective kingship without a veto of the
New IModel," and the merciless mystification of Bradshaw
tell their own story. Steering to avoid the Scylla of Strafford,
the luckless Parliamentarians ran the ship of State into the
Charybdis of Cromwell.
W. H. HuRLBERT : " France and The Republic,"
6 Introduction.
82 A LITERARY MANUAL
Indocilis pauperiem pati. (horace, odes, i., i, i8.)
Umvilling to endure poverty. Horace is speaking of
a merchant who, when the tempest is raging, praises a
tranquil country Hfe, but presently, as he cannot be taught
to endure poverty, refits his broken ships.
When Lady Castlewood found that her great ship had gone
down, she began as best she might, after she had rallied from
the effects of the loss, to put out small ventures of happiness,
and hope for little gains and returns, as a merchant on 'Change,
indocilis pauperiem pati, having lost his thousands, embarks a
few guineas upon the next ship.
Thackeray : " Henry Esmond," book i., chap. 9.
Infandum renovare dolorem. (virgil, .eneid, ii., 3.)
To renew the unspeakable grief. It is with these words
that ^neas begins his tale to Queen Dido of the fall of
Troy. " Father Arnould, preaching on one occasion at
Notre Dame, had already begun his sermon on the Cruci-
fixion, when suddenly the Queen, Marie de Medicis, en-
tered the church. " Usage obliged him to begin again,
which he did by quoting the line of Virgil, Infandum, re-
gina, jubes renovare dolorem.'"
Prithee, Partridge, wast thou ever susceptible of love in thy
life, or hath time worn away all traces of it from thy memory ?
Alack-a-day ! cries Partridge, well would it have been for me
if I had never known what love was. Infandum, regina, julns
renovare dolorem. I am sure I have tasted all the tenderness,
and sublimities, and bitterness of the passion.
Fielding : "Tom Jones," book viii., chap. 9.
The mind revolts from retracing circumstantially any suffer-
ings from which it is removed by too short, or by no, interval.
To do this with minuteness enough to make the review of use
would be indeed infandum renovare dolorem, and possibly with-
out a sufficient motive.
De Quincev.
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TIONS. 83
In forma pauperis.
In the charactir of a pauper. The phrase is borrowed
from the law.
Instead of this set of Grub Street Authors, the mere canaille
of letters, this corporation of Mendicity, this ragged regiment
of Genius suing at the corners of streets in forma pauperis, give
me the gentleman and scholar with a good house over his head,
and a handsome table with wine of Attic taste, to ask his
friends to, and where want and sorrow never come.
Hazlitt.
The preface in forma pauperis, in which the author confessed
his sinful publication, and implored forgiveness, urging as his
sole excuse " hunger and the request of friends " is now as
much out of date and as antiquated as a fulsome dedication to
a noble patron.
Braxder Matthews : " Pen and Ink."
Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros. (ovm, ep. ex font.,
ii-, 9, 47)
To have faithfully studied the liberal arts softens the
manners and does not suffer them to be rude.
Ingenuous arts, where they an entrance find,
Soften the manners and subdue the mind.
I shall be his pupil for Latin and Greek and try to make up
for lost time. I know there is nothing like a knowledge of
the classics to give a man good breeding. Ingenuas liidicisse
fideliter artes emollunt mores nee sinuisse fcros. (The quotation
being mangled after Col. Newcome's inimitable fashion.)
Thackeray : "The Newcomes," vol. i., chap. 5.
In hoc signo vinces.
/;/ this sign shall thou conquer. These words, or the
equivalent in Greek, are said by Eusebius (" Life of Con-
stantine," i., 28,) to have appeared, together with a flaming
84 A LITERARY MANUAL
cross in the sky, to the Emperor Constantine when march-
ing against Maxentius, and to have caused his conversion
to Christianity. " Constantine's own narrative to Euse-
bius," says the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," "attributed
his conversion to the miraculous appearance of a flaming
cross in the sky at noon-day, under the circumstances
already indicated. The story has met with nearly every
degree of acceptance from the unquestioning faith of
Eusebius himself to the incredulity of Gibbon, who treats
it as a fable, while not denying the sincerity of the con-
version. On the supposition that Constantine narrated the
incident in good faith, the amount of objective reality
that it possesses is a question of altogether secondary
importance."
I practised law, in the sense of having an ofifice, for two
years before abandoning the learned profession for my present
more lucrative occupation of commercial traveller. But it can-
not be said that I died to the law without making a sign, for I
had a beautiful one with gilt letters. No celestial portent said
to me, however, Ln hoc signo vinces. And being without that
assurance, my lack of clients convinced me that this is not the
wicked generation referred to in the Bible which seeketh for a
sign.
In medias res. (horace, ars poetica, 148.)
/;/ the midst of the subject. See post., Semper ad eventum
festinat.
Most epic poets plunge in medias res,
(Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road,)
And then your hero tells, when e'er you please,
What went before — by way of episode.
Byron : " Don Juan," i., 6.
I shall now enter i/i medias res, and shall anticipate from a
time when my opium pains might be said to be at their acme,
an account of their palsying effects on the intellectual faculties.
De Quincey.
( ^F FOREIGN Q UO TA T/OJVS. 8 5
In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus
caritas.
C//n'/j' in things necessary, liberty in tilings doubtful,
charity in every thing. The oris^in"of this phrase is really
unknown. Riichmann (GcfliiL^cltc Wortc, pp. 333, 334)
quotes two or three writers of the seventeenth century,
where it appears, in a slightly changed form, for the first
time.
The time for dogmas and infallibilities has passed, to-day
there are only facts and opinions. The unity of opinion
should come in future from a free, universal, and constant ex-
amination, and not from intellectual authority. St. Augustine
said, //: necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas.
We apply the celebrated aphorism to the conflict of opinions
in modifying it thus, In omnibus libertas et caritas ut in necessa-
riis Jiat unitas.
Larousse: Preface to the
" Grand Dictionnaire du XIX Siecle."
In petto.
/;/ one's breast — i.e., secretly.
She is supremely kind and good, and practises with rare
success that art of polite conversation whose triumph consists
in the other person's giving himself afterwards, ////r//^, a good
point.
Vasili : " La Societe de Paris," 239.
In propria persona.
In proper person.
" My stars, Mrs. Dods, and is this really your ain sell, in
propria persona ? Wha lookit for you at such a time of day ? "
Scott : " St. Ronan's Well," chap. 14.
I made a decent reply and we had some talk in Italian and
Romaic, (her mother being a Greek of Corfu,) when lo ! in a
very few minutes, in marches, to my very great astonishment,
Mariana S. in propria persona, and after making a most polite
86 A LITER A RY MA NUA L
courtesy to her sister-in-law and to me, without a single word,
seizes her said sister-in-law by the hair and bestows upon her
some sixteen slaps which would have made your ear ache only
to hear their echo. I need not describe the screaming which
ensued.
Byron.
In saecula Saeculorum.
For age after age — forever. The phrase is in the Catho-
lic Liturgy — Sicut erat in principio, et mine, et semper et
in scecida sceciiloriun. "As it was in the beginning, is now,
and ever shall be for age after age."
And now he hath advertised the estate for sale, being him-
self the last substitute in the entail. And if I were to lament
about sic matters, this would grieve me mair than its passing
from my immediate possession, whilk, by the course of nature,
must have happened in a few years. Whereas now it passes from
the lineage that should have possessed it /// scecula sceculorum.
Scott : "Waverley," chap. 64.
Whenever I could see her again I would. My word given
to her was in saciila sceadorutn, or binding at least as long as
my life should endure. I implied that the girl was similarly
bound to me, and her poor father knew indeed as much.
Thackeray. " The Virginians," vol. ii., chap. 30.
Interdum vulgus rectum videt. (horace, ep., ii., i, 63.)
Sometimes the common people see aright. But sometimes,
also, Horace adds, they err, — est ubi peccat.
The ultimate fate of a book is not determined by a popular
vote, but by the judgment of the cultivated. Why count votes
instead of weighing them ? As Champfort said, how many fools
does it take to constitute a public ? Many are the authors,
eminently successful in their day, who are now forgotten.
But interdum vulgus reciutn videt, and in the case of the " Pil-
grim's Progress " the verdict of the common people became,
after several generations, that of the learned.
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 87
Inter pocula. (persius, sat., i., 30.)
Over their cups. It is then, says the satirist, that the
gorged Romans ask what the divine poems narrate.
The ethics of the philosophers are a closet system, which
scarcely ever accompanies them abroad. As long as one
reasons theoretically, inter libros, or inter pocula, they are su-
perb, full of simplicity, grandeur, and harmony. But two fine
eyes which love has set aflame soon get the better of the theo-
retical rigor of these grand doctrines, which at certain moments
will always seem to him who did not invent them the mere
jests of learned men.
Henry Rabusson.
I have never written to Sir Walter, for I know he has a thou-
sand things and I a thousand nothings to do ; but I hope to
see him at Abbottsford before very long, and I will sweat his
claret for him, though Italian abstemiousness has made my
brain but a shilpit concern for a Scotch sitting inter pocula.
Byron.
Intus et in cute, (persius, sat., hi., 30.)
Within and in the skin — i.e., inside and out, thoroughly.
The poet says to the person he apostrophizes that he is
not to be deceived by the trappings, for he knows him,
ijitus ct in cute.
In points where poetic diction and conception are concerned,
I may be at a loss, and liable to be imposed upon ; but in form-
ing an estimate of passages relating to common life and man-
ners, I cannot think I am a plagiarist from any man. I then
know my cue without a prompter. I may say of such studies,
— intus et in cute.
Hazlitt.
Inveni portum. Spes et Fortuna valete.
Sat me lusistis ; ludite nunc alios.
I Jiave jound a refuge. Hope and fortune farexvell ! Ye
have deceived Die long , enough ; play now with others.
88 A LITERARY MANUAL
Fournier says (" L'Esprit des Autres," chap. 6) : " We are
indebted to pagan rites for the phrase, May the earth
rest lightly on thee, — sit tibi terra levis. That was the
adieu which the ancients addressed to the dead. Some-
times the epitaph of the latter was, on the contrary, an
adieu that they were made to address to the things of the
world, especially to the least certain : hope and fortune.
The Greek Anthology (i., 80) has preserved for us one of
this kind, out of which, in the sixteenth century, or per-
haps even earlier, a Latin distich was made, and which in
this form has become very popular. Gil Bias himself
knew it. He made it the inscription placed over the gate
of the pretty Chateau de Lirias, where he buried himself
when tired of those adventures which fatigued nobody
but himself.
' Inveni portum. Spes et fortuna valete.
Nil mihi vobiscum, ludite nunc alios.'"
My father and my mother are not in a happy situation there.
I intend to look for them and bring them to Lirias, where they
may spend their last days in repose. Perhaps heaven has only
permitted me to find this asylum so that I might receive them,
and would punish me if I failed to do so. . . . I conceive it
to be my indispensable duty to share the sweets of my retreat
with the authors of my existence. We shall soon see one
another in our hamlet, and I intend, on arriving there, to write
over the door of my house in letters of gold these two Latin
verses :
Inveni portum. Spes et Fortuna valete.
Sat me lusistis ; ludite nunc alios.
Le Sage : " Gil Bias," book ix., chap. 10.
If you ever see X., ask him what he means by telling me,
*' Oh, my friend, inveni portum ! " What/.'Iurevcr I find it. This was the
famous reply of MoHerc when accused of having borrowed
incidents and characters from other authors. The idea is
involved in the following witty definition: Un autcur est
nil /loiniiic qui pr end dans les livres tout ce qui lui passe par
la tete.
In the London Truth of January 2, 1S90, there is a letter in
which J. M'Ncill Whistler accuses Oscar Wilde of plagiarism
in the latter's recent article in the Fortnightly on the " Decay
of Lying." He suggests that Wilde had used in this article
the language of Whistler in a previous charge, and then con-
tinues : " Oscar, you have been down the area again I see ! I
had forgotten you, and so allowed your hair to grow over the
sore place. And now, while I look the other way, you have
stolen your own scalp, and potted it in more of your pudding.
Labby has pointed out that for the plagiarist there is still one
way to self-respect (besides hanging himself, of course), and
that is for him boldly to declare, Je pre?ids mon bien la oitj'e le
trouve. You, Oscar, can go further, and with fresh effrontery,
that will bring you the envy of all criminal confreres, unblush-
ingly boast, Moi., je prends son bien la oh je le trouve." In the
next number of Truth there was a reply from Wilde, in which
he said : " The definition of a disciple as one who has the
courage of the opinions of his master, is really too old even
for Mr. Whistler to be allowed to claim it, and as for borrow-
ing Mr. Whistler's ideas about art, the only thoroughly original
ideas I have ever heard him express have had reference to
his own superiority as a painter over painters greater than
himself."
As for the woman Boubnow, I do in fact know something
about her. I got some money from her two months ago : je
prends mon Men oh je le trouve. That 's the only resemblance I
have with Moliere.
Dostoievsky,
92 A LITERARY MANUAL
Justum et tenacem propositi virum. (horace, odes,
III., 3, I.)
The just mail, steadfast in his purpose. Him, says Hor-
ace, neither the violence of the people commanding evil
iciviiun ardor prava jubentiuvi), nor the countenance of
the immediate tyrant, shakes in his courageous soul.
The king passed into a little cabinet and bade, in the first
moment, Lord Huntington to lock or bar the door, but coun-
termanded his direction in the next, saying : " No, no, no !
Bread of life, man, I am a free king ; will do what I will and
what I should ! 1 Sim Justus et tenax propositi, man ! "
Scott : " The Fortunes of Nigel," ch. 9.
The civiicm ardor prava jiibentium is not only yielded to by
these politicians, but when it slackens they incite and inflame
it for the vilest purposes of personal and factious ambition.
London JVorld.
J'y suis, j'y reste.
Here I am, here I remain. This was the reply of Mar-
shal MacMahon when advised to abandon the Malakoff, a
position he had with difficulty obtained in one of the bat-
tles of the Crimean war. The Marshal was compelled to
resign the Presidency of the French Republic by Gam-
betta's famous mot : Se soumettre ou se de'mettre. " Sub-
mit or resign."
Lord Salisbury has asserted, in defiance of constitutional
precedents, that nothing unrelated to Ireland will be treated
as a Cabinet question. That is to say, no matter how often
his foreign or fiscal policy may be formally censured by the
House of Commons, he will persist in retaining office. J'y
suis,fy reste. Here we are, and here we mean to stick.
Netv York Sun.
If any one will answer these questions for me with some-
thing more to the point than feeble talk about the cowardice of
OF FOREIGN Q Ul ? TA TR hVS. 93
agnosticism, I shall be deeply, his debtor. Unless and until
they are satisfactorily answered, I say of agnosticism in this
matter, j'v suis, et fy rcste.
Huxley.
Laborare est orarfe.
To xvork is to pray.
For myself, I feel daily more and more what a truth there is
in that old saying of the monks, laborare est orare. I find
really that a man cannot make a pair of shoes rightly unless
he does it in a devout manner.
Carlyle.
Labor ipsa voluptas. (manilius, astrox., iv., 155.)
Work itself is a pleasure.
Our acquired tastes are stronger than our natural ones. An
acquired taste for tobacco, for instance, has a firmer hold on a
man than his natural taste for milk. And when one has formed
the habit of constant labor he finds that work is really more
interesting than play. Then he understands the saying labor
ipsa voluptas, even if he is not quite prepared to agree with Sir
George Cornwall Lewis in thinking that life would be pleasant
were it not for its amusements.
Labor omnia vincit improbus. (virgil, georgics, i., 145.)
Stubborn labor eonqiiers every thing.
On this occasion, more than once, I left my paper on the
cabin table, rushing away to be sick in the privacy of my
stateroom. It was February, and the weather v.as miserable ;
but still I did my work. Labor omnia vincit improbus.
Anthony Trollope : "Autobiography."
The greatest English actor of the present day has shown
how much may be done by perseverance to develop the powers
of an organ naturally wanting in flexibility. By a labor impro-
bus worthy of Demosthenes, his voice, which in ordinary con-
versation is weak and rather monotonous, has been so perfected
94 A LITERARY MANUAL
that on the stage it is rich and sonorous, and can be harsh and
strident, or exquisitely tender, at the will of the speaker.
Sir Morell Mackenzie.
La carriere ouverte aux talents.
A career ope)i to talent.
Napoleon had a kind of idea, that namely of la carrih-e
ouverte aux taletits, the tools to him who can handle them ;
really one of the best ideas yet promulgated on that matter.
Carlvle : " The French Revolution."
La Garde meurt et ne se rend pas.
The Guard dies, but it does not surrender. This was the
answer attributed to Cambronne at Waterloo when the
remnant of the Old Guard was summoned to surrender.
For what he really did say, see Victor Hugo's " Les
Miserables," part ii., chap. 14.
I had begun a little print collection once. I had Addison
in his night-gown in bed at Holland House requesting young
Lord Warwick to remark how a Christian should die. I had
Cambronne clutching his cocked-hat and uttering the immortal
la Garde meurt et 7ie se rend pas.
Thackeray : " Roundabout Papers."
Laissez faire, laissez passer.
Let alone, let things pass in their oivn zvay. A maxim
of the economists of the eighteenth century, attributed to
Quesnay.
Industry all noosed and haltered, as if it too were some beast
of chase for the mighty hunters of this world to bait and cut
slices from, cries passionately to these, its well-paid guides
and watchers, not Guide me, but laissez /aire j leave me alone
oi your guidance.
Carlvle : " French Revolution."
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TTONS. 95
La parole a ete donnee a rhomme pour deguiser sa
pensee.
Speech loas given to man to disguise his thoughts. Barrcrc
says, in his " Memoircs," that Talleyrand used this phrase
in 1807, when reminded of his promises in favor of Charles
IV. of Spain. A clever variation is : U esprit a i't^ donn^
h rhovime pour di^guiser sa betise. " Wit has been given
to man to conceal his stupidity." Puck says : " Speech
was given to man to conceal his thoughts ; but it was a
needless precaution in many cases ! "
L'appetit vient en mangeant.
Appetite conies in eating. In Rabelais' " Gargantua "
(chap, v.), we read : " The stone called asbestos is not
more inextinguishable than is the thirst of which I am the
parent. Lappe'tit vient en mangeant, said Angeston ; but
thirst goes away by drinking. Remedy for thirst ? It is
the opposite of that for the bite of a dog ; always run
after a dog and he will never bite you ; always drink
before thirst and it will never come to you."
La propriete c'est le vol.
Property is theft. This is the maxim of Proudhon in
his " Qu est ce que c'est que la proprie'tif,'' published in 1840.
A hatred of the institution of private property and a de-
sire for a redistribution may come from the lofty motive
of human sympathy, as well as the base one of envy.
Tolstoi says : " At the sight of the hunger, cold, and
degradation of thousands of men, I understood, not with
my reason, but with my heart and my whole being, that
the existence of ten thousand such men in Moscow, while
I and other thousands eat daintily, clothe our horses, and
cover our floors, — let the learned say as much as they will
that it is inevitable, — is a crime, committed not once but
96 A LITERARY MANUAL
constantly, and that I with my luxury do not merely
permit the crime but take a direct part in it. The differ-
ence in the two impressions consisted only in this — that
before the guillotine all I could have done would have
been to cry out to the murderers that they were doing
evil, and try to prevent them. Even then I should have
known beforehand that the deed would not have been
prevented. But here I could have given, not merely
a warm drink or the little money that I had about me,
but I could have given the coat from my body, and all
that I had in my house. I did not do so, and therefore I
felt and still feel and shall never cease to feel that I am a
partaker in that never-ceasing crime, so long as I have
superfluous food and another has none, so long as I have
two coats and another has none."
Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate. (dante, in-
ferno, III., 9.)
Abandon all Jiope ye who enter here. These are the words
written over the portals of hell in Dante's vision.
Kant shows that we can know nothing of that noumen, of
God, and that even any future proof of his existence is
impossible. We write the Dantean words abandon all hoJ)e,
over this part of the Critique of Pure Reason.
Heine : '' Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophic in
Deutschland," Drittes Buch.
With Flaubert, we enter the domain of emptiness and of
blackness. We sink into a moral hell, over whose portal there
really flames the fateful verse of the Florentine : Lasciate ogni
speranza. We close the book and ask ourselves, with invincible
anguish, what unseen germs of death float in the atmosphere
of our civilisation, to make the best of us — and who was
braver or more loyal than Flaubert? — exhibit thus a desire for
nothingness equal to that of the devotees of the most sombre
doctrines of the extreme East.
Paul Bourget.
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 97
Latet anguis in herba. (virgil, eclogues, hi., 93.)
A snake is lurking' in the grass.
My reception in this new society was as cordial as I could
wish, but knowing the power of my enemies I was on the look-
out for the anguis in herba, which on the other occasion I had
failed to see until too late.
Laudari a laudato viro.
To be praised by a nian zvho is hitnself praised.
I am very well pleased with the several performances you
sent me, and still more with Mr. M.'s letter that accompanied
them, in which he gives a much better account of you than he
did in his former Laudari a laudato viro, was always a com-
mendable ambition ; encourage that ambition and continue to
deserve the praises of the praiseworthy.
Chesterfield.
Laudator temporis acti. (horace, ars poetica, 173.)
A eulogist of past times.
The finest performances of our own age, he snarled at
cynically ; and at length this querulous humor grew upon him
so much, and he became so notorious as a laudator temporis
acti, that few people cared to seek his society.
De Quincey.
One much admired being of those days I confess I never
cared for, and that was the chief male dancer — a very important
personage then, with a bare neck, bare arms, a tunic, and a
hat and feathers, who used to divide the applause with the
ladies and who has now sunk down a trap-door forever. And
this frank admission ought to show that I am not your mere
twaddling laudator temporis acti, — your old fogy who can see
no good except in his own time.
Thackeray : '' Roundabout Papers."
7
98 A LITERARY MANUAL
Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle.
The game is not worth the candle.
When you are invited to drink, say that you wish you could,
but that so little makes you both drunk and sick que le jeu ne
vaut pas la chandelle.
Chesterfield.
Le mieux est Tennemi du bien.
Better is the enemy of good — i.e., one is not satisfied to
let well enough alone. Like the fox in the fable, one
drops a good thing to grasp after the appearance of a bet-
ter. Fournier says that the French saying is based on
the Italian proverb to the same effect : // meglio e Vininiico
del bene.
Le moi est haissable. (pascal, pensees diverses.)
Egoism is hateful.
If he seems to us to have, in the preface to his present
volume and in some of his essays, fallen a very little into the
error of which the late Mr. Matthew Arnold is our chief
example in English — the error of pose and mannerism and
feigned simplicity and cutting his little joke about himself, —
we only mention it because we would fain keep M. France at
his best, as a good thing should be kept. His persiflage' is so
good that we would rather not ask whether it is not now and
then a little self-conscious ; whether the moi — not, oh not !
haissable, but just slightly intrusive — does not come in too often.
Saturday Review.
Le roi est mort, vive le roi !
TJie king is dead, long live the king I This is an ex-
pression of the maxim that the king never dies. Rex
nunqiiam moritnr. There is always a king dejiire.
When the king dies, the officer appointed opens his chamber
OF FORFJGN QUOTA T/OXS. cyc)
window, and calling out into the court below, Le roi est mort,
breaks his cane, takes another and waves it exclaiming, \'n\
le roi ! Straightway all the loyal nobles begin yelling, Vive I:
roi ! and the officer goes round solemnly and sets yonder great
clock in the Cour dc Marbre to the hour of the king's death.
This old Louis had solemnly ordained ; but the Versailles
clock was only set twice ; there was no shouting of Vive le roi
when the successor of Louis XV. mounted to heaven to join
his sainted family.
Thackeray: "Paris Sketch-Book."
My heart will always love as long as women exist. If it cools
towards one it straightway glows for another ; as in France the'
king never dies, so the queen of my heart never dies, and there
the cry is, La reine est morte, vive la reine.
Heine : " Reisebilder — Das Buch le Grand," chap. 14.
Le style c'est Thomme meme.
TJic style is the Diaii hijuself. This celebrated aphorism
was enunciated by Buffon in his discourse on the occasion
of his reception into the French Academy.
The discrepancy is of course partly explained by the faults
of Johnson's style ; but the explanation only removes the
difficulty a degree further. The style is the man, is a very excel-
lent aphorism, though some eminent writers have lately pointed
out that Buffon's original remark was, Le style c'est de riiomme.
That only proves that, like many other good sayings, it has
been polished and brought to perfection by the process of at-
trition in numerous minds, instead of being struck out at a blow
by a solitary thinker. From a purely logical point of view
Buffon may be correct ; but the very essence of an aphorism
is that slight exaggeration which makes it more biting whilst
less rigidly accurate.
lOO A LITERARY MANUAL
Le superflu, chose tres necessaire. (voltaire, le
MONDAIN.)
TJie superfluous, a very necessary thing. Somewhat in
the same spirit Motley said : " Give mc the luxuries of life
and I will dispense with the necessaries."
L'Etat c'est moi.
/ ajn the State. " Louis XIV.," says Carlyle, " could
answer the expostulatory magistrate with his / 'Etat c'est
moi, — the State ? I am the State, — and be replied to by
silence and abashed looks."
A certain young lady was recently summoned before a legal
tribunal in Paris on a charge of having displayed too much action
in her dancing at the Bal de I'Opera. She presented herself
before the Judge with a most demure air, and was interrogated
by him. " What is your name ? " he asked. " Anastasie," she
replied. "Your age?" "Eighteen" " Your profession — voire
e'tat?" he added sarcastically. Anastasie was for a moment
non-plussed by the peremptoriness of the question, but, casting
down her eyes, twirled a handsome diamond on her finger and
adjusted a small velvet cloak on her shoulders as she answered
boldly, " ZV/L\TTHEW Arnold : "Friendship's Garland."
Maxima debetur puero reverentia. (juvexal, sat., xiv.,
48.)
The greatest reverence is due to youth.
When the other troopers or their officers who were free-spoken
over their cups (as was the way of that day, when neither men
io8 A LITERARY MANUAL
nor women were over nice) talked unbecomingly of their
amours and gallantries before the child, Dick, who very likely
was setting the whole company laughing, would stop their
jokes with a maxima debetur pueris rcverentia, and once offered
to lug out against another trooper, called Hulking Tom, who
wanted to ask Harry Esmond a ribald question.
Thackeray : " Henry Esmond," book i., chap. 7.
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
My fault, my very great fault.
In a late serial work, written by this hand, I remember
making some pathetic remarks about our propensity to believe
evil of our neighbors — and I remember the remarks, not
because they were valuable or novel or ingenious, but because
within three days after they had appeared in print the moralist
who wrote them walking home with a friend, heard a story
about another friend, which story he straightway believed, and
which story was scarcely more true than that sausage fable
which is here set down. O mea culpa, i?iea maxima ailpa ! But,
though the preacher trips, shall not the doctrine be good ?
Thackeray : " Roundabout Papers."
Surely too the taste is more than equivocal which dictated
the publication of such prayers as are here recorded for pro-
tection against the vices of an overbearing temper, which, by
the way, was always ready to break out with fresh vigor after
every smiting of the breast and cry of mea culpa, mea ?naxima
culpa.
Quarterly Review.
Mea virtute me involvo. (horace, odes, hi., 29, 54.)
/ wrap myself up in my virtue. I praise fortune, says
the poet, while she remains with me, but if she shakes her
swift wings, I resign what she gives, and, wrapping myself
up in my virtue, seek honest poverty.
So we were spared this mosaic exhibition, and I think I
always feel relieved when such an event occurs. I feel I have
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TfONS. 1 09
done my duty in coming to see the enormous animal ; if he is
not at home, viitiite mea me, etc. — we have done our best, and
no mortal man can do more.
Thackeray : " Eastern Sketches," chap. 2.
A couplet, made under the Restoration, says Fournicr,
popularized this quotation. A fallen Minister said :
Je vais, victime de mon zcle,
M'envelopper dans ma vertu.
To which the reply was made :
Voili, voili ce qui s'appelle
Etre legcrement vetu.
Mediocribus esse poetis,
Non homines, non di, non concessere columnae.
(HORACE, ARS POETICA, 372.)
Neither i?ien, nor gods, nor booksellers allow poets to be
mediocre.
One may play the fool anywhere else, but not in poetry,
mediocribus esse poetis, etc. Would to God that this sentence
might be found on the front of the shops of all our printers to
guard the entrance against the crowd of versifiers.
Montaigne.
I do not think that dulness is strength, or that an observa-
tion is slight because it is striking. Mediocrity, insipidity,
want of character, is the great fault. Mediocribus esse poetis,
etc. Neither is this privilege allowed to prose writers in our
time any more than to poets formerly.
Hazlitt.
Medio tutissimus ibis, (ovid, met., ii., 137.)
] 'ou zoill travel safest in the middle, — a part of the advice
given to Phaeton when about to drive the chariot of the
sun.
I have often advised you to strike the senses of everybody ;
that is, their eyes and their ears, and their hearts will follow.
no A LITERARY MANUAL
for who is guided by mere reason ? Learn to distinguish
between trifles and trifles ; some are necessary, some agreeable,
and some utterly despicable in the common intercourse of life.
For instance, dress is undoubtedly a trifle in itself, too great ac-
curacy in that trifle forms a fop, too much negligence a sloven ;
bad extremes both, but in medio tutissimus ibis. Conform to
the common fashion, which is in general equidistant from each.
Chesterfield : "Letters to his Godson," p. 275.
Me, me, adsum qui feci, (virgil, ^neid, ix., 427.)
// is I here xvJio did it. When Nisus and Euryalus
escaped from their enemies' camp they were pursued, and
Nisus, who was hidden, shoots with his arrows two of the
pursuers. They discover Euryalus, and Volscens rushes
on him with drawn sword. Then Nisus cries out : " On
me, on me. Here am I who did the deed. O turn your
swords on me, Rutulians ; mine is all the offence ; he
neither did it, nor could do aught ; this heaven and con-
scious stars I call to witness ; only he loved his unhappy
friend too much." The exclamation is used too as a con-
fession of responsibility for an act attributed to another.
The Italian newspapers are very insignificant, and can't do
either much harm or much good However, I won't permit
them to hang you for me, and I am still ready to cry out,
Me, me, adsum qui feci. I shall declare, whenever you wish,
that I alone made the fatal ink-spot, and that I had no
accomplices.
P. L. Courier.
Mens agitat molem. (virgil, ^neid, vi., 727.)
Mind moves matter.
Concerning Government, it is a part of knowledge secret and
retired, in both these respects in which things are deemed
secret ; for some things are secret because they are hard to
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TfONS. 1 1 1
know, and some because they are not fit to utter. We see all
governments are obcure and invisible
Totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molein, et magno se corpore miscet.
Such is the description of governments. We see the govern-
ment of God over the world is hidden, insomuch as it seemeth
to participate of much irregularity and confusion : the govern-
ment of the soul in moving the body is inward and profound,
and the passages thereof hardly to be reduced to demonstration.
Bacon : "Advancement of Learning," book ii.
Mens divinior. (horace, sat., i., 4, 43.)
So2il of diviner cast.
And even these mechanical printers, who threaten to make
learning a base and vulgar thing — even they must depend on
the MS. over which we scholars have bent, with that insight
into the poet's meaning which is closely akin to the mens
divinior of the poet himself.
George Eliot : " Romola," book i., chap. 5.
The true ideal is not opposed to the real, nor is it any
artificial heightening thereof, but lies in it, and blessed are the
eyes that find it. It is the metis divinior which hides within the
actual, transfiguring matter of fact into matter of meaning for
him who has the gift of second sight.
J. R. Lowell.
Mens Sana in corpore sano. (juvenal, sat., x., 356.)
A sound mind in a sound body. Rabelais parodied this
thus : Mens sana non potest vivere in corpore sicco — " A
sound mind cannot live in a dry body."
I have sometimes thought that the inspiration wanted was
the remedy which time will give to the evil results of such
imprudence. Mens sana in corpore sano. The author wants
that as does every other workman, — that and a habit of
industry.
Anthony Trollope.
112 A LITERARY MANUAL
Allowance no doubt must be made for the superior vitality
of the Irish stock ; but it would be a mistake to regard Leo
XIII. as tottering on the edge of the grave. He has the mens
Sana incorpore sano, and as long as he lives there will not fail to
the guidance of the Church the intellect of a statesman and the
heart of a saint.
W. T. Stead.
Mens sibi conscia recti, (virgil, ^eneid, i., 6o?C)
A soul conscious of its own rectitude.
Human nature, in its normal condition, is so constituted that
the remorse felt, when we look back upon a wrong action, far
outweighs any pleasure we may have derived from it, just as
the satisfaction with which we look back upon a right action
far more than compensates for any pain with which it may
have been attended. The mens sibi conscia recti is the highest
reward which a man can have, as, on the other hand, the
retrospect on base, unjust, or cruel actions constitutes the
most acute of torments.
Thomas Fowler : " Progressive Morality," chap. 2.
They suggested, too, what is suggested in England at every
turn, that conservatism here has all the charm, and leaves
dissent and democracy and other vulgar variations nothing
but their bald logic. Conservatism has the cathedrals, the
colleges, the castles, the gardens, the traditions, the associa-
tions, the fine names, the better manners, the poetry ; Dissent
has the dusky brick chapels in provincial by-streets, the names
out of Dickens, the uncertain tenure of the h, and the poor
mens sibi conscia recti.
Henry James : " Transatlantic Sketches," p. 17.
Mit der Dummheit kampfen Gotter selbst vergebens.
(SCHILLER, JUNGFRAU, III., 6, 28.)
Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
OF FOREIGN Q UO FA FfONS. 1 1 3
Schiller's works have supplied the Germans with many
popular quotations. Some are found at other places in
this manual. Others are well known to English readers
of German, although rarely met with as quotations in
English writings.
From the " Lied von der Glocke " comes :
O dass sie ewig griine bliebe,
Die schone Zeit der jungen Liebe.
" O may it remain eternally green, — the beautiful days of
youthful love."
From the same poem :
Der Wahn ist kurz, die Reu ist lang.
" The intoxication is short, the repentance is long."
In the " Piccolomini," v., i, we read :
Das eben ist der Fluch der bosen That,
Das sie fortzeugend iramer Boses muss gebaren.
" That is the very curse of the evil deed that it must always
continue to engender evil."
From Wallenstein's "Tod," iv., 12:
Was ist das Leben ohne Liebesglanz.
" What is life without the light of love."
From "Wilhelm Tell," iii., i :
Wer gar zu viel bedenkt wird wenig leisten.
"He who considers too curiously will perform little."
From the poem " Resignation " :
Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht.
"The world's history is the world's court of judgment."
8
114 A LITER A R V MA NUA L
From " Don Carlos," i., i :
Die £ chonen Tage in Aranjuez
Sind nun zu Ende.
" The beautiful days in Aranjuez are now gone by."
From the same play, i., 4, comes:
Grosse Seelen dulden still.
" Great souls suffer in silence."
From the poem "" Wurde der Frauen " :
Ehret die Frauen ! sie flechten und weben
Himmlische Rosen ins irdische Leben.
" Honor women I they entwine and weave heavenly roses in
our earthly life."
From the " Xenien " :
Wenn die Konige bau'n, haben die Karrner zu thun.
" When kings are building, draymen have something to do."
From the same :
Willst du dich selber erkennen, so sieh', wie die andern es treiben :
Willst du die andern versteh'n, blick in dein eigenes Herz.
" If you wish to recognize yourself, observe how others act.
If you wish to understand others, look into your own heart."
In " Don Carlos," i., 6, we read :
Die Sonne geht in meinem Staat nicht unter.
"The sun never sets in my dominions."
Biichmann says that the germ of this idea may be
found in Herodotus (vii., 8), where Xerxes says to his
staff that after making his anticipated conquests the sun
will look down on no country that borders on his.
Balthazzar Schupp wrote, in 1660 : "The king of Spain
is a great potentate : he has one foot in the East and the
other in the West, and the sun never sets without shin-
ing in some of his countries."
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 1 1 5
Modus Vivendi.
A method of living — i.e., a compromise or agreement
between two or more parties by which they may act
harmoniously together.
The Bismarck-Crispi arrangement to establish a modus vivendi
between the Holy See and Italy has not prospered.
It will be observed he had made progress since the time
when it cost him a sleepless night and much expenditure
of casuistry to resolve upon cheating his brother. Then he
had been sincerely desirous of effecting some sort of modus
vivendi \\'ith. his conscience ; now his sole anxiety was to save
appearances.
W. E. NoRRis : ** Major and Minor," chap. t,^.
Mollissima fandi tempora. (virgil, iENEio, iv., 293.)
The best times for speaking.
Your letter, which I received three days ago, I will swear
was all your own, for it had all those elegant inaccuracys quas
incuria fudit. But I do not wonder at it and I believe your
mind will not be resettled till next week at soonest ; as these
therefore are not your Mollia tempora fandi I will say no more
but God bless you.
Lord Chesterfield : "Letters to his Godson," p. 213.
Mon si^ge est fait.
My siege is finisJicd. The Abb4 Vertot, author of the
** History of the Knights of Malta," was supplied with
some fresh information about the siege of Rhodes after
he had written the account of it. He declined to use the
new materials, saying that his siege was finished. The
expression indicates that one's opinions or work is not to
be changed by subsequent instruction.
If we compare Daudet with Zola, we shall see that it is
Daudet who is the naturalist novelist, not Zola. It is the
ii6 A LITERARY MANUAL
author of Le Nabab who begins with observation of reality,
and who is possessed by it, while the author of L'Assomnaoir
only consults it when his siege is finished and then summarily,
with preconceived ideas.
Jules LemaItre : " Les Contemporains."
Musik ist Poesie der Luft. (jean paul.)
Music is the poetry of the air. In one of his conversations
with Eckermann (March 23, 1829), Goethe called archi-
tecture frozen music — Die Baukunst ist eine erstarrte
Musik. Lessing, in the preface to the " Laocoon," says;
" The brilliant antithesis of the Greek Voltaire (Simonides),
that ' painting is a dumb poetry and poetry a speaking
kind of painting,' was indeed to be found in no manual.
It was an idea, like many others that Simonides had, the
true half of which is so illuminating that one thinks he
must overlook the indefinite and false which is also
contained in it." (Quoted in Biichmann, p. 254.)
Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur. (horace, sat.,
I., I, 69.)
Change the name and the story is told of you.
Who has not laughed (I have myself) at Hon. Nahum
Dodge, Hon. Zeno Scudder, Hon. Hiram Boake and the rest?
A score of such queer names and titles I have smiled at in
America. And mutato jiomiue ? I meet a born idiot, who is a
peer and born legislator. This drivelling noodle, and his
descendants through life, are your natural superiors, and mine
— your and my children's superiors.
Thackeray : " Roundabout Papers."
It is perhaps the preacher's secret consciousness of his own
weakness, and his wrath with himself as both a sinner and a
hypocrite, which leads him to pause suddenly in his discourse
and startle the congregation by remarking that, while he is
OF I'\ ^ REIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 1 1 7
saying, Thou art the man, he really means, I am the man.
The phrase of which he is so fond, and which he uses so
often, de te fabula narratur — it is you that the coat fits, —
illustrates the same consciousness, and the tendency to apply
the moral to himself. Harper s Magazitie.
Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.
(HORACE, EPIS., I., 10, 24.)
Drive out nature with a pitchfork, it tvill yet come back.
The same idea has been expressed with equal felicity by
Destouches in the line : Chasscz le naturel, il revient au
galop — " Le Glorieux," act. iii., sc. 5.
Such was the general training which Lord Chesterfield en-
deavoured to give his godson — the training to make him a
courtly, accomplished man of the world — and, if he failed in
his attempt, it only proved the truth of the rather mournful
adage in all education, that as the young plant is by nature so
in the main will be its aftergrowth. Something may be done
to modify, to check, even to direct ; but substantially nature
will reassert herself, even though, as the Latin poet says, she
be driven out with a pitchfork.
Lord Carnarvon : " Memoir of Chesterfield."
Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus, (horace,
ARS POETICA, 191.)
Doiit let a god interfere unless the diifieulty is worthy of
the avenger. This is the advice Horace gives tragic poets
about introducing the supernatural.
He took his rapier from under his cloak and seemed about
to search the thickets around. " I will prevent him," whis-
pered the Doctor to Alice. '' I will keep faith with you — you
shall not come on the scene — nisi dignus vindice nodus — I '11
explain that another time."
Scott : " Woodstock," ch. 28.
1 18 A LITERARY MANUAL
The opportune return of the father (we are tempted to say
the excessively opportune) stands by itself — has no relation
to any other event in the play — does not appear to arise, in
the way of result, from any incident or incidents that have
arisen before. It has the air of a happy chance, of a God-
send, of an ultra accident, invented by the playwright by way
of compromise for his lack of invention. Ncc Deus intersit,
etc. — but here the god has interposed, and the knot is laugh-
ably unworthy of the god.
POE.
Nec pluribus impar.
Not unequal to many. The motto of Louis XIV.
The battles of Rossbach and Lissa were drams to me, and
gave me some momentary spirits ; but, though I do not abso-
lutely despair, I own I greatly distrust. I readily allow the
king of Prussia to be nec plurihis i7npar ; but still, when the
pliires amount to a certain degree of plurality, courage and
abilities must yield at last.
Chesterfield.
Nec plus ultra.
Nothing fnrtJicr. The phrase is used to indicate the
highest degree of a quality, and is also written non plus
ultra or lie plus ultra. Biichmann says that it is a trans-
lation of Job (xxxviii., ii) "Hitherto shalt thou come,
but no further ; and here shall thy proud waves be
stayed."
I do assure you that there is no prose composition in the
world, not even the De Corona, which I place so high as the
seventh book of Thucydides. It is the ne plus ultra of
human art. I was delighted to find in Gray's letters the
other day this query to Wharton : The retreat from Syracuse
— Is it or is it not, the finest thing you ever read in your life ?
Macaulav, In Trevelyan, i., 387.
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA T/ONS. 1 19
Nee tecum possum vivere, nee sine te. (martial, ep.,
xii., 47, 2.)
/ i'(7fi ticitJicr live xi'ith you nor unt/iont you.
There are several persons who, in certain periods of their
lives, are inexpressibly agreeable, and in others as odious and
detestable. Martial has given us a very pretty picture of one
of this species in the following epigram :
Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es idem ;
Nee tecum possum vivere, nee sine te.
Addison: Spectator, No. 68.
Fournier says (" L'Esprit des Autres," chap. 16) that
the due d'Aumale, on the occasion of his reception in the
French Academy, said of M. de Montalembert, whom he
succeeded : " He belonged to his age more than he him-
self was aware of. He loved the press ; he felt for it that
attraction which belongs to our times ; he feared its ex-
cesses and censured them severely, and he did not always
have a personal reason for praising it ; but he always
came back to his liking, and a propos of this he used to
repeat this line, which he thought was from Catullus,
but which belongs to a love elegy of Ovid (the nth of
the third book of the Amores) :
' Nee sine te nee tecum vivere possum.' "
I am desirous to stock your little store-house, that is, your
memory, with the most shining thoughts of both the Ancients
and the Moderns, which if correctly retained and happily
applied, often stand in the stead of wit, and are very pleasing
in company. I shall therefore continue to send you the
brightest thoughts that I can collect from Latin, French, and
English authors, both in verse and prose. Take one epigram
more from Martial :
Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es idem ;
Nee tecum possum vivere, nee sine te.
I20 A LITERARY MANUAL
There are too many people of this variable and capricious
character ; sometimes extremely easy and good humoured, and
sometimes sullen, sour and frovvard. You will observe that
this character is upon the whole a very disagreeable one. An
even, good humoured, cheerful turn is the true turn for the
world, and will please all mankind.
Chesterfield : " Letters to his Godson," p. 202,
I intend to give Mr. P. his full revenge when I come to
discuss the more recent enormity of steamboats ; meanwhile,
I shall only say of both these modes of conveyance, that
there 's no living with them or without them.
Scott : " Chronicles of the Canongate," ch. 3.
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, (dante, in-
ferno, I.)
Midway in the journey of our life.
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita. This line with which
Dante begins the first canto of the Divine Comedy, occurs to
me this evening for the hundredth time perhaps. But it is the
first time that it touches me. With what interest do I reflect
upon it, and how serious and significant do I find it. It is
because at this moment I can apply it to myself. I am in my
turn at the point where Dante was when the old sun marked
the first year of the fourteenth century. I am midway in the
path of life if we suppose that path equal for all and leading
to old age.
Anatole France.
They were quite sure they had attained a certain gnosis —
had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence ;
while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong
conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume
and Kant on my side, 1 could not think myself presumptuous
in holding fast by that opinion. Like Dante —
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 1 2 1
but, unlike Dante, I cannot add —
Che la diritta via era sinarrita.'
Huxley.
The greatest soldier, it is true, will often find that his cam-
paign depends as much upon his enemy as on himself. His
best plans quite as frequently will come to naught, but still,
a campaign without a plan is not very apt to end in a Te Deum.
If you would not find yourself astray in a dark wood, like
Dante, when you are midway upon the journey of your lives,
you must endeavor, now that the responsibilities of manhood
are opening upon you, to form some definite understanding of
what you have to do, and what your own qualifications are for
doing it.
S. Teackle Wallis : Address to the Graduating Class
of the Law School of the Univ. of Md., 1872.
Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit. (plinv, h. nat.,
VII., 41, 2.)
No mortal is zuisc at all hours.
The sage pedagogue was contented with the vent which he
had already given to his indignation ; and, as the vulgar phrase
is, immediately drew in his horns. He said he was sorry he
had uttered any thing which might give offence, for that he had
never intended it ; but that /lemo omnibus horis sapit.
Fielding : " Tom Jones," book xii., chap. 13.
Nemo repente fuit turpissimus. (juvenal, sat., il, 83.)
No one ever became very wicked all at ofice.
But your proofs show that, in the kindness of our construc-
tion, we did not give heed enough to the maxim, nemo repente
fuit turpissimus. Such a depth could not be reached by a
single plunge. The integrity of his moral nature must have
' In the midway of this our mortal life,
I found me in a gloomy wood, astray,
Gone from the path direct.
— Gary's Translation.
122 . A LITERARY MANUAL
previously undergone that gradual process of decomposition
which could result only from long and sympathetic association
with the enemies of the Constitution.
Jeremiah S. Black: " Essays and Speeches," p. 274.
Neque semper arcum tendit Apollo, (horace, odes, ii.,
10, 19.)
Apollo docs not ahvays keep his bozv bent. The quotation
is ordinarily used in the sense that there are times when
all need relaxation from the point of high tension.
" And pray, Mr. Sampson, are these three hours entirely
spent in construing and translating?"
" Doubtless — no— we have also colloquial intercourse to
sweeten study — neque semper arcum tejidit Apollo.
Scott : " Guy Mannering," chap. 15.
Ne quid nimis, (terence, andria, i., i, 34.)
NotJiing in excess. According to Biichmann, this maxim
may be traced back to the seven wise men of Greece.
Fournier remarks ("L'Esprit des Autres," chap. 35) that
Desaugiers made the fortune of this refrain :
Faut d'la vertu, pas trop n'en faut,
L'exces en tout est un defaut.
(Some virtue is needed, but not too much of it. Excess
in any thing is a defect.) And this came from a comic
opera of Monvel, which was played in 1773. The atheist
Monvel would have made a wry face if he had been told
that in these lines he was borrowing an idea from St.
Paul, but that is nevertheless the case. We read in the
Epistle to the Romans, chap. xii. : Non plus sapere quam
oportet sapere, sed sapere ad sohrietateni. As a connecting
link between the Apostle and the rhymester of comic
operas, we have, in the first place, Moli^re, who makes
Philinte say in the " Misanthrope" (acte i., sc. i):
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TIONS. 123
I.a parfaite raison fiiit lout exlremite
Et vent que Ton soit sage avec sohritftc.
And then the shepherdess in Ouinault's " Armide '* sings:
Ce n'est jias ctre sat;e
D'etre plus sage qu'il ne le faut.
(It is not to be wise at all, to be wiser than is necessary.)
If he was not, like Lord North, " irreconcileable to no man,"
his enmities were neither many nor abiding ; his self-control,
of which I have already spoken, his balanced temper, his
singular acuteness of intellect, seemed to keep him always in a
certain mean. " A^^ quid Jiimis,'' he once wrote, "is a most
excellent rule in all things," and in this, no less than in the
liveliness of his wit and eloquence, he resembled the great
statesman of the Revolution, hii maternal grandfather, the
Marquis of Halifax, who far and beyond all other public men
of his time held a singularly even course amidst the conten-
tions and violences of party controversy.
Lord Carnarvon : "Memoir of Lord Chesterfield," p. 35.
Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria. (dante, inferno, v., 121.)
There is no greater grief than to remember times of
happiness in the midst of misery. This is what Francesca
da Rimini .says in the vision when interrogated about the
time of her sweet sighs, and how Love granted. Gary, the
learned translator and annotator of Dante, says that the
original of this idea, perhaps, was in Boethius (" De Con-
solatione Philosophia;," ii., 4) : /// omni adversitate fortunee
infelicissimiim genus infortitnii est fiiisse feliecm et non
esse. Boethius and Cicero de Amicitia- were the two first
books that engaged the attention of Dante, as he himself
tells in the " Convito," p. 68. Dante's lines have been
imitated by Chaucer in " Troilus and Crcseide," b. iii. ;
124 A LITERARY MANUAL
by Beaumont and Fletcher in " Fair Maid of the Inn,"
act i. ; and by Tennyson in " Locksley Hall " :
This is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.
Ne sutor ultra crepidam. (proverb in pliny, xxxv., io, 36.)
Shoemaker, stiek to your last. These words were ad-
dressed by Apelles to a shoemaker who, after having
made a just criticism of the sandals in one of the artist's
pictures, was going on to express his opinion about other
parts of the work.
There was however present to my friend's mind, and to that
of others, a feeling that a man who had spent his life in writing
English novels could not be fit to write about Csesar. It was
as when an amateur gets a picture hung on the walls of the
Academy. What business had I there. JVe sutor ultra crepi-
dam.
Anthony Trollope : " Autobiography."
It is the tendency of shoemakers all over the world, within
my observations, to be extreme Radicals. The shoemakers of
Lynn, in Massachusetts, long ago were the advanced guard I
remember of the Old Org. — the old organization — enemies of
slavery as slavery, without compromise or hesitation. Every
man of them was as ready as the Simple Cobbler of Agawan
to tackle any problem, terrestrial or celestial, at a moment's
notice. It was idle to cite ne sutor to them in matters of art
or of politics, of science or of theology.
W. H. HuRLBERT : " France and The Republic," p. 238.
Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit.
He toneJied nothing that he did not adorn. The phrase
occurs (with a slight variation) in Dr. Johnson's epitaph
on Oliver Goldsmith as inscribed on the monument in
Westminster Abbey. Burke and others had written a
Round Robin asking Dr. Johnson to write the epitaph
OF FORFJCN Q UO TA TIONS. 1 2 5
in English, but he said he would not disgrace the walls of
the Abbey with an English inscription. Hardly any line
that Dr. Johnson ever wrote in English is as well known
and as often quoted as this Latin phrase. Perhaps the
only part of a modern Latin epitaph to be compared with
it is the well-known sentence from the monument erected
to Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul's, which
is over the inner porch of the north transept of that
cathedral : Si momivicntum quceris, circuvispice. " If you
seek a monument, look around you."
And here we have only to object that the really magnificent
abilities of Mr. Home might have been better employed in an
entirely original conception. The story he tells is beautiful
indeed, — and «/7 tetigit certainly, quod non ornavit — but our
memories — our classic recollections are continually at war
with his claims to regard, and we too often find ourselves
rather speculating upon what he might have done than admir-
ing what he has really accomplished.
PoE : " Essays."
The foreign policy of the noble lord (Lord John Russell) of
which a futile intermeddling has been the most noteworthy
characteristic, can be best summed up in the phrase Nihil
tetigit quod — I will not say non o?-navit, but non contiirbavit.
He has been eternally lecturing, scolding, blustering, and re-
treating. Like Bottom the weaver he has insisted upon play-
ing every part. But the lion's is the role which he has
thought himself specially adapted for. He has called on us
to listen while he should modulate his voice so that he should
roar you as gently as any sucking dove, and again he has
tried to show us how he could roar you so that the people
should exclaim, " Let him roar again, let him roar again."
Lord Stanley.
In the afternoon an entertainment was given by Sir Robert
Montgomery in the famous Shalimar Gardens, the handiwork
of that master-builder of the East, Shah Jehan. Few cities
126 A LITERARY MANUAL
indeed were there in the northwest of India which Shah Jehan
had not touched with his enchanter's wand ; and there was no
city which he touched which he did not also permanently
adorn.
H. BoswoRTH Smith: " Life of Lord Lawrence,"
vol. ii., ch. 1 1.
Nil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum.
Deeming nothing to have been doiu if any tJiirig remained
to do. This is derived from a part of the description of
Caesar in Lucan's Pharsalia, ii., 657. Nil actum credens
dnm quid superesset agendum.
Invoke them (the Graces) and sacrifice to them every
moment, they are always kind when they are assiduously
courted. For God's sake aim at perfection in every thing.
Nil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum.
Chesterfield.
Lucan has nowhere exhibited more brilliant rhetoric, nor
wandered more from the truth than in the contrasted portraits
of Caesar and Pompey. But the famous line, 7iil actum reputans
si quid superesset agendum, is a fine feature of the real character
finely expressed.
De Quincey.
The tendency to fatalism is never far from mankind. It is
one of the first solutions of the riddle of the earth propounded
by metaphysics. It is one of the last propounded by science.
It has at all times formed the background to religions. No
race is naturally less disposed to a fatalistic view of things
than is the Anglo-American, with its restless, self-reliant
energy, — Nil actu^n reputans dum quid restaret agendum, its
slender taste for introspection or meditation. Nevertheless,
even in this people, the conditions of life and politics have
bred a sentiment or tendency which seems best described by
the name of fatalism.
James Bryce : " The American Commonwealth," ii., 297.
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TIONS. 127
Nil admirari. (horack. epis., i., 6, i.)
To wonder at nothing.
The continual admiration of enthusiastic travellers has pro-
duced a reaction, and in order to be singular, many tourists
nowadays take for their motto, the tiil admirari of Horace.
Miss Lydia, the only daughter of the Colonel, belonged to this
class of discontented travellers.
Prosper MiiRiMiiE. : " Colomba," i.
Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa, (horace, ep.,
I., I, 6i.)
To be conscious of )io wrong, to turn pale zvitJi no guilt.
His reported conversations, and some of his private corre-
spondence, show Wali)ole to have had both neatness and
facility in the trick of Latin quotation. It is true that in one
of the best-known parliamentary anecdotes of the time, he
once lost a guinea by a blunder in a very familiar verse. He
quoted Horace's line as
Nil consciri sil)i, nulli pallescere ciilpa\
Pulteney replied that his Latin was as bad as his logic, and
that the right words were nulla pallescere culpa. Walpole
offered to bet him a guinea. The clerk at the table gave it
against the minister, who threw the guinea down. Pulteney,
catching it, held it up to the House, calling out, 'T is the first
money I 've had from the Treasury these many years, and it
will be the last. The error was no worse than Burke's false
quantity when he cried, Magnum vedtigal est parsimonia. Yet
Burke was not illiterate.
John Morley : *' Life of Sir Robert Walpole," p. no.
Nil sine magno
Vita labore dedit mortalibus. (horace, sat., i., 9, 60.)
Life has given nothing to mortals xvithout great labor.
" When you read," says Fournier, " in La Fontaine's
* Philemon et Baucis ' these two lines :
128 A LITERARY MANUAL
II lit au front de ceux qu'un vain luxe environne
Que la fortune vend ce qu'on croit qu'elle donne,
you certainly do not suspect that La Fontaine took the
latter almost literally from a letter of Voiture to the
Comte de Guich : ' Generally fortune sells us dearly what
we think she gives us.' "
Nitor in adversum. (ovid, met., ii., 72.)
/ struggle against adverse circumstances.
I was not, like his Grace of Bedford, swaddled and rocked,
and dandled into a legislator. Nitor in adversiitn is the motto
for a man like me. I possessed not one of the qualities, nor
cultivated one of the arts, that recommend men to the favor
and protection of the great.
Burke : *' Letter to a Noble Lord."
Noblesse oblige.
The fact of being a noble creates obligations.
To feel itself raised on high, venerated, followed, no doubt
stimulates a fine nature to keep itself worthy to be followed,
venerated, raised on high : hence that lofty maxim, noblesse
oblige.
Matthew Arnold.
Noli me tangere. (gospel of st. john, xx., 17.)
Tojich me not.
Hence it is that the children of bishops carry about with
them an austere and repulsive air, indicative of claims not
generally acknowledged, a sort of ?ioli me tangere manner, ner-
vously apprehensive of too familiar approach, and shrinking
with the sensitiveness of a gouty man from all contact with
the oi TtoWoi.
De Quincey.
Perhaps the general vulgarity will one day be the necessary
condition for the happiness of the elect. American vulgarity
would not burn Giordano Bruno, would not persecute Galileo.
OF FORFJCy [^O TA TIONS. 1 29
We have no right to be very fastidious. At the best times in
the past we have only been tolerated. We shall at least obtain
the same tolerance in the future. A narrow-minded demo-
cratic government may, as we know, easily be vexatious.
However, intellectual men do live in America, on the condition
of not being too exacting. N'oii vie tangere is all that one can
ask of democracy.
Rkn.-\x : " Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse," Preface.
Non amo te, Sabidi, nee possum dicere quare ;
Hoc tantuni possum dicere ; non amo te. (m.\rti.ai.,
EP., I., 2>2„ i)
/ do not love you, Sabuiius, nor coji I say why ; o?ily this
can I say, I do not love you. Ramage says that " Dr. Fell,
Dean of Christ Church, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, who
died in 1686, agreed to cancel a degree of expulsion
against Tom Brown, if that humorist could translate on
the spot Martial's epigram, which he did to the Dean's
surprise in the following well-known lines :
" I do not love thee, Dr. Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell ;
But this I 'm sure I know full well,
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell."
But the fairest objects and entisings proceed from men them-
selves, which most frequently captivate, allure, and make them
dote beyond all measure upon one another, and that for many
respects : first, as some suppose, by that secret force of stars
(quod me tibi temperat astrum ?), they do singularly dote on
such a man, hate such again, and can give no reason for it.
Non amo if, Sabidi, etc. Alexander admired Hephcestion,
Adrian Antinous, Nero Sporus, etc. The physicians refer this
to their temperament ; astrologers to trine and sextile aspects,
or opposite to their several ascendants, lords of their genitures,
love and hatred of planets ; Cicogna to concord and discord
of spirits ; but most to outward graces.
BuRTox : "Anatomy of Melancholy," iii., i, 2.
9
■Ji
1 30 A LITER A R V MA NUA L
Non equidem invideo, miror magis. (virgil, eclogue,
I., II.)
Indeed I do not envy, rather do I marvel.
What a satisfactory story that is of Burke showing Johnson
over his fine estate at Beaconsfield and expatiating, in his
exuberant style, on its liberties, privileges, easements, rights,
and advantages ; and of the old Doctor, the tenant of a two
pair back somewhere off Fleet Street, peering cautiously about,
criticising every thing, and observing with much coolness, Non
equidem invideo j Diir or magis. A friendship like this could
be disturbed but by death.
Augustine Birrell : " Obiter Dicta," 2d series, 126.
Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco, (virgil,
• ^NEID, I., 630.)
Not unacquainted with misfortune myself, I have learned
to succor the unhappy. It was in these words that Dido
offered her assistance to the shipwrecked ^Eneas.
" I lack no hospitality, young man," said Triptolemus,
" miseris succurrere disco — the goose that was destined to roost
in the chimney till Michaelmas is boiling in the pot for you."
Scott : " The Pirate," chap. 5.
I did not much care for Jack (who in truth was something
of a prig and not a little pompous and wearisome with his
Latin quotations), except in the time of my own sorrow, when
I would fasten upon him, or anyone, and, having suffered him-
self in his affair with the little American, being haiid ignarus
mali (as I knew he would say), I found the college gentleman
ready to compassionate another's misery.
Thackeray : " The Virginians," vol. ii., chap. 29.
It is the poor, the bowed down, the lonely, the forsaken,
who draw out his deepest tenderness. And what makes this
the nobler in Keble is, that it does not seem to come from the
principle of haud ignarus mali, but rather from pure strength
of Christian sympathy.
J, C. Shairp : " Studies in Poetry and Philosophy," 305.
OF FOREIGN QUO TA TIONS. 1 3 1
Non mi ricordo.
I do not rc))icmbcr. In the trial of Queen Caroline, one
of the witnesses was an Italian who had been in her ser-
vice on the Continent. Whenever he was pressed by
awkward questions, his answer was, " Non mi ricordo" ;
and the })hrase came to designate a conveniently forgetful
meinory. To a witness of this sort, examining counsel
once said : " I won't tax your want of recollection any
further."
One of the Tuckers, or possibly one of the Watsons had
Nolan in charge at the end of the war ; and when on return-
ing from his cruise he reported at Washington to one of the
Crowninshields, — who was in the Navy Department when he
came home, — he found that the Department ignored the
whole business. Whether they really knew nothing about it, or
whether it was a Non mi ricordo, determined on as a piece of
policy, I do not know.
E. E. H.A.LE : " The Man without a Country."
Non nisi parendo vincitur. (bacon.)
// is only by obedience that it is conqncred.
"O King live forever," was the ordinary formula of begin-
ning an address to the Babylonian or Medean king, drunk or
sober. '' Your ascent to power proceeded as uniformly and
majestically as the laws of being, and was as certain as the de-
crees of eternity," says Mr. Bancroft to the American people.
Such flattery proceeds frequently from the ignobler parts of
human nature, but not always. What seems to us baseness,
passed two hundred years ago at Versailles, for gentleness and
courtliness ; and many people have everyday before them
a monument of what was once thought suitable language
to use of a king of England in the Dedication of the English
Bible to James I. There is no reason to suppose that this
generation will feel any particular shame at flattery, though
the flattery will be addressed to the people and not to the
king. It may even become commoner, through the growth of
132 A LITERARY MANUAL
scientific modes of thought. Dean Church, in his recent
volume on Bacon, has made the original remark that Bacon
behaved himself to powerful men as he behaved himself to
Nature. Parendo vinces. If you resist Nature she will crush
you ; but if you humor her, she will place her tremendous force
at your disposal. It is madness to offer direct resistance to
a royal virago or a royal pedant, but by subservience you may
command either of them. There is much of this feeling in the
state of mind of intelligent and highly educated Radicals in
the presence of a mob.
Sir Henry Maine : " Popular Government," pp. 77, 78.
Religious minds hold — you find the idea underlying many
books and hear it in many pulpits — that Divine Providence
has specially chosen and led the American people to work out
a higher type of freedom and civilization than any other State
has yet attained, and that this great work will surely be brought
to a happy issue by the protecting hand which has so long
guided it. Before others, who are less sensitive to such im-
pressions, the will of the people looms up like one of the
irresistible forces of nature, which you must obey and which
you can turn and use only by obeying. In the famous words
of Bacon, twn nisi paretido vincitur.
James Bryce : " The American Commonwealth,"
vol. ii., p. 246.
Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites. (virgil,
EC, III., 108.)
// is not withiii our power to compose siicJi strife betiveen yoti.
It is wxll known that two large septs, unquestionably
known to belong to the clan Chattan, the McPhersons and
the Mclntoshes, dispute to this day which of their chief-
tains was at the head of this Badenoch branch of the great
confederacy, and both have of late times assumed the title
of captain of clan Chattan. Non jiostriim est tantas componere
lites.
Scott : '' The Fair Maid of Perth," chap. 27.
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA 770 NS. 1 3 3
Non omnia possumus omnes. (virgil, eclogue, viii., 63.)
If V cannot ail do all things.
They tell me he made speeches of an hour long, and I have
been told very fine ones ; but he could never persuade Parlia-
ment to be of his opinion. Non omnia possu7nus omnes.
Fielding : " Joseph Andrews," book ii., chap. 8.
As I am circumstanced at present I cannot practise exten-
sively in the Supreme Court, because I cannot leave the Senate
long enough to go through an important cause. Non possumus
omnia. I must leave off saying " Mr. President," or leave off
saying " May it please your Honors," but, my dear Sir, I shall
never leave off saying that I am, with much sincere regard.
Yours,
Dan'l Webster : " Private Correspondence," ii., 10.
Non omnis moriar. (horace, odes, iii., 30, 6.)
I shall not all die, " and a large part of me," adds the
poet, " shall escape the goddess of death."
But only true love lives after you — follows your memory with
secret blessing — or precedes you and intercedes for you. Non
omnis moriar — if dying I yet live in a tender heart or two ; nor
am lost and hopeless, living, if a sainted departed soul still
loves and prays for me.
Thackeray : " Henry Esmond," book ii., ch, 6.
Non possumus.
Jfk' cannot. The reply of St. Peter and St. John to the
high-priest who forbade their preaching (Acts, iv., 20).
To all offers of compromise, to all offers of anything but
submission, the Catholic Church then said non possumus, and
she say!" non possutnus still.
GoLDwiN Smith.
We own to a strong sentimental objection to a nation's giv-
ing up anything which it possesses, and the renunciation of
Heligoland by Lord Salisbury awakens /: / 77 C KVS. 1 73
torpor had to relax its hold and permit the master of the
household to rise and look about him,
D. Massox : " Life of De Quincey," p. 65.
Revenons a nos moutons.
Let us return to our sheep. This expression is very com-
mon both in French and English, as signifying, let us
return to the subject we have been talking about. It is
an allusion to a mediaeval farce in which a lawyer, arguing
a cause concerning the larceny of sheep, talks about all
sorts of things and is interrupted with a revenoyis a nos
moutons.
The following is one of many versions of the story.
Pour trois moutons qu'on m'avait pris,
J'avais un proces au baillage ;
Gui, le phenix des beaux esprits,
Plaidait ma cause et faisait rage.
Quand il eut dit un mot du fait,
Pour exagerer le forfait,
II cita la fable et I'histoire,
Les Aristotes, les Platons ;
Gui, laissez la tout ce grimoire
Et retournez a vos moutons.
La Moxnaie : " Nouvelle Anthologie Franfaise," iv., 38.
Rex regnat sed non gubernat.
The king reigfis but docs not govern. This oft repeated
principle of constitutional monarchy was first formulated
by Jan Zamoiski in the Polish Diet about the beginning of
the 17th centur)'. The fortune of the phrase, however,
was made by Thiers, who expressed it in the better-known
French form :
Le roi regne et ne gouverne pas.
Another historical quotation from Poland is :
Finis Poloniae !
"The end of Poland."
1 74 A LITER A R V MA NUA L
Kosciuszko is commonly said to have made this ex-
clamation when, in 1794, he was wounded and captured
by the Russians. Count Segur, in a work published in
1800, referred to the saying, but Kosciuszko in a letter to
S^gur, dated Paris, 31 October, 1803, denied that he had
ever used such a senseless and criminal expression. So it
would seem that it was only freedom that " shrieked
when Kosciuszko fell." (The letter is contained at length
in Biichmann's " Geflugelte Worte," p. 359.)
Two well-known sayings come from Prince Bismarck.
On 14 May, 1872, in a speech in the Reichstag concerning
his controversy with the Papal Court, he said, referring to
the humiliation of the Emperor Henry IV., before Pope
Gregory VII., at Canossa, in 1077:
Nach Canossa gehen wir nicht.
"We shall not go to Canossa."
Bismarck has often been referred to as the man of
Eisen und Blut.
" Iron and blood."
In a speech by him in the lower house of the Prussian
Diet, on September 30, 1862, he said: "The great ques-
tions of the times will not be decided by speeches and
majority votes — that was the error of 1848 and 1849 — but
by Eisen und Blut.'' Biichmann says that although this
phrase was made a "winged word " by Bismarck he is not
its author, and he quotes Quintilian and two German poets
one of whom, Arndt, said in a poem published in 1800:
Zwar der Tapfere nennt sich Herr der Lander
Durch sein Eisen, durch sein Blut.
" The brave man indeed calls himself lord of the land
through his iron, through his blood."
The elder Pliny (Epis., iii., 16) refers to an exclamation
of Arria, the wife of Paetus, as immortal. Paetus, having
been condemned to death for a conspiracy against the
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 1 75
Emperor Claudius, his wife Arria plunged a dagger in her
breast, and drawing it out handed it to her husband saying,
Paete, non dolet.
" PcXtus, it docs not hurt."
Chiesa libera in libero stato.
" A free church in a free state."
This was the famous maxim by which Cavour sought to
reconcile the aspirations for Italian unity with the claims
of the church. The unification of Italy was finally achieved
by that great statesman and his master, Victor Emanuel,
who was popularly known as the Re galaiitiiovio — " king
and gentleman " (man of honor). When the king was
once called upon to write his name in the census list
of Turin, he wrote, under the heading " Occupation and
position," Re galaiituonio.
France supplies us with more historical quotations than
any other country. (See elsewhere in this Manual under
the headings : Tout est perdu fors riionnetir. La Garde
metirt. J'y suis,j"y reste. Le roi est viort.') In addition
to those already given the following may be mentioned.
Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche.
" Knight without fear and without reproach,"
was first most appropriately applied to the Chevalier
Bayard.
To Henrj' IV. is attributed:
Paris vaut bien une messe,
" Paris is well worth a mass,"
by which he announced his intention to become a Catholic
when he found that otherwise he could not become king
of France.
To the same popular monarch belongs the saying,
Je veux que le dimanche chaque paysan ait sa poule au pot.
" I want every peasant to have a chicken in his pot on
Sundays."
I ye A LI'] 'ERA R Y MA NUA L
The Comte d'Argental, to whom was confided the cen-
sorship of the press under Louis XV., was once reprimand-
ing the Abbe Desfontaines for his hterary indiscretions.
The Abbe sought to excuse himself by saying, " But I
must hve, your Excellency." To which d'Argental replied,
Je n'en vols pas la n6cessit6.
" I don't see the necessity of that."
Biichmann gives various accounts of the origin of this
witticism, but seems to prefer the above, which rests upon
the authority of Renault and Voltaire.
Le silence du peuple est la legon des rois.
" The silence of the people is a lesson for kings,"
comes from the funeral oration pronounced over Louis
XV. in July, 1774, at St. Denis by the- Abbe de Beauvais.
The day after the fall of the Bastile, Mirabeau used the
phrase in the Assembly.
In June, 1789, when the king ordered the National
Assembly to separate into its different orders, Mirabeau
said to the Marquis de Breze, the master of ceremonies,
who had repeated the order : Alice dire a voire niaitre que
nous somines i^i par la puissance du peuple, et qiion ne nous
en arrachcra que par la puissance des baionnettes. " Go
tell your master that we are here by the power of the peo-
ple, and that we shall not be taken away except by the
power of bayonets." (Thiers : " R^v. Fran.," vol. i.,
p. 56.)
C'est plus qu'un crime, c'est une faute.
'' It 's more than a crime, it 's a mistake,"
was a judgment pronounced upon the execution of the
due d'Enghien in 1803, some say by Fouche, others say
by Talleyrand.
The qa ira which was so common in French revolution-
ary songs comes from Benjamin Franklin. When asked
i IF I'\ Vv'AYr/.V QUOTA VVchVS. i yy
about the proLjrcss of tlic American war, he used to
answer,
^a ira,
" That will go on all right."
Rudis indigestaque moles, (ovid, mkt., i., 7.)
A rudt' and chaotii mass.
The hurry and confusion of the Duke of Newcastle did not
proceed from his business but from his want of method in it.
Sir Robert Walpole, who had ten times the business to do, was
never seen in a hurry because he always did it with method.
The head of a man who has business and no method or order
is properly that rudis inJigestaque moles quejn dixere chaos.
Chesterfield.
Rus in urbe. (martial, ep., xii., 57, 21.)
Country in the city.
His residence was cosey without being cramped, enriched
with works of art throughout ; at the back a complete rus
in urbe, shaded by the trees of the park, on the reverse facing
the confluence of three fashionable thoroughfares.
C. L. Reade.
Salus populi suprema lex.
The safety of the State is the highest law.
Judges ought above all to remember the conclusion of the
Roman Twelve Tables : Salus populi suprema lex j and to
know that laws, except they be in order to that end, are
but things captious and oracles not well inspired.
Bacox : " Essays."
I am compelled to admit that every state has a right, in the
season of danger, to claim the services of all or any of its
members, that salus populi suprema lex est. Tenderness and
consideration in the use of such extensive powers is all I can
recommend to those whose business it is to call them into action.
C. J. Fox : " Speech on the Russian Armament."
178 A LITERARY MANUAL
Sapere aude. (horace, epis., i., 2, 40.)
Dare to he zvise.
Many quotations from Horace are to be found in their
alphabetical order throughout this Manual. But Horace
has been such a favorite source of quotations that space
fails for the illustration of all of them by extracts in
which they are used. In addition to those so illustrated
in this work the ensuing Horatian lines are more or less
frequently cited.
O rus, quando te aspiciam ? (Sat., ii., 6., 60.)
" O country, when shall I behold thee ? "
Haec decies repetita placebit. (Ars Poet., 365.)
"This ten times repeated will still please."
Horace is comparing poems with pictures ; some are
pleasing if looked at only once, others are seen with
pleasure ten times over.
Vos exemplaria Graeca
Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna. (Ars Poet., 268.)
" Study your Greek models by night, study them by day."
Grammatici certant, et adhuc sub judice lis est. (Ars Poet., 78.)
"Critics contend and the question is still undetermined."
Si volet usus
Quern penes arbitrium est, et jus et norma loquendi. (Ars Poet.,
71.)
" If usage so wills it which is the arbiter, the law and rule
of speech."
The poet is referring to language, some words becoming
obsolete and new ones arising, while what is correct is
altogether a matter of custom,
.^gri somnia. (Ars. Poet., 7.)
" The vain dreams of a sick man."
Risum teneatis amici ? (Ars. Poet., 5.)
"Could you restrain your laughter, my friends?"
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA T/ONS. 1 79
Nil mortalibus arduum est :
Ccelum ipsum petimus stultitia. (Odes, i., 3, 37.)
" Nothing is too difficult for mortals ; we seek heaven
itself in our folly."
Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperutn tabernas
Regumque turres. (Odes, !., 4, 12.)
" Pale death enters with indifferent step the huts of the
poor and the castles of kings."
Vitae summa brevis spetn nos vetat inchoare longam. (Odes, i.,
4. I?-)
" The short span of life forbids us to begin a long hope "
— />., to enter upon undertakings which require a long
period for their achievement.
Simplex munditiis. (Odes, i., 5, 5.)
" Plain in thy neatness " — i.e., in elegant simplicity.
Nil desperandum Teucro duce, et auspice Teucro. (Odes, i.,
7. 27.)
" Never despair when Teucer is leader, and under
Teucer's auspices."
Quid sit futurum eras, fuge quaerere. (Odes, i., 9, 13.)
" Avoid asking what the morrow will bring forth."
Compesce mentem. (Odes, i.' 16, 22.)
" Control thy temper."
Integer vitae, scelerisque purus. (Odesi., 22, i.)
" The man upright in his life and free from guilt."
Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo,
Dulce loquentem. (Odes, i., 22, 23.)
" I shall continue to love my sweetly smiling and sweetly
speaking Lalage."
Nuda Veritas. (Odes, i., 24, 7.)
" The naked truth."
Durum, sed levius fit patientia
Quicquid corrigere est nefas. (Odes, i., 24, 19.)
" It is hard to bear, but patience makes that lighter which
wc cannot remedy."
i8o A LITERARY MANUAL
O laborum
Dulce lenimen. (Odes, i., 32, 14.)
"O sweet solace of labors."
The reference is to Apollo's lyre.
Nihil est ab omni
Parte beatum. (Odes, ii., 16, 27.)
" Nothing is beautiful from every point of view " — i.e.,
there is no perfect happiness.
Qu'd leges sine moribus
Vanae proficiunt. (Odes, iii., 24, 35.)
" What can vain laws effect without public morals ? "
Fumum et opes strepitumque Romae. (Odes, iii., 29, 13.)
" The smoke and riches and noise of Rome."
Culpam poena premit comes. (Odes, iv., 5, 24.)
"Punishment presses close as a companion on crime."
Non possidentem multa vocaveris
Recte beatum. (Odes, iv., 9, 45.)
" Not him who possesses many things can you properly
call happy."
Biichmann suggests that from this verse may have been
developed, by a spirit of contradiction, the saying : Beati
possidentes, " Blessed are they who possess."
Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem. (Odes, iv., 12, 27.)
" Mingle a little folly with your wisdom."
So La Rochefoucauld says (Maxims, No. 219): " He who
lives without folly is not as wise as he thinks himself."
Qui vit sails folic n' est pas si sage qiiil croit.
Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis,
Ut prisca gens mortalium,
Paterna rura bubus exercet suis,
Solutus omni fcenore. (I'^pis., ii., i.)
"Happy he who far from the whirl of business, like the
early race of men, cultivates the paternal fields with his
own cattle, free from all cares of money."
OF F( u^n/cy Q U( ? /:•/ rn ws. 1 8 1
Quanquam ridentem dicere verum
Quid vetat ? (Sat., i., i, 25.)
" But what hinders us from telling the truth in a smiling
way ? "
Dummodo risum
Excutiat sibi, non hie cuiquam parcet amico. (Sat., i., 4. 34.)
" Provided he can raise a laugh for his own benefit he
spares no friend."
From this was developed, says Buchmann, the proverb
(in Quintilian, De Inst. Orat., vi., 3, 28): Potius ainiaim
qiiavi dictum perdcrc. " Rather to lose a friend than a wit-
ticism." A French proverb says : II faiit viicux pcrdre tin
bon mot qiiun ami. " It is better to lose a joke than a
friend."
Ohe ! Jam satis est. (Sat., i., 5, 12.)
" Oh ! that 's already enough."
Sxpe stilum vertas. (Sat., i., 10, 72.)
"Often turn the stilus," — i.e., correct your writing with
care if you wish to write any thing worth being read a sec-
ond time.
The allusion is to the practice of erasing with the broad
end of the stilus what one had written upon a wax tablet.
Par nobile fratrum. (Sat., ii., 3, 243.)
" A noble pair of brothers."
Hoc erat in votis. (Sat., ii., 6, i.)
" This was one of my desires."
Ira furor brevis est. (Ep., i., 2, 62.)
" Anger is a short madness."
Si quid novisti rectius istis,
Candidas imperii; si non, his utere mecum. (Ep., i., 6, 67.)
" If you know any thing better than these (maxims), im-
part it to me frankly ; if not, use these as I do."
Strenua inertia. (Ep., i., 11, 28.)
" Busy idleness."
1 82 A LITER A R i ' MA NUA L
Nee vixit male, qui natus moriensque fefellit. (Ep., i., 17, 10.)
" He has not lived ill who has lived and died unnoticed "
Principibus placuisse viris, non ultima laus est. (Ep., i., 17, 35.)
" To have pleased the most eminent men is not the
least praise."
Et semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum. (Ep., i., 18, 71.)
"And once sent forth the irrevocable word flies."
Nam tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet. (Ep., i., 18, 84.)
" When your neighbor's house is on fire you are in
danger yourself."
O imitatores, servum pecus. (Ep., i., 19, 19.)
" O imitators, servile herd."
Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes
Intulit agresti Latio. (Ep., ii., i, 156.)
" Captive Greece made captive her barbarous con-
queror, and introduced the arts into rude Latium."
Vixere si recte nescis decede peritis.
Lusisti satis, edisti satis, atque bibisti. (Ep., ii., 2, 212.)
" If you do not know how to live properly give way to
those who are sensible. You have revelled enough, and
feasted, and drunk enough."
Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum. (Ep., i., 17, 36.)
" It is not given to every man to go to Corinth."
Biichmann says that this is the translation of a Greek
proverb, whose frivolous origin one may find in Gellius,
i., 8, 4.
Sauve qui peut.
Save himself who can.
If Swift had not been committed to the statesmen of the
losing side, what a fine satirical picture we might have had of
that general sauve qui peut amongst the Tory party ! How
mum the Tories became ; how the House of Lords and the
House of Commons chopped round ; and how decorously the
majorities welcomed King George.
Thackeray : " Lecture on George I."
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 1 83
Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.
(HORACE, ARS POET., JOQ.)
Knowledge is the first principle and the fountain of
writing zvell.
On the other hand remember that what Horace says of
good writing is justly applicable to those who would make a
good figure in courts, and distinguish themselves in the shin-
ing parts of life : Sapere est principium et fons. A man who,
without a good fund of knowledge and parts, adopts a court
life, makes the most ridiculous figure imaginable.
Chesterfield.
Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim, (horace,
EP., II., I, 117.)
All of us promiscuously, unlearned as well as learned,
write poems.
Those who cannot write and those who can,
All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.
Pope.
Scribimus indocti doctique passim, may be more truly said of
the historian and biographer than of any other species of writ-
ing ; for all the arts and sciences (even criticism itself) require
some little degree of learning and knowledge. Poetry, indeed,
may perhaps be thought an exception ; but then it demands
numbers, or something like numbers ; whereas, to the composi-
tion of novels and romances, nothing is necessary but paper,
pens, and ink, with the manual capacity of using them. This I
conceive their productions show to be the opinion of the authors
themselves ; and this must be the opinion of their readers, if
indeed there be any such.
Fielding : "Tom Jones," book ix., chap, i.
Secundum artem.
According to the rules of art — /. e., scientifically, skilfully.
On the present occasion, he arose as early in the morning
as the shortness of the day permitted, and proceeded to calcu-
1 84 A LITERARY MANUAL
late the nativity of the young heir of Ellangowan. He under-
took the task secundmn artem, as well to keep up appear-
ances, as from a sort of curiosity to know whether he yet
remembered and could practise the imaginary science.
Scott : " Guy Mannering," chap. 4.
He was now sixty. The Olney physicians, instead of hus-
banding his vital power, had wasted it away secundutn artem,
by purging, bleeding, and emetics.
GoLDWiN Smith : " Life of Cowper."
Semper ad eventum festinat. (horace, ars poet., 148.)
// always hastens towards the denouement.
As an advocate he went straight towards his object, narra-
ting the facts with simplicity, ornamenting the recital, when
the occasion allowed it with happy phrases or lofty allusions,
but dwelling only on some decisive points which he thought
adapted, either to dispose the tribunal favorably, or to make
the question more clearly understood, or to show the force of
some particular argument. And thus he practised what
Horace, his favorite author, said of Virgil,
Semper ad eventum festinat et in medias res,
Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit.
LiouviLLE : " Paillet," p. 56.
There are some charming details in these verses, but this
charm itself is a distraction which injures the sentiment that
the poet seeks to express. The rule semper ad eventum festinat,
is true even for the lyrical poet ; there is always a denouement
towards which he ought to hasten. This denouement is the
principal thought or sentiment.
Saint Marc Girardin.
Semper, ubique, et ab omnibus.
Always, everywhere, and by everybody.
A popular author must take the accepted maxims for granted
in a thoroughgoing way. He must suppress any whimsical
OF FOREIGN Q lit ? T, I 7Vc ?. V.V. 1 8 5
fancy for applying the Socratic elenchus, or any other engine
of criticism, scepticism, or verification, to those sentiments or
current precepts of morals which may in fact be very two-sided
and may be much neglected in practice, but which the public
opinion of his time requires to be treated in theory and in lit-
erature as if they had been cherished and held sacred semper,
ul>igue, et ab omnibus.
John Morley.
But one of the strangest of vulgar ideas is that a very wide
suffrage could or would promote progress, new ideas, new dis-
coveries and inventions, new arts of life. Such a suffrage is
commonly associated with Radicalism ; and no doubt amid its
most certain effects would be the extensive destruction of ex-
isting institutions ; but the chances are that, in the long run, it
would produce a mischievous form of Conservatism, and drug
society with a potion compared with which Eldonine would be
a salutary draught. For to what end, towards what ideal state,
is the process of stamping upon law the average opinion of an
entire community directed ? The end arrived at is identical
with that of the Roman Catholic Church, which attributes a
similar sacredness to the average opinion of the Christian
world. Quod seftiper, quod ubigue, quod ab omnibus, was the
canon of Vincent of Lerins.
Sir Henry Maine : "Popular Government," p. 35.
Se non h vero h ben trovato.
If it is not true it is zvell imagined.
There is no evidence of the authenticity of many of the fa-
mous bons mots of history, such as the Montez au del, fils de
Saint Louis, of the Abbe Edgeworth to Louis XVI. on the
scaffold ; or the "Up, Guards, and at them," of the Duke of
Wellington at Waterloo. But without exception they are un-
commonly ben trovato. Historians like Plutarch and M. Thiers
(who adopts the Edgeworth benediction) cannot find it in their
hearts to reject these mock pearls. Paul Louis Courier says
i86 A LITERARY MANUAL
that Plutarch would have made Pompey gain the battle of
Pharsalia if that would have served to embellish his phrase.
With truth scientific, moral, religious, I am at present in no-
wise concerned. Only, I have no respect for the weakness
that will outrage a promising bit of narrative for the sake of
keeping to the facts. Imbecile ! the facts are given you, like
the block of marble or the elements of a landscape, as mate-
rial for the construction of a work of art. Which would you
rather be, a photographer or Michael Angelo ? JVon vero ma
ben trovato, should be your motto ; and if you refuse to kill
your heroine on the Saturday night because, forsooth, she
really did, despite all dramatic propriety, survive till Monday
morning — why, please yourself ; but do not bring your inan-
ities to me !
Julian Hawthorne : "Archibald Malmaison,"
Introduction.
Sic itur ad astra. (virgil, ^neid, ix., 641.)
Siich is the pathway to the stars.
But it is free on the whole from the magniloquence of the
Souakim document, and it records, if not a wholly satisfactory
yet a genuine and creditable bit of work. If we cannot quite
say sic itur ad astra, we can at any rate say, that is the way
to turn interesting barbarians out of a country where they have
no business.
Saturday Revieiv,
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Thus passes away the glory of the world.
But just as he (Schlegel) had turned the first bright page in
the tragic history of his life, he died suddenly from the effects
of a too hearty dinner, and evil tongues once more revived the
scandal of his youth. To die from overeating — what an end
for an idealist. Sic transit gloria inu7idi.
H. H. BovESEN, in the Atlantic Monthly.
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TIONS. 187
Alexandre Dumas is publishing the memoirs of Garibaldi.
You liave the most brilliant adventures in all the four corners
of the earth, in order that a manufacturer of novels may seize
on the history of your life, — remake it to suit himself, and
cut it up into feuilletons. Sic transit gloria mundi.
L. Duval.
Sicut meus est mos. (horace, sat., 1., 9, i.)
As is my habit. " I happened to be walking," says
Horace, " along the Via Sacra, sicut mens est mos, think-
ing of, I don't know what trifles, and wholly absorbed in
them, when some one. whom I hardly knew by name, runs
up, seizes my hand, and says, * How are you. you delight-
ful fellow ! • '•
Let me know how the matter stands and whether I must
blame you, or the post office, or myself, who through some
negligence, sicut meus est mos, may have deprived myself of
the pleasure of having any news of you. When I say pleasure,
I mean necessity. Be sure I cannot do without it, and hasten,
if you please, to send me a few lines from the least lazy of
your hands.
Paul Louis Courier.
Sic vos non vobis. (virgil in life, by donatus, 17.)
TJius you (work) not for yourselves. The phrase cannot
be well understood without an account of its origin. A
festival, designed to last some days, was being celebrated
at Rome under Augustus, when a rain-storm occurred
which caused a temporary interruption. The next day
the following couplet was found written on a wall of the
palace:
Nocte pluit tota. redeunt spectacula mane :
DiNasum imperium cum Jove Caesar habet.
" It rains all night, in the morning the shows begin again.
Caesar divides the government with Jupiter."
1 88 A LITER A R V MA NUA L
Augustus having expressed a wish to know the author
of the hnes, Bathyllus declared they were his, and he was
rewarded by the emperor for them. The next day the
same verses were again written on a wall and above this
line : Hos ego versicnlos feci, tulit alter honor es. " I wrote
these verses, another gets the credit of them." And
below were the words Sic vos non vobis, repeated four
times as the beginning of each line of a quatrain.
Augustus asked Bathyllus to complete them, but he
could not, and then Virgil came forward, avowing himself
as the author of the first couplet, and completing the
lines as follows :
Sic vos non vobis, nidificatis, aves.
Sic vos non vobis vellera fertis, oves,
Sic vos non vobis, mellificatis, apes.
Sic vos non vobis, fertis aratra, boves.
" Thus birds you build nests, not for yourselves ; thus
sheep you produce wool, not for yourselves ; thus bees you
make honey, not for yourselves ; thus oxen you draw the
plough, not for yourselves."
Thus we arrive at this strange result, — that immortality is
a priori the most necessary of dogmas, and a posteriori the
most feeble. Like ants and bees we labor at general works of
which we do not see the object. Bees would stop workmg if
they read articles where they were told that their honey
would be taken away from them and that they would be
killed as a reward of their labor. Man continues to labor
on in spite ot the sic vos non vobis. We do not see what is
above us, or what is below us ; " we form a chain," a superior
man said to me. The divine will is obscure. We are one of
the millions of fellahs who work on the pyramids. The result
is the pyramid. The work is anonymous, but it lasts ; each of
the workmen lives in it.
Ren AN, in the Revue des deux Mondes, 1889.
OF FOREIGN Q Ul ? T.\ T/O.VS. 1 89
Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait I'inventer. (voltaire )
// God did not exist, it loould be luxcssary to invent him.
The line occurs in Voltaire's " Epitre k I'Auteur dcs trois
Impostcurs." Voltaire was not an atheist, but such a
thoroughgoing deist that he built a church at Ferney
and inscribed upon it, Deo erexit Voltaire. And he ridi-
culed the supposed atheism of Spinoza in the following
famous verses :
Alors un petit Juif, au long nez, an teint bleme,
Pauvre, mais satisfait, pensif et retire,
Esprit subtil et creux, moins lu que celebre,
Cache sous le manteau de Descartes son mattre,
Marchant a pas comptes, s'approcha du grand Etre :
Pardonnez moi, dit-il, en lui parlant tout bas,
Mais, je crois, entre nous, que vous n'existez pas.
Yet in spite of all this, here comes Mr. Hall Caine writing
as follows in the Contemporary Review for April, 1890 : " The
physical eye sees, must see, and always has seen an enormous
preponderance of evil in the world. It is only the eye of
imagination, the eye of faith, that sees the balance of good
and evil struck somewhere in some way. And if the physical
eye in its pride goes abroad to believe only what it can see, it
comes home, either blurred with tears, as Carlyle's was when
he asked himself what God would be doing in the world he had
made for man, or shining with ridicule as Voltaire's was when
he protested that there was no God in the rascally world at all."
The gloomy and inexorable God of the Puritans has dis-
appeared. He has been succeeded by a Supreme Being of
infinite mercy, tenderness, and goodness ; a ruler, a law-
maker, a legislator subject to limitations and restraints im-
posed by his own i)erfections. There was a profound truth
in the declaration of Voltaire that if there were no God it
would be necessary for man to invent one. This was flip-
pant and irreverent, perhaps, but true. God is indispensable.
Senator Ingalls, in the New York World, April 13 1890.
I90 A LITERARY MANUAL
Si fractus illabatur orbis,
Impavidum ferient ruinae. (horace, odes, in., 3, 7.)
If the broken zuorld should fall to pieces, the ruins tvould
strike him undismayed. Horace is describing the man
just and firm of purpose, who is not to be shaken by the
ardor of the citizens commanding evil to be done, nor by
the countenance of the tyrant standing over him.
Marius was in many respects a perfect model of Roman
grandeur, massy, columnar, imperturbable, and more perhaps
than any one man recorded in history, capable of justifying the
bold illustration of that character recorded in Horace, Si
fractus illabatur orbis, impavidmn ferient ruitice.
De Quincey.
But Stoicism could under no circumstances be a regener-
ating power in the world. It was a position only tenable to
the educated ; it was without hope and without enthusiasm.
From a contempt of the objects which mankind most desired,
the step was short and inevitable to a contempt of mankind
themselves. Wrapped in mournful self-dependence, the Stoic
could face calmly for himself whatever lot the fates might
send :
Si fractus orbis, illabatur orbis
Impavidum ferient ruinee.
Froude : Address on " Calvinism."
There is moreover a strong and incomprehensible prejudice
against pretermitting the ritual of the Church of England for
any consideration whatever. Si fractus illabatur orbis, the
average incumbent would go on with his function, unless
nervousness overpowered him, in which event he would secure
at any cost the services of a locztm tenens. This is no exagger-
ation, since it remains an historical fact that when Canterbury
Cathedral was on fire, and the roof all ablaze, they proceeded
with the usual choral service as if nothing was the matter.
C. L. Reade.
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 1 9 1
Similia similibus curantur.
Like is cured by like. This is a maxim of the homoeo-
pathic physicians, while that of the allopathic is, contraria
contrariis curantur. It has been remarked that the differ-
ence between the two schools is, that the latter kills you,
while the former lets you die.
But when the physiognomy of society has contracted any
particular grimace which it thinks becoming, it is not to be
preached or lectured out of countenance. Similia similibus
curantur ; and although both Pelhamism and Byronism were
affectations, the first was a wholesome antidote to the last.
Lord Lytton.
Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus, (terexce, eun.,
ACT IV., SC. 6.)
Without Ceres and Bacchus Vemis freezes — i.e., when a
man is without food and drink he does not love. Cf.
Cicero, De Natura Deorum, lib. 2, c. 23, and Rabelais, Pan-
tagruel, livre troisiesme, chap. 31.
The reader needs neither smile at this avowal nor frown ;
for, not to remind my classical reader of the old Latin proverb.
Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus, it may well be supposed that
in the existing state of ray purse, etc.
De Quincey.
Sine qua non.
Without which not — i.e., an indispensable condition.
I made a prodigious effort to recover my health, sensible
that all other efforts depended for their result upon this ele-
mentary effort which was the conditio sine qua non for the rest.
De Quixcey.
Lord Mayors and all sorts of people get baronetcies, and a
rich husband, albeit desirable, was by no means a sine qua non
192 A LITERARY MANUAL
for the only daughter of a man who had been saving money
all his life, and who was now notoriously well-to-do.
W. E. NORRIS.
Si Pergama dextra
Defend! possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent. (virgil,
^NEID, 11., 291.)
If Troy could be saved by this right hand, even by the
same it would have been saved — words addressed by Hec-
tor when he appeared in a dream to vEneas and urged him
to flee.
Tf the King of Prussia can get at Monsieur de Soubize's and
the Imperial army before other troops have joined them, I
think he will beat them ; but what then ? He has three hun-
dred thousand men to encounter afterwards. He must sub-
mit ; but he may say with truth, Si Pergama dextra defendi
potuisse7it.
Chesterfield.
It is not a little remarkable that although the right in ques-
tion has all along been claimed by the judiciary, no judge has
ventured to discuss it except C. J. Marshall, and if the arug-
ment of a jurist so distinguished for the strength of his ratio-
cinative powers be found inconclusive, it may fairly be set
down to the weakness of the position which he attempts to de-
fend. Si Pergama dextra defendipotiiit, etiam hac defensa fuisset.
Chief Justice Gibson, in Eakin v. Raub, 12 S. & R., 346,
Si vis me flere, dolendum est
Primum ipsi tibi. (horace, ars poetica, 102.)
If you wisJi vie to zveep, you must first weep yourself.
The si vis me flere is not only applicable to tears, but also to
the impassioned sentiment of love, which, when depicted, so
easily looks foolish or chimerical. To describe it well one
must have experienced it.
De Pontmartin.
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TIONS. 193
Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant, (tacitus, agric,
30.)
They make a solitude, and call it peace. Not unlike this
was the phrase used by Sebastian!, Louis Philippe's Minis-
ter of Foreign Affairs (in Sept., 1831), when interpellated
in the Assembly concerning the Polish insurrection, which
had just been suppressed with great severity. He de-
clared that order reigned at Warsaw — L'ordrc rcgnc h
Varsovie—\\\\c\\ in fact the order was the silence of death.
Mark where his carnage and his conquests cease,
He makes a solitude and calls it peace.
Byron : " The Bride of Abydos."
His first crude notions about the one thing needful do not
get purged and they invade the whole spiritual man in him,
and then, making a solitude, they call it heavenly peace.
Matthew Arnold.
Splendide mendax. (horace, odes, hi., ii, 35.)
Splendidly »ieiidacious.
Would you have had Flora Macdonald beckon to the offi-
cers, saying, " This way, gentlenien ! You will find the young
chevalier asleep in that cavern." Or don't you prefer her to
be splendide tnendax, and ready at all risks to save him ?
Thackeray: "Roundabout Papers." On a
Medal of George IV.
So with Macaulay — the good Whig, as he takes up the His-
tory, settles himself down in his chair and knows it is going to
be a bad time for the Tories. Macaulay's style — his much-
praised style — is ineffectual for the purpose of telling the truth
about any thing. It is splendid, but splendide mendax, and in
Macaulay's case the style was the man.
Augustine Birrell : Essay on Carlyle in '' Obiter Dicta."
One deprecates murder, but one applauds Charlotte Corday ;
13
194 A LITERARY MANUAL
and the splendid mendacity of the daughter of Danaus has, as
we know, conferred upon her a title of nobility for all time.
W. E. NoRRis : " Major and Minor," chap. 47.
Spolia opima.
Rich spoils, in classical literature, especially those taken
on the field of battle ; the spoils of honor, .
Milton, however, was not destined to gather the spolia opima
of English rhetoric ; two contemporaries of his own, and
whose literary course pretty nearly coincided with his own in
point of time, surmounted all competition and in that amphi-
theatre became the Protagonistse.
De Quincey : " Essay on Rhetoric."
Spoliatis arma supersunt.
Anns are left to the oppressed.
The king, who induced Lord North to take the irrevocable
step, rejoiced at the large majority ; according to him nothing
was better calculated to cause the Americans to submit. It
was the usual error of short-sighted politicians — to reduce a
people to despair is the certain way of throwing them into
civil war. Spoliatis arma siipersunt. It is what Chatham felt.
Spretae injuria formae, (virgil, j5:neid, i., 27.)
The affront to Jier spurned beauty. The goddess of Dis-
cord threw into the midst of an assembly of the gods a
golden apple upon which were inscribed the words : " To
the most beautiful." The apple was claimed by Juno,
Minerva, and Venus. Jupiter ordered that the dispute
should be decided by Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy,
then living as a shepherd on Mt. Ida. Minerva offered
Paris, if he would award the apple to her, intellectual great-
ness and renown, Juno promised a kingdom, and Venus the
most beautiful woman in the world. Paris gave the apple
to Venus, who afterwards enabled him to carry off Helen,
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA T/ONS. 195
the wife of Menelaus and the most famed beauty of the
age. In tliis way the Trojan war was caused. Virgil be-
gins the iEneid by describing the enduring anger of Juno,
which pursued yEneas and those Trojans who had been
spared by the Greeks and the fierce Achilles, for the judg-
ment of Paris and the insult to her neglected beauty are
deeply fixed in her soul —
manet alta niente repostum,
Judicium Paridis, spretrcque injuria formae.
He 'd no time to say more,
For already the roar
Of the waters was heard as they reach'd the church door,
While, high on the first wave that roll'd in, was seen,
Riding proudly, the form of the angry Lurline :
And a'l might observe, by her glance fierce and stormy.
She was stung by the spretiX injuria forma.
Barham : " Ingoldsby Legends." Sir Rupert the Fearless.
Stare super antiquas vias. (jeremiah, vi., 16.)
To stand i)i tJic ancient ways. In King James' Bible the
verse reads : " Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways
and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way
and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls."
The first of these (peccant humors) is the extreme affecting
of two extremities ; the one antiquity, the other novelty :
wherein it seemeth the children of time do take after the
nature and malice of the father. For as he devoureth his
children, so one of them seeketh to devour and suppress the
other ; while antiquity envieth there should be new additions,
and novelty cannot be content to add, but it must deface ;
surely the advice of the prophet is the true direction in this
matter : Stare super antiquas vias, et videte qucenain sit via recta
et bona, et ambulate in ea. Antiquity deserveth that reverence
that men should make a stand thereupon, and discover what is
the best way ; but when the discovery is well taken, then to
196 A LITERARY MANUAL
make progression. And to speak truly, Antiquitas scBczdi, ju-
ventus mufidi. These times are the ancient times when the
v/orld is ancient, and not those which we account ancient.
Bacon : '" Advancement of Learning," book i.
John Mill was not one from whose lips the advice, Stare
super antiquas vias, was often heard to proceed, and he was,
by profession, a speculator, yet in that significant book, the
"Autobiography," he describes this age of truth-hunters as one
of weak convictions, paralyzed intellects, and growing laxity of
opinions.
Augustine Birrell : " Essay on Truth-Hunting."
Stat magni nominis umbra, (lucan, l, 135.)
He stands the shadow of a great name. Lucan is referring
to Pompey, whose reputation, at the time of his contest
with Caesar, was chiefly in the past.
Byron and Shelley will be remembered long after the inad-
equacy of their actual work is clearly recognized, for their
passionate, their Titanic effort to flow in the main stream of
modern literature ; their names will be greater than their writ-
ings : Stat jnagni nominis umbra.
Matthew Arnold.
Suave mari magno. (lucretius, ii., i.)
// is pleasant {when) the or eat sea {is tempestuous, etc.)
The words are always quoted as an allusion to the senti-
ment expressed in the succeeding lines. " The second
book," says a writer in the British Quarterly Review,
" begins with the well-known lines, Suave mari magno, —
' 'T is pleasant, when the seas are rough, to stand,
And see another's danger, safe at land.'
Of course, Lucretius hastens to explain that this is not
because it is delightful, or a pleasure at all, that any one
should be in distress, but because it is sweet to see dangers
OF Fl IRFIGN Q UL ? TA Tli hVS. 1 97
from which you yourself arc free. It is sweet, too, to see
great armies arrayed on the plains, struggling in combat,
without yourself sharing in the danger. But, Lucretius
continues, nothing is more pleasant than to occupy the
calm, high places of philosophy, that are well defended by
the learning of the wise, from which you may look down
and see others wandering hither and thither, and going far
astray in their search for the way of life, the contest of in-
tellect, the rivalry of rank, the striving night and day with
exceeding toil to struggle to the height of power and be
masters of the world. O wretched minds of men ! O
blind souls ! not to see in what darkness of life and in how
great dangers is this little term of life spent, not to see
that nature demands nothing else than for the body to be
free from pain and the mind to enjoy a sense of pleasure
free from care and fear."
Our being is cemented with unhealthy qualities. Ambition,
jealousy, envy, revenge, superstition, despair, lodge in us with
such a natural possession, that we see the image of them also
in beasts, — even cruelty, that unnatural vice, for in the midst
of compassion we feel within us, I don't know what, bitter-
sweet point of malignant pleasure in seeing others suffer ; chil-
dren feel it.
Suave mari magno turbantibus requora ventis,
E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem.
Montaigne.
Why, I like to see the gathering and growling of a coming
storm, or in your own classical language, Mr. Oldbuck, simve
mari magno — and so forth — but here we reach the turn to Fair-
port. I must wish you good-night.
Scott : " The Antiquary," chap. 8.
From its orange groves the island of Cuba has seen, without
being affected by it, the tempest rage near her at St. Domingo,
New Granada, Mexico, &c. If she knows the Latin poets,
198 A LITERARY MANUAL
which indeed seems by no means necessary to her happiness,
she might in her smiling placidity, amid the universal agita-
tion, chant with joy the Suave mari magno of Lucretius.
X. Marmier.
Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re. (aquaviva (the Gen-
eral of the Jesuits) in " Industrise ad curandos animse
morbos.")
Gentle in manner, firm in reality.
A man who sets out in this world with real timidity and
diffidence has not an equal chance for it. He will be discour-
aged, put by, or trampled upon. But to succeed, a man,
especially a young one, should have inward firmness, steadi-
ness, and intrepidity, with exterior modesty and seeming diffi-
dence. He must modestly, but resolutely, assert his own
rights and privileges. Suaviter in tnodo hwt fortiter in re.
Chesterfield.
Summum jus, summa injuria, (cicero, de off., i., 10.)
Extreme justice is extreme injustice — i.e., the stern en-
forcement of a legal right may sometimes operate as a
great wrong.
All laws, being intended for the good of the subjects, are
bound not only to comply with their ordinary cases by ordi-
nary provisions, but for their accidental needs by the extraor-
dinary. And so we find it, that all laws yield in particulars,
when the law is injurious in the special cases, and this is the
ground of all chancery, because summiun jus, sutnma injuria,
and Solomon advised well, Noli esse Justus nimiufn, be not
over righteous.
Jeremy Taylor:" Ductor llubitantium," book i., chap. 2.
Sunt lacrimae rerum. (virgil, ^neid, l, 462.)
There arc tears in things. Matthew Arnold refers to
this in the following stanza :
OF FOREIGN Q L'OJ A 1 U KVS. 1 99
That liquid melancholy eye,
From whose pathetic soul-fed springs
Seem'd surging the Virgilian cry —
The sense of tears in mortal things.
Surgit amari aliquid. (lucretius, iv., 1131.)
Something bitter arises. From the midst of the foun-
tain of delights, says the poet, something bitter arises
which gives pain amid the joys themselves.
I admit that, in this flourishing state of things, there are
appearances enough to excite uneasiness and apprehension.
I admit there is a canker worm in the rose.
Medio de fonte leporum
Surgit aniari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat.
This is nothing else than a si)irit of disconnection, of distrust,
and of treachery among public men.
Burke : " On the Present State of the Nation."
By land and sea carriage a considerable quantity of books
have arrived ; and I am obliged and grateful ; but medio de
fonte lepvrum surgit amari aliquid, which being interpreted
means,
I 'm thankful for your books, dear Murray,
But \vhy not send Scott's Monaster)- ?
the only book in four living volumes I would give a baioccolo
to see — 'bating the rest of the same author, and an occasional
Edinburgh and Quarterly as brief chroniclers of the times.
Byron.
Sursum corda.
Elevate your hearts. These are the words which in the
Catholic Liturgy precede the elevation of the host, the
response to them being, Habenius ad Doniinum.
Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom ;
and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are
conscious of our situation and glow with zeal to fill our place
200 A LITER A R \ ' MA NUA L
as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to auspicate
all our public proceedings on America with the old warning of
the Church, Sursum corda ! We ought to elevate our minds to
the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence
has called us.
Burke : Speech on " Conciliation with America."
Whatever career you may embrace, adopt a lofty aim, and
give to its service an inflexible constancy. Sursum corda,
keep your heart on high, — that is the sum of philosophy.
Victor Cousin.
Surtout point de zele.
Above all tilings no zeal. This was Talleyrand's direc-
tion to his subordinates, whose zeal was not apt to be
according to knowledge.
The suspect, Avho was wholly innocent, was taken to London
and kept in custody for nearly a year before being discharged,
after which, by way of a slight redress, a letter of reprimand
for his trop de zele was sent by direction of Lord Carteret to
the militant dignitary.
H. D. Trail : " Life of Sterne," chap. 2.
Tantsene animis ccelestibus irae ? (virgil, ^neid, i., h.)
Can tJiere be S2ich resentment in Jieavenly bosoms ?
The ladies who had commodities of their own to sell and did
not want dressing-gowns saw at once the frivolity and bad
taste of this masculine preference for goods which any tailor
could furnish ; and it is possible that the emphatic notice of
various kinds which was drawn towards Miss Tulliver on this
public occasion threw a very strong and unmistakable light
on her subsequent conduct in many minds then present. Not
that anger, on account of spurned beauty, can dwell in the
celestial breasts of charitable ladies, but rather that the errors
of persons who have once been much admired necessarily
take a deeper tinge from the mere force of contrast.
George Eliot : " The Mill on the Floss," book vi., chap. 9.
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TfONS. 20 1
Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum. (lucrf.tius,
DE NAT. RERUM, I., I02.)
So iiiaiiy evils has religion been able to instigate.
Lucretius, the i)oet, when he beheld the act of Agamemnon,
that he could endure the sacrificing of his own daughter,
exclaimed :
Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.
What would he have said if he had known of the massacre
in France, or the powder treason of England ? He would
have been seven times more epicure and atheist than he was :
for, as the temporal sword is to be drawn with great circum-
spection in cases of religion, so it is a thing monstrous to put
it into the hands of the common people ; let that be left unto
the anabaptists and other furies.
Bacon : " Essay of Unity in Religion."
Intolerance is the shadow which dogs the footsteps of faith,
and in many cases more than obscures its benefits. When we
consider the mass of human misery which has been occasioned
by religious wars and persecutions ; the ruthless extirpation
of the Albigenses ; the slaughter of the saints
whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold ;
the Thirty Years' War, which desolated Germany and threw
civilization back for a century ; the civil wars of France ; the
Spanish Inquisition ; and a thousand other instances of the
baleful effects of religious hatreds, we can almost sympathize
with those who pronounce religion an invention of priests for
the promotion of evil, and exclaim with the Roman poet :
Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.
S. Laing : " Modern Science and Modern Thought," chap. 9.
Tel est notre bon plaisir.
Siieh is our good pleasure. This was the customary
phrase which preceded the signature of the kings of
202 A LITERARY MANUAL
France to ordinances. In England the Royal assent to
Acts of Parliament was signified by a: Le Roy le vcnit,
" The King wills it."
O German fatherland ! dear German people ! I am thy
Conrad von der Rosen. The man whose proper business was
to amuse thee, and who in good times should have catered
only for thy mirth, makes his way into thy prison in time
of need ; here, under my cloak, I bring thee thy sceptre and
crown ; dost thou not recognize me, my Kaiser ? If I cannot
free thee, I will at least comfort thee, and thou shalt at least
have one with thee who will prattle with thee about thy sorest
affliction, and whisper courage to thee, and love thee, and
whose best joke and best blood shall be at thy service. For
thou, my people, art the true Kaiser, the true lord of the
land ; thy will is sovereign, and more legitimate far than that
purple Tel est fwtre plaisir, which invokes a divine right with
no better warrant than the anointings of shaven and shorn
jugglers ; thy will, my people, is the sole rightful source of
power.
Heine : Trans, by Matthew Arnold in " Essay on Heine."
Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis.
Times change and zue change with them. The saying is
taken, with a slight alteration, from a poem of Matthias
Borbonius, a mediaeval German writer.
But the great evil in such cases is this — that we cannot see
the extent of the changes wrought or being wrought from hav-
ing ourselves partaken in them. Tempora mutantur ; and
naturally if we could review them with the neutral eye of
a stranger, it would be impossible for us not to see the extent
of those changes. But our eye is not neutral ; we also have
partaken in the changes ; ct nos nmtamur in illis. And this
fact disturbs the power of appreciating those changes.
De Quincev.
It reads like a fable that the Prussian Chambers should be
taunted with a want of i>atriotism. Tempora mutantur ct nos
OF FOREIGX QUOTA TIONS. 203
mutaviur in Hits. Prussian patriotism has of late years become
somewhat oppressive, and we are apt at times to forget that it
has not always deserved this reproach.
Frazer's Magazine.
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. (virgil, /eneid, ii., 49.)
I fear the Greeks even icheii they bring presents.
Tell Mrs. Boswell that I shall taste her marmalade cau-
tiously at first. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. Beware, says
the Italian proverb, of a reconciled enemy. But when I find
it does me no harm I shall then receive it and be thankful for
it as a pledge of firm and 1 hope of unalterable kindness.
Dr. Johnsox.
Totus, teres, atque rotundus. (horace, sat., ii., 7, 86.)
Complete, smootJi, and well rounded.
The same defect is displayed in the treatment of Bums as a
man, which is broken, apologetical, and confused. The man
here presented to us is not that Burns, teres atque rotundus —
a burly figure in literature, as, from our present vantage of
time, we have begun to see him.
R. L. Stevexsox : " Familiar Studies of Men and Books," 60.
Education is well finished for all worldly purposes when the
head is brought into the state whereinto I am accustomed to
bring a marrow bone, when it has been set before me on a
toast, with a white napkin wrapped around it Nothing trun-
dles along the high road of preferment so trimly as a well-
biassed sconce, picked clean within and polished without ;
totus, teres, atque rotundus. The perfection of the finishing lies
in the bias, which keeps it trundling in the given direction.
Thomas Love Peacock : "Crochet Castle," chap. 9.
Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner.
To understand every thing is to forgive every thing.
The circumstances attending the death of Ferdinand La-
salle, notwithstanding all that has been written about that fatal
204 A LITERARY MANUAL
duel and the causes that led up to it, have never been fully-
understood. When it was announced that " the woman in the
case," who is now the Countess Helena von Racowitza, was
about to publish her memoirs, we hoped to have the key
of the enigma. Her book, however, is a disappointment. It
does not relieve her from the imputation that it was her vacil-
lation which precipitated, if it did not actually cause, the
catastrophe. She begins by invoking the maxim, Tout com-
prendre c'est tout pardonner, but since she does not tell us
every thing we must decline to grant the pardon, which is con-
ditional upon making a clean breast of it.
Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes
possibles.
Every tiling is for the best in the best of possible worlds.
This was the thesis of Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire's '^ Can-
dide," which is a satire on the optimism of Leibnitz. Al-
though Pangloss was nearly killed by the Bulgarians, was
afterwards shipwrecked, and rescued only to arrive in
Lisbon in time for the great earthquake, and then ta fall
into the hands of the Inquisition, he steadily maintained
this philosophical principle.
If Voltaire was willing to give up three hundred years of his
eternal fame for a good digestion of food, I offer double for
the food itself. Ah ! what fine, magnificent food there is in
this world. The philosopher Pangloss is right — it is the best
world. But one must have money in this best world — money
in his pocket and not manuscripts in his desk. The landlord
of the '' King of England," Herr Marr, is an author himself,
and also knows the Horatian rule, but I do not believe he
would feed me for nine years if I wanted to practise it.
Heine : " Reisebilder," i.
You see — you see ! And now you have embraced Jacob
just as poor Esau did, and you are content to be an outcast,
and all is for the best in the best of possible worlds.
W. E. NORRIS.
OF FORE ray q ul ) ta tions. 205
Tout est perdu, fors I'honneur.
All is lost save honor. It was with these words that
Francis I. is commonly said to liavo announced to his
mother his disaster at Pavia. The phrase can only be
made out from the original letter by putting together two
separated passages.
A single glance, says Guy de Maupassant, in " Sur I'Eau,"
at the past of our country will make us understand that the
fame of our great men has never been made except by happy
phrases. The most detestable princes have become popular
on account of agreeable pleasantries, retained and repeated
from century to century. . . . Clovis, the Christian king,
exclaimed when he heard the Passion read : " If I had only
been there with my Francs." This prince, in order to reign
alone, massacred his allies and his relatives, committed all
imaginable crimes. But still he is regarded as a civilising and
pious monarch. " If I had only been there with my Francs ! "
. . . What do we know of Louis VI. ? Nothing. Pardon. At the
battle of Brenneville, when an Englishman laid hand on him,
crying out, "The king is taken!" this prince, thoroughly
French, replied, " Don't you know that you never take the
king even in playing chess ? "
Louis IX., although a saint, did not leave us a single saying
to remember. Accordingly his reign seems to us horribly dull,
full of prayers and penitence. Philip VI., that fool, beaten
and wounded at Cressy, went to knock at the door of the
Chateau del'Arboie, crying, Ouvrez, c'est la fortune de la France.
We are still grateful to him for this melodramatic phrase. . . .
Francis I., silly though he was, addicted to courtesans and an
unfortunate general, has saved his memory and surrounded his
name with an imperishable halo by writing to his mother those
few superb words after the defeat at Pavia : Tout est perdu,
madame, fors Ihonrieur. Does not this saying to-day seem to
us as fine as a victory ? Has it not illustrated the prince more
than the conquest of a kingdom ? We have forgotten the
2o6 A LITER A R 3 ' MA NUA L
names of most of the great battles fought at that distant epoch;
shall we ever forget, Tout est perdu fors V hotmeur 1
Tout finit par des chansons, (beaumarchais, mariage
DE FIGARO, END.)
Every thing ends with songs. This is taken not only to
mean that a subject of mirth is found in the most serious
matters, but also as having the significance of the saying
under the old regime : La France est une monarchic absolue,
temper^e par des chansons. " France is an absolute mon-
archy tempered by songs." (In some versions the word
" epigrams " takes the place of " songs.") And so it was
said a propos of the murder of the Emperor Paul, in 1801,
La Russie est un despot isvic temper e par V assassinat.
" Russia is a despotism tempered by assassination." Mar-
shal Soubise announced his defeat at Rosbach, in 1757,
by writing to Louis XV. : " The rout of your army is com-
plete ; I cannot say how many of your officers have been
killed, captured, or lost." Duruy says, commenting on
this (" Histoire de France," ii., 452) : " The judge most to
be feared then was not the king, it was the public, upon
whom everything began to depend, and who punished the
incapacity of generals and the mistakes of ministers with
biting satires." One of the songs which obtained cur-
rency after Rosbach, began :
Soubise dit, la lanterne a la main :
J'ai beau chercher ou diable est mon armee ;
Elle etait la pourtant hier matin.
Me I'a-t-on prise, ou I'aurais-je egaree ?
Tout vient a qui sait attendre.
Every thing comes to him ivJio kno7us hozv to zvait.
" Everything comes to him who knows how to wait." Per-
haps ? But, if the philosopher had made the slight addition,
"generally too late to enjoy it," the sentiment would have
OF FORE/G.V QUOTA T/OA'S. 207
gained in matter-of-fact wisdom what it lost in simple, stead-
fast faith. As it stands, it is a golden adage to dangle before
the straining eyes of aspiring youth, and should carry convic-
tion from the lips of hoary age, were it not for an inborn in-
stinct in the young which rejects the doctrine as fair-sounding
but false.
London World.
Traduttore, traditore.
Translators (arc) traitors.
The " traitor translator " has been a fruitful source of wrath
on the part of the betrayed author and of amusement on the
part of the general public. Some of his blunders are really
bewildering. One can understand how Gibber's comedy of
"Love's Last Shift" lent itself to travesty as "La derniere
Chemise de I'Amour"; how Congreve's tragedy of "The
Mourning Bride " might become " L'Epouse de Matin " ; or
how " The Bride of Lammermoor " might be turned into " La
Bride (bridle) de Lammermoor." . . . But Miss Cooper, the
daughter of the novelist, tells a story which is wellnigh in-
credible. When in Paris she saw a French translation of
" The Spy," in which a man is represented as tying his horse
to a locust. Not understanding that the locust tree was meant,
the intelligent Frenchman translated the word as sautcrelle, and
feeling that some explanation was due, he gravely explained in
a note that grasshoppers grew to an enormous size in America,
and that one of them, dead and stuffed, was placed at the door
of the mansion for the convenience of visitors on horseback.
Lippiiicotf s Magazine.
It is, I think, impossible to reproduce in French the charm
of these descriptions, which are at once so simple and so pic-
turesque, for the conciseness and the richness of the Russian
language defy the most skilful translators. Traduttore, tradi-
tore, the Italians say with truth. More than anybody else.
Monsieur Tourgenef has had occasion to complain of those
who have attempted to make us acquainted with his works.
Merimee.
2o8 A LITERARY MANUAL
Trahit sua quemque voluptas. (virgil, ec, ii., 65.)
His ozvn especial pleasure attracts each one.
You smile, Darsie, fnore tuo, and seem to say it is little worth
while to cozen one's self with such vulgar dreams ; yours being
on the contrary of a high and heroic character bearing the
same resemblance to mine that a bench covered with purple
cloth and plentifully loaded with session papers does to some
Gothic throne rough with barbaric pearl and gold. But what
would you have ? Sua quemque trahit voluptas.
Scott : " Redgauntlet," Letter 2.
"You don't know the Latin proverbs," said the doctor to
Pulcinelle. " There is one which says this : Trahit sua quem-
que voluptas."
"That means?"
" That means : Gilles will go back to Florise, and that also
means, it would be as impossible for him not to go back as it is
for the Signor Pulcinelle and Doctor Bolvardo Grazian of Bo-
logna not to get drunk any more. Think on these things."
Louis Morin.
Tristis eris, si solus eris. (ovid, rem. am., 583.)
You zvill be sad if you are alone.
The following quotations from Ovid may be added to
those illustrated by extracts in this manual.
Facies non omnibus una,
Nee diversa tamen, qualem decet esse sororum. (Met., ii., 13.)
" They are not alike in countenance, nor yet different, as
is becoming in the case of sisters."
Si componere magnis
Parva mihi fas est. (Met., v., 416.)
" If I maybe allowed to compare small things with great."
Pia fraus. (Met., ix., 711.;
" Pious fraud."
Tempus edax rerum. (Met. xv., 234.)
" Time the devourer of things."
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TIONS. 209
Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus. (Met., i., 85.)
" He gave to man a noble countenance and commanded
him to gaze upon the heavens and to carry his looks upward
to the stars."
Dicique beatus
Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet. (Met., iii., 136.)
** No man should be called happy before he is dead
and buried."
Causa latet ; vis est notissima. (Met.,iv., 287.)
" The cause is hidden, the effect is most obvious."
Credula res amor est. (Met., vii., 826, and Ileroid., vi., 21.)
" Love is a credulous thing."
Nam genus, et proavos, et quae non fecimus ipsi,
Vix ea nostra voco. (.Met., xiii.. 137.)
" For descent and ancestors and those things which we
have not ourselves achieved, I can scarcely call our own."
Omne solum forti patria est. (Fast., i., 493.)
" Every land is a home to the brave man."
Est deus in nobis. (Fast., vi., 5.)
** There is a God within us." Lamartine wrote in his
second meditation, dedicated to Lord Byron :
Borne dans sa nature, infini dans ses vceux ;
L'homme est un dieu tombe qui se souvient des cieux.
" Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires ; man is
a fallen god who remembers the heavens."
Bene qui latuit, bene vixit. (Trist., iii., 4, 26.)
" He who has lived obscurely and quietly has lived well."
Regia, crede mihi, res est succurrere lapsis. (Ep. ex Pont., ii., 9, 11.)
" It is a princely thing, believe me, to succor the afflicted."
Acceptissima semper
Munera sunt, auctor quae preciosa facit. (Heroid., xvii., 71.)
" Gifts are always most prized when the giver is dear
to us."
Lave fit, quod bene fertur, onus. (.\mor., i., 2, 10.)
" The burden which is patiently borne becomes light."
14
2IO A LITERARY MANUAL
Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito. (virgil,
^N., vi., 95.)
Yield not to misfortunes but advance all the more boldly
against them.
In addition to the numerous Virgilian quotations
throughout this Manual, the following lines from that
poet may be mentioned as being the subjects of less
frequent citation.
Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. (Georg., ii., 490.)
" Happy he who has been able to understand the causes
of things."
Per varies casus, per tot discrimina rerum. {JEn., i., 204.)
" Through so many fortunes, so many dangerous situ-
ations."
Lumenque juventae purpureum. {Mn. i., 590.)
"The purple light of youth." Or, as Gray has para-
phrased it :
" The bloom of young desire, and purple light of love."
Quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore. (.En., ii., 274.)
" How changed from that former Hector."
Una salus victis, nullam sperare salutem. (^lin., ii., 354.)
" One safety only remains for the conquered, to hope for
no safety."
Longo sed proximus intervallo. (.En., v., 320.)
"The next but after a long interval."
Nimium ne crede colori, (Ec, ii., 16.)
" Trust not too much to beauty."
Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur. (.-En., i., 574.)
" Trojan and Tyrian shall be treated by me without
partiality."
Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum. (/En.,
v., 657.)
" A horrible, unshapen, immense monster from whom
eyesight had been taken away."
OF FOREIGN 0. UO TA TIONS. 2 1 1
Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus
Dardaniae. Fuimus Troes ; fuit Ilium. (.1 n., ii. 324.)
''The last day of Troy and the inexorable hour has come.
We have been Trojans ; Troy has been."
Vivit sub pectore vulnus. (-En., iv, 67.)
" The wound rankles in the breast."
Dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos. (.En., x., 782.)
"In dying he remembers his dear Argos."
The reference is to Anther who, when mortally wounded,
thinks of his distant home.
Ultima ratio.
T/ie final argument. The saying that cannon are the
ulti)na ratio of kings is attributed to Cardinal Richelieu.
The words, ultima ratio regum, were frequently engraved
on the cannon of the old French monarchy, and they may
be seen on the pieces of artillery presented to the colo-
nies by Louis XVI. Some of these are now in the yard
of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and two of them are
in front of the War Department Building in Washington.
Having twice sallied out and been beaten back, she now,
as I expected, tried the ultijna ratio of women, and had re-
course to tears. Her beautiful eyes filled with them ; I never
could bear in her, nor in any woman, that expression of pain.
Thackeray : " Henry Esmond," book iii., chap. 10.
This sad event almost produced a mutiny, and all except
Aboo tried to force the captain to return ; but he produced
his ultima ratio, a rope's end, which made us think that he
must be a sea captain, and Billy and Joe and the other
Papuan desisted from their murmurs.
Edinhurgh Review.
The abolition of war is as chimerical an idea as the aboli-
tion of storms. The ultima ratio of nations will be, in the
future as in the past, artillery.
212 A LITERARY MANUAL
Urbi et orbi.
71? the city and to the zvorld. These were the words
which formerly accompanied the benediction of the Pope
to all the w^orld of Catholicism, when, on certain holy-
days, he pronounced it from the balcony of St. John Lat-
eran.
Ought not every human life to be to us like a vessel that we
accompany with our prayers for a happy voyage ? It is not
enough that we do not harm one another ; we must also help
and love one another. The papal benediction, urbi et orbi,
should be the constant cry from all hearts. To condemn him
who does not deserve it, even in mind, is to break the great
law which has established the union of souls here below.
SouvESTRE : " The Attic Philosopher."
With similar imperturbable, sacerdotal earnestness — for I
can be very serious when it is necessary — I too could have
imparted my annual blessing down upon all Christendom from
the Lateran. In pontificafibus, with the triple crown upon my
head, and surrounded by a staff of Red Hats and mitres and
gold brocaded vestments, and cowls of all colors, my Holiness
could have showed himself from the high balcony to the
people, crowding together far below, on their knees and with
bowed heads, — I could have quietly stretched out my hands
and given the blessing to the City and to the World. But, as
you well know, gentle reader, I have not become Pope, nor a
Cardinal, nor even a Roman Nuncio, and, as in the temporal,
so also in the spiritual hierarchy, I have acquired neither office
nor honors. I have, as people say, accomplished nothing in
this fine world. Nothing has been made of me — nothing but
a poet.
Heine : " Gestandnisse."
Mr. Labouchere's opinion of the Times and the Times' opin-
ion of him are things not exactly interesting urbi et orbi ^ and
might surely have been dismissed with greater brevity.
Saturday Review.
. OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 2 1 3
Vae soli, (ecclesiastes, iv., 10.)
]Vof to the solitary man !
But, said Panurge, if you are of opinion that it is better for
me to stay as I am without undertaking anything new, I sliould
prefer not to marry. Then don't marry, replied Pantagruel.
P>ut, said Panurge, would you have me continue thus lonely all
my life, without conjugal companionship? You know that it
is written, vae soli ! A solitary man never enjoys such conso-
lations as we see to exist among married people. Mariez vous
done de par Dieu, replied Pantagruel.
Rabelais : " Pantagruel," liv. iii., chap. 9.
These Bohemians, bastards of civilisation, are behind the
age. Those feelinEfs which lie at the base of the social state
and of the association of mankind are unknown to them. Ab-
sorbed in the blind egoism of the brute, they exist only for
themselves and they exist badly. The ancients regarded soli-
tude as a calamity and a punishment, ew.? j-(?//y but for such
creatures it is a necessity of their nature.
Brouissais.
Vae victis. (livy, lib. v., cap. 48.)
Woe to the vanquished ! The Gauls, having invaded
Italy and besieged the Capitol, the Senate agreed to buy
them off with one thousand pounds' weight of gold. When
the tribune objected to the false weights which were pro-
duced, the leader of the Gauls, Brennus, threw his sword
into the scale, exclaiming with a voice intolerable to
Romans ( intolcranda Ronianis vox) Vce victis,
"Comines, Comines ! " said Louis, arising again, and pacing
the room in a pensive manner, "this is a dreadful lesson on
the text, vie victis ! You cannot mean that the Duke will insist
on all these hard conditions ? "
Scott : " Quentin Durward," chap. 30.
Vce victis might be the motto of Mr. Froude's history, as it
is of all the writers of the school of Mr. Carlyle. The chiv-
214 A LITER A R V MA NUA L
alrous sympathy for weakness and sorrow, which holds that
great suffering may mitigate the judgment of history on great
offences, finds no favor in their eyes. INIr. Froude's opinion of
the execution of Mary Stuart is simply that "the political
wisdom of a critical and difficult act has never in the world's
history been more signally justified."
Edinburgh Review.
Vanitas vanitatum. (ecclesiastes, i., 2.)
Vanity of vanities !
An old woman in a village in the west of England was told
one day that the king of Prussia was dead, such a report hav-
ing arrived when the great Frederick was in the noonday of his
glory. Old Mary lifted up her great slow eyes at the news,
and, fixing them in the fulness of vacancy upon her inform-
ant, replied, "Is a ! is a ! The Lord ha' mercy ! Well,
well ! The king of Prussia ! And who 's he ? " The " who 's
he ? " of this old woman might serve as a text for a notable
sermon upon ambition. Who 's he ? may now be asked of men
greater as soldiers in their day than Frederick or Wellington ;
greater as discoverers than Sir Isaac or Sir Humphrey. Who
built the pyramids ? Who ate the first oyster ? Kanitas vatii-
tatum ! Omnia vanitas.
SouTHEY : " The Doctor," chap. 2, p. i.
Nobody could speak more feelingly of those sufferings, as
no one had a closer personal acquaintance with them. But,
allowing to Johnson whatever credit is due to the man who
performs one more variation on the old theme, Vanitas vani-
tatum, we must in candor admit that the Rambler has the one
unpardonable fault : it is unreadable.
Cornhill Magazitie.
It is not Solomon who wrote : Vanitas vanitatum ; but vani-
tas vanitatum is, in fact, the resume of his reign. Nobody
more than he has contributed to the demonstration of this
great truth, that everything that docs not tend to the progress
OF FORFTIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 2 1 5
of the good and of the true is nothing but bubbles of soap and
rotten wood.
Renan : " Histoire du Peuple d'Israel."
Varium et mutabile semper femina. (virgil, ^neid, iv.,
569.)
Wouian is fickle and akvays changeable. A well-known
variation of this sentiment is contained in the following
lines written by Francis I., with a diamond ring, on one of
the windows of the chateau of Chambord.
Souvent femme varie,
Bien fol est qui s'y fie.
"Woman often changes ;
Foolish he who trusts her."
Mademoiselle de la Valli^re was a woman who could
justly resent this imputation, and at her request, Louis
XIV. ordered the pane of glass bearing the inscription to
be removed.
An Italian phrase from Verdi's opera of Rigoletto
(Libretto by F. M. Piave), is also much used to express
the same idea : Donna e mobile. " Woman is change-
able."
Dominie Sampson left her presence altogether crestfallen,
and, as he shut the door, could not help muttering the varium
et mutabile of Virgil.
Scott : " Guy Mannering," chap. 15.
Well, what news of Brian's opera ? I suppose you have
been giving Kitty a full, true, and particular account of the
whole thing. Why she didn't go up with you, I can't make
out ; but women are full of fads and caprices — even the best of
'em — though I don't say so to Mrs. Greenwood. Varium et
mutabile, you know.
W. E. NORRIS.
2i6 A LITERARY MANUAL
Vedi Napoli e poi mori.
See Naples mid then die.
These charming persons uttered, each for herself, with the
most delicious British accent, the sacramental phrase, Vedi
Napoli e poi mori, consulted their guide books or made a note
of their impressions in their diaries, without paying the least at-
tention to the glances a la Don Juan of some Parisian dandies,
who were prowling about them, while their vexed mammas
murmured something in a low tone about French impropriety.
Theophile Gautier.
Vengo di Cosmopoli.
I cojue from Cosviopolis. Cicero says (" Tusc. Quaes.,"
v., 37, io8) : " When Socrates was asked from what coun-
try he came, he replied, From the world. For he consid-
ered himself an inhabitant and citizen of the whole world."
But, according to Diogenes Laertius, the word cosmopoli-
tan comes from Diogenes the cynic, who, when asked as
to his country, called himself " kosmopolites " (see Biich-
mann, " Gefliig. W.," p. 267).
The cosmopolitanism of some people consists merely
in preferring other countries to their own. Col. Thomas
Wentworth Higginson said of Mr. Henry James that
" his cosmopolitanism is, after all, limited : to be really
cosmopolitan a man must be at home, even in his own
country."
Paul Bourget says in his essay on Stendhal (" Essais de
Psychologic Contemporaine," p. 295) : " Numerous jour-
neys in the wake of the imperial armies, followed by a
prolonged stay in Italy, caused Beyle to resemble the
Prince de Ligne, that European grand seigneur, who said,
with the most charming conceit, ' It has always been the
fashion to treat me well everywhere and I have enjoyed
the agreeable things of many lands. I have six or seven
countries : the Empire, France, Flanders, Austria, Poland,
OF FOREIGN QUO TA TIONS. 217
Russia, and almost Hungary.' Beyle was so thoroughly
possessed by this feeling of voluptuous cosmopolitanism
that he adopted as his especial motto this line of an opera
bouffe, forgotten nowadays, but which he declared to be
exquisite, I prctciidoiti dclusi : Voigo adcsso di Costiiopoli
— I come at present from Cosmopolis. He added, speak-
ing of himself and some privileged companions, ' We are
far from the exclusive patriotism of the English. In our
eyes the world is divided into two halves, which are in fact
very unequal, the fools and knaves on the one side, and on
the other the privileged beings to whom fortune has given
a noble soul and a little intellect. We feel ourselves to be
the compatriots of these latter people, whether they were
born at Villetri or at Saint Omer.' "
Veni, vidi, vici. (suetonius, cesar, 37.)
I catne, I sazc, I conquered. When William HI. of Eng-
land had been beaten by the French at Steinkirk and Neer-
winden, Racine wrote the following epigram :
Si Cesar vint, vit et vainquit,
Guillaume vint et vit de meme ;
C'est un vrai Cesar en petit :
Des trois choses que Cesar fit,
II ne manque que la troisieme.
I have seen this woman and I am still dazzled, so great was
her supernatural beauty — beauty worthy of Proserpine rather
than of Juno. I saw her one evening enter a circle of the most
prominent men of the city. Everybody accused her, some in
words, others by their silence. She arrives, and with one look
the victory is hers. No, Julius Caesar did not conquer quicker
when he said, veni, vidi, vici.
Jules Janin.
The clever dancer succeeded beyond her expectations ; her
old lover had no sooner received her mendacious note than he
218 A LITERARY MANUAL
was back again at her feet more charmed than ever. And
when Leon had gone away Irene seized a sheet of paper and
wrote these words to the Count de Lowendall : He came, he
saw me and he was conquered.
Amedee Achard.
Vera incessu patuit dea. (virgil, ^eneid, i., 405.)
The true goddess was aj>pare?it by her walk.
The vicomtesse does the honors to the royal guests with a
charming and sovereign grace. She is a very pretty woman of
a dreamy and ideal type of beauty : her large black eyes are
profound and gentle ; her delicate and proud profile has the
grace of an antique cameo, and her carriage is that described
by the poet, Incessu vera patuit dea. She has all the charm of
a youth which is unconscious of itself — her twenty-fifth year
has not yet sounded — together with the je ne sais quoi that
is floating, undecided, incomplete of creatures that are seek-
ing their way, who have not yet taken full possession of
themselves.
Paul Vasili : " La Societe de Paris," 148.
Verweile doch ! Du bist so schon. (goethe, faust.)
Staj,tho7i art so fair. The bargain between Faust and
Mephistopheles was that if Faust should ever find in life
a moment to which he would say — Stay, thou art so fair —
then might Mephistopheles bind him.
" The state of mind," says Lewes (" Life of Goethe,"
book vi., chap. 7), " which induces this compact has been
artfully prepared. Faust has been led to despair of ob-
taining the high ambition of his life ; he has seen the folly
of his struggles ; seen that knowledge is a will o' the wisp
to which he has sacrificed Happiness. He now pines for
Happiness though he disbelieves in it as he disbelieves in
knowledge. In utter scepticism he consents to sell his
soul if ever he shall realize Happiness. . .
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TK hVS. 2 1 9
' When to the moment I shall say,
Stay, thou art so lovely, stay !
Then with thy fetters bind me round,
Then perish I with cheerful glee,
Then may the knell of death resound.
Then from thy service art thou free.'
" Baffled in his attempts to penetrate the mystery of Hfe,
Faust yields himself to the Tempter, who promises that he
shall penetrate the enjoyment of life. He runs the round
of pleasure as he had run the round of science, and fails.
The orgies of Auerbach's cellar, the fancies of the Blocks-
berg, are unable to satisfy his cravings. The passion he
feels for Gretchen is vehement, but feverish, transitory;
she has no power to make him say to the passing moment,
Stay, thou art fair. He is restless because he seeks — seeks
the Absolute, which can never be found. This is the doom
of humanity,
' Es irrt der Mensch so lang' er strebt.* "
In the second part of Faust the hero says (Lewes, " Life,"
book vii., chap. 6): " ' He only deserves freedom and life
who is daily compelled to conquer them for himself; and
thus here, hemmed round by danger, bring childhood,
manhood, and old age their well-spent years to a close. I
would fain see such a busy multitude stand upon free soil
with free people. I might then say to the moment. Stay,
thou art fair. The trace of my earthly days cannot per-
ish in centuries. In the presentiment of such exalted bliss
I now enjoy the most exalted moment.' He has thus
said to the passing moment, Stay, thou art fair, and with
this he expires,
Venit summa dies et ineluctabile fatum,
the troubled career is closed."
220 A LITERARY MANUAL
Vestigia nulla retrorsum. (horace, ep., i., i, 74, 75.)
No footsteps backzi'ai'ds. The allusion is to one of ^Esop's
fables (The Lion and the Fox).
Gilbert glanced up at him with raised brows. " In what
sense ? " he inquired.
" I mean would n't it be possible for you and Kitty to come
together again ? "
" Oh, dear no ! vestigia nulla retrorsttm. I could n't if I
would, and I would n't if I could. If Miss Huntly was right
in nothing else she was right in saying that that marriage
would have turned out unhappily."
W. E. NORRIS.
Democracy is like the grave ; it takes, but it never yields.
No concessions in that direction can be retracted. Vestigia
nulla retrorsum.
Victrix causa deis placuit, sed victa Catoni. (lucan,
I., 127.)
The victorious cause zuas pleasing to the gods, but the van-
quished one to Cato, This was the verdict of the literary
men of the empire on the controversy between Caesar and
Pompey.
Q. Cicero, the consul's brother, followed, and a clear ma-
jority of the Senate went with them, till it came to the turn of
a young man who, in that year, had taken his place in the
house for the first time, who was destined to make a reputation
which could be set in competition with that of the gods them-
selves, and whose moral opinion could be held superior to that
of the gods.
Froude.
Devant le grand Dandin I'innocence est hardie ;
Oui, devant ce Caton de Basse-Normandie,
Ce soleil d'equite qui n'est jamais terni ;
Victrix causa diis placuit, sed z'icta Catoni.
Raci.nk : " Les riaideurs."
OF FOREIGN QTOTA T/OXS. 221
It is touching to find that these lectures, a splendid tribute
of devotion to the Celtic cause, had no hearer more attentive,
more sympathising, than a man, himself, too, the champion of
a cause more interesting than prosperous — one of those causes
which please noble spirits but do not please destiny, which
have Cato's adherence but not Heaven's — Dr. Newman.
Matthew Arnoi.d.
Video meliora, proboque ; deteriora sequor. (ovid,
MET., VII., 20.)
I see the good and approve it ; I pursue tJte evil.
You have expressed yourself extremely well, cries Booth,
and I entirely agree with the justice of your sentiments ; but
however true all this may be in theory, I still doubt its efficacy
in practice. And the cause of the difference between the two
is this : that we reason from our heads but act from our hearts :
Video meliora proboque,
Deteriora sequor.
Nothing can differ more widely than wise men and fools in
their estimation of things ; but, as both act from their upper-
most passion, they both often act alike.
Fielding : "Amelia," book viii., chap. 10.
In this point of view I would not exchange the prayer of the
deceased in my behalf for the united glory of Homer, Csesar,
and Napoleon, could such be accumulated upon a living head.
Do me at least the justice to suppose that, video meliora pro-
boque^ however the deteriora sequor may have been applied to
my conduct.
Byron.
Vires acquirit eundo. (virgil, veneid, iv., 175.)
// acquires strength in going.
Whoever reads the '* Questions de mon Temps," will remark
that M. de Girardin is not a spoiled child of nature ; it is not
an innate gift, but work which has made him what he is. His
222 A LITERARY MANUAL
first pages show traces of groping and hesitation, which disap-
pear more and more as one progresses in the perusal of his
book. His style, feeble at first, acquires vigor as it progresses.
Vires acquirit eimdo.
Edmond Texier.
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus. (Catullus,
v., I.)
Let us live, my Lesbia^ and let lis love one another. As
to the poet's relations with Lesbia, see the remarks ante
p. 139, under the quotation, Odi et anio. The poem, of
which the quotation above is the first line, is as follows :
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
Rumoresque senum severiorum
Omnes unius ?estimemus assis.
Soles occidere et reclire possunt :
Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.
Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
Dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
Conturbabimus ilia, ne sciamus,
Aut nequis malus invidere possit.
Cum tantum sciet esse basiorum.
" Let us live, my Lesbia, and love one another, and care
not a single farthing for all the comments of severe old men.
Suns may set and rise again ; but for us, when this brief light
once sets, there is one perpetual night for sleeping. Give me
a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand,
then a second hundred, then even another thousand, then a
hundred, then, when we shall have had many thousands, we
will confuse them together, so that we cannot know, or so
that no evil person may envy us, when he knows that there
were so many kisses."
Ben Jonson has admirably paraphrased the greater
part of this poem in a song in his play of " Volpone " (act
iii., seene 5.)
OF FOREIGN Q L Y7 TA TIONS. 2 2 3
Come, my Celia, let us prove,
While we can, the sports of love,
Time will not be ours forever,
He, at length, our good will sever ;
Spend not then his gifts in vain ;
Suns that set may rise again ;
But if once we lose this light,
'T is with us perpetual night.
Why should we defer our joys ?
Fame and rumor are but toys.
Cannot we delude the eyes
Of a few poor household spies,
Or his easier ears beguile,
Thus removed by our wile ?
'T is no sin love's fruits to steal ;
But the sweet thefts to reveal ;
To be taken, to be seen.
These have crimes accounted been,
Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona. (horace, odes, iv.,
9p 25.)
Brave vieii lived before Agamemnon, but, adds the poet,
they are all consigned to unwept oblivion because they
were without a sacred bard to celebrate their achieve-
ments. See ante, Carent quia vate sacro.
Why is yonder simpering Venus de Medicis to be our stand-
ard of beauty, or the Greek tragedies to bound our notions of
the sublime ? There was no reason why Agamemnon should
set the fashions, and remain avat, avdpcov to eternity : and
there is a classical quotation, which you may have occasionally
heard, beginning Vixere fortes, etc., which, as it avers that
there were a great number of stout fellows before Agamemnon,
may not unreasonably induce us to conclude that similar heroes
were to succeed him.
Thackeray : "The Paris Sketch-Book."
Brave men were living before Agamemnon,
And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
A good deal like him, too, though quite the same none,
But then they shone not on the poet's page,
224 A LITERARY MANUAL
And so have been forgotten : — I condemn none,
But can't find any in the present age
Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one) ;
So, as I said, I '11 take my friend Don Juan.
Byron : " Don Juan," i., 5.
Vogue la galere.
Go ahead, come zvJiat viay.
When the principal conspirators had retired into a separate
apartment, they gazed on each other for a minute with a sort
of embarrassment, which, in Sir Frederick's dark features,
amounted to an expressior^ of discontented sullenness. Mare-
schal was the first to break the pause, saying, with aloud burst
of laughter, — well ! we are fairly embarked now, gentlemen —
vogue la gaVere.
Scott : " The Black Dwarf," chap. 13.
I am in the stream now, and, by Jove, I like it. How rap-
idly we go down it, hey ? — strong and feeble, old and young —
the metal pitchers and the earthen pitchers — the pretty little
china boat swims gayly till the big, bruised, brazen one bumps
him and sends him down — eh, vogue la galere ! — you see a
man sink in the race, and say good-by to him — look, he has
only dived under the other fellow's legs, and comes up shak-
ing his poll, and striking out ever so far ahead. Eh, vogue la
galere, I say. It 's good sport, Warrington — not winning
merely, but playing.
Thackeray : " Pendennis," vol, ii., chap. 6.
Volto schiolto e pensieri stretti.
A n open countenance and close thoughts.
The best rule I can give you to manage familiarity is never
to be more familiar with anybody than you would be willing
and even glad that he should be with you ; on the other hand
avoid that uncomfortable reserve and coldness, which is gen-
erally the shield of cunning or the protection of dullness. The
Italian maxim is a wise one, Volto schiolto e pensieri stretti ; that
is let your countenance be open and your thoughts be close.
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 225
To your inferiors, you should use a hearty benevolence in
your words and actions, instead of a refined politeness, which
would be apt to make them suspect that you rather laughed at
them. For example you must show civility to a mere country
gentleman in a very different manner from what you do to a
man of the world.
Chesterfikld : " Letters to his Godson," p. 192.
Vous I'avez voulu ; vous I'avez voulu, George Dandin.
(moliere, dandin, I., 9.)
You wanted it, yon wanted it, George Dandin. This is
generally quoted as, Tn Fas voiiht, George Dandin. In
Moli^re's comedy, Dandin, a rich peasant, marries a noble's
daughter, and suffers many things in consequence. After
an especially humiliating scene Avith his aristocratic con-
nections, he makes the above exclamation to himself,
which is quoted as a kind of jesting niea culpa.
Among other allusions to French literature to be met
with in English books are the following :
Vous etes orfevre. Monsieur Josse. (Moliere, L'Amour
M^decin, i., i.) "You are a goldsmith, Monsieur Josse."
M. Josse had advised Sganerelle to cure his daughter's
melancholy by a present of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds,
when Sganerelle makes the above answer, which is quoted
as an ironical rebuke of interested advice.
Toils les genres sont bons, Jiors le genre ennuyeux. " All
kinds are good except the tiresome kind." The sentence
is from Voltaire's preface to the " Enfant Prodigue." In
his sixth Discours Voltaire tells us how to be bores : Le
secret d'ennuyer est eelui de tout dire. " The secret of be-
ing tiresome is to tell every thing."
Et Von revient toujour s
A ses premiers amours. (St. Just.)
" One always comes back to his first loves."
15
226 A LITERARY MANUAL
Mais ok sont Ics neigcs d' antan ? " But where are the
snows of yester year?" This is the refrain of Villon's
■" Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis."
Meine quand roiseau inarcJie on sent qiiil a des ailes.
(Lemierre.) " Even when a bird is walking we feel that it
has wings," i.e., a man of great talent shows his power
even in little things. When the author of the line was
received in the French Academy the orator who replied
to his discourse quoted this verse a propos of the poet's
being then obliged to use prose.
Oh la vertu va-t-clle se nicJier ? " Where does virtue go
to lodge itself? " This was Moliere's exclamation when a
beggar to whom he had given something in the street ran
after him to return a gold piece which had been thrown
him by mistake.
All demeiirant, le ineilleur jils du inonde. " After all,
the best fellow in the world." This is the amusing verse
with which Clement Marot, in his epistle to Francis I.,
asking for money, ends the description of the qualities of
a valet who had robbed him : " I once had a valet from
Gascony, a glutton, drunkard, and shameless liar, a cheat,
rogue, swearer, blasphemer, whom you could smell a hun-
dred steps off as a gallow's bird. An devieurant, le ineil-
leur Jils du inonde.''
Et rose, elle a vccu ce que vivent les roses,
Vespace d'un matin.
"And a rose herself she has lived the life of the
roses — the space of a morning." These lines are from
Malherbe's ode condoling with a father upon the death
of his young daughter. An improbable story goes to the
effect that the poet originally wrote Et Rosette a vtfcu, etc.,
which the printers by a grand typographical error turned
into, Et rose elle a vccu.
Glissez, inortels, nappuyez pas. " Glide gently, mortals,
OF FORIiKiX Cjf'OTA T/cWS. 227
press not hard." This is the hist line of a quatrain writ-
ten by the poet Roy to accompany a picture of a winter
scene with skaters. It is quoted as advice not to search
too curiously into delicate matters, and as a general doc-
trine of moderation.
Li' trident de Neptune est le seeptre dn inonde. (Le-
mierre.) " The trident of Neptune is the sceptre of the
world," i.e., command of the sea gives a nation the
empire of the world."
Aide toi, le eiel t\iidera. (La Fontaine, Charretier
embourbe.) " Help yourself and heaven will help you."
The English saying is : " God helps those who help them-
selves."
Cet dge est satis pitiL (La Fontaine, Les Deux Pi-
geons.) '* That age knows no pity." The reference is to
infancy.
La eritique est aisi'e et Vart est difficile. (Destouches,
Le Gloricux, ii., 5.) "Criticism is easy and art is dififi-
cult."
Chat echaude' eraint I'ean froide. "A scalded cat dreads
even cold water." There is a Spanish proverb to the
same effect.
// est avec le ciel des acconiniodevicnts. " There are com-
promises with heaven." This is based on Moliere's Tar-
tuff e, iv., 5.
Le ciel defend de vrai, certains contentements ;
Mais on trouve avec lui des accommodements.
Heaven forbids, it is true, certain enjoyments ;
But one finds how to make with it certain arrangements.
Le crime fait la honte et non pas Ve'chafaud. (Th. Cor-
neille, Essex, iv., 3.) " The crime makes the shame and
not the scaffold." Charlotte Corday quoted this line in a
letter written on the eve of her execution.
228 A LITERARY MANUAL
Nul nest content de sa fortune
Ni ine'content de son esprit. (Deshouilleres.)
" No one Is satisfied with his fortune or dissatisfied
with his intellect."
Cet animal est trcs vic'cJiant ;
Quand on I ' at t ague il se defend.
" This animal is very malicious ; when attacked it
defends itself." The verses are from a burlesque song
called La Menagerie, where in describing the animals in
an exhibition this account is given of the leopard. They
are applied jestingly to one who avails himself of his
entire right to resist an unjust attack.
La Rochefoucauld has been an inexhaustible mine for
the supply of quotations and of ideas to subsequent
moralists. Since his conciseness consists in his thought,
rather than in his language, his maxims generally re-appear
in an English dress. The following are some of the best
known of his sayings :
JVous avons tons asscz de force ponr supporter Ics inanx
d'autrni. (No. 19.) "We all have sufficient strength to
endure the misfortunes of others." So Dean Swift said :
" I never knew a man who could not bear the misfortunes
of others with the most Christian resignation." ("Thoughts
on Various Subjects.") In connection with this should be
read another maxim (No. 15 of the first Supplement),
Dans Vadversitd de nos meillcurs amis nous trouvoiis
quelqtie cJiose qui ne nous dcplait pas. " Li the adversities
of our best friends there is something not displeasing."
// y a dcs gens qui n'auraioit Jamais I'td amour eux, sils
navaient Jamais entcndu parlcr de V amour. (No. 136.)
" There are people who would never have been in love
if they had never heard others talk of love." And Cham-
fort says : V amour, tel qu'il existe dans la socii'td, nest que
Vdchange de deux f ant aisies ci le contact de deux spider mes.
or FORRrcx o i 'o ta tioxs. 229
Quclqiic i^ilatauti' que soil line ae/ion, elle ue lioit pas passer
pour grande, lorsquelle n est pas I'effet d'un grand dessein.
(No. 160.) " However resplendent an action may be, it
should not be accounted great unless it is the result of a
great design."
Le monde r^coinpense plus souvent Ics apparences du inirite
que le merit e mhne. (Xo. i66.) " The world rewards the
appearance of merit oftener than merit itself." And
Lessing says : " Some people obtain fame, and others
deserve it."
Lesp^rance, ioute trompeuse quelle est, sert au vioins h
nous metier a la fin de la vie par unchemin agr^able. (No.
168.) " Hope, deceitful as it is, serves at least to lead us
to the end of life along an agreeaBle road."
Quatid les vices nous quittent, nous nous flattons de la
cr^ance que c'est nous qui les quittons. (No. 192.) " When
our vices leave us, we flatter ourselves with the idea that
it is we who abandon them."
L hypocrisie est tin Jiommage que le vice rend a la vertu.
(No. 218.) " Hypocrisy is an homage that vice pays to
virtue." A gentleman who was leaving his club at a late
hour one night with a cold fowl under his arm destined
for his wife, was accosted by a friend with the remark :
" That 's the pacificator, I suppose? " " Xo," he replied,
" this is the homage that vice pays to virtue."
La gravite' est un viystere du corps, invent c pour cacJier les
defiant s de V esprit. (Xo. 257.") " Solemnity is a myster>^
of the body, invented to conceal defects of mind."
Laboulaye says : " Montaigne, who knew men so well, has
somewhere remarked that there is nothing so disdainful,
so contemplative, so grave, and serious as the ass."
L absence diminue les m^diocres passions et augmente les
grandes, comme le vent e'teint les bougies et alluuie le fieu.
(No. 2y6.) "Absence diminishes little passions and in-
230 A LITERARY MANUAL
creases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and
fans a fire."
Ce qui fait que les amants et les maitresses ne s'ennuicnt
point d'etre ensemble, cest qitils par lent toiijonrs d'eux-
memes. (No. 312.) "The reason why lovers and their
mistresses never tire of being together is that they are
always talking of themselves."
La fortune r.e parait jamais si aveiigle qu a ceiix a qui
elle ne fait pas de bien. (No. 391.) "Fortune never
seems so blind as to those upon whom she confers no
favors."
Ce qui nous rend la vanity des auires instipportable cest
quelle blesse la notre. (No. 389.) " What makes the
vanity of other people insupportable to us is that it
wounds our own."
On pent itre plus fin qiiun autre, inais non pas plus fin
que tous les aiitres. (No. 394.) " We can be cleverer than
another, but not cleverer than everybody else."
II y a du in^rite sans Elevation mais iliiy a point d'd^va-
tion sans quelque in&ite. (No. 401.) "There is merit
without elevation, but there is no elevation without some
merit."
La vieillesse est un tyran qui defend, sur peine de la vie,
tous les plaisirs de la jeunesse. (No. 461.) " Old age is a
tyrant who forbids, upon pain of death, all the pleasures
of youth." " Old men," says La Rochefoucauld in
another maxim, " like to impart good precepts to console
themselves for no longer being in a condition to set bad
examples."
On croit qiielquefois hair la fiattcrie ; inais on ne hait
que la maniere de flatter. (No. 329.) " We sometimes
think that we hate flattery, but we only hate the manner
in which it is done."
Le 7tez de Cleopatre, s'il cut etc plus court, toutc la face
( )F FOREIGN Q UO TA TIOXS. 2 3 1
de id terrc auroit change^. (Pascal, Pens^cs, Art. 19.) "If
Cleopatra's nose had been shorter the whole face of the
earth would have been different." Pascal is speaking of
the vanity of man as seen by considering the causes and
effects of love. The cause is a Jc ne sais quoi and the
effects are dreadful. ThisyV ne sais qiioi, such a little thing
that it cannot be recognized, moves the earth, princes, and
armies.
Vox clamantis in deserto. (gospel of st. john, i., 23.)
TJie voice of one crying in the zvilderyicss.
It is your life, Monsieur, and not mine which is useful to the
world. I am only vox clamantis in deserto.
Voltaire.
Vox et praeterea nihil, (plutarch, opera moralia.)
A voice and nothing more. Plutarch tells the story of
a Laconian who plucked the feathers from a nightingale,
and observing its small body exclaimed, Thou art all voice
and nothing else.
He has the knack of finding very exaggerated phrases by
which to express commonplace thoughts. He writes verses
about love in words so stormy that you might fancy that Jove
was descending upon Semele. But when you examine his
words as a sober pathologist like myself is disposed to do, your
fear for the peace of households vanishes — they are Vox et
prceterea nihil — no man really in love would use them.
BuLWER : " The Parisians."
Vox faucibus haesit. (virgil, .en., ii., 774.)
The voice stuck in the throat.
I remember that when, with all the awkwardness and rust of
Cambridge about me, I was first introduced into good com-
pany, I was frightened out of my wits. I was determined to
be, what I thought, civil ; I made fine low bows, and placed
232 A LITERARY MANUAL
myself below everybody ; but when I was spoken to, or at-
tempted to speak myself, ohstupui, steteruntque cofnoe, et vox
faucibus hczsit. If I saw people whisper I was sure it was at
me ; and I thought myself the sole object of either the ridicule
or the censure of the whole company, who, God knows, did not
trouble their heads about me.
Chesterfield.
Vox populi, vox Dei.
TJie voice of the people is the voice of God. Biichmann
traces the idea involved in this saying back to Hesiod,
(Works and Days, 763) and to the Odyssey (iii., 214-
215). Alcuin, in the 8th century, protested against it in
the " Capitulare Admonitionis ad Carolum " thus : "We
should not listen to those who are wont to say, Vox populi,
vox Dei, for the noise of the mob is very near to madness."
For, to conceive that the body of the people could be mis-
taken was an indignity not to be imagined till the conse-
quences had convinced them, when it was past remedy. And
I look upon this as a fate to which all popular accusations are
subject ; though I should think that the saying Vox populi, vox
Dei, ought to be understood of the universal bent and current
of a people, not of the bare majority of a few representatives,
which is often procured by little arts and great industry and
application.
Swift : " Contests in Athens and Rome," chap. 4.
It was thought enough to quote the well-known epigram 01
the Abbe Sieyes on the subject of Second Chambers. " If " it
runs, " a Second Chamber dissents from the First, it is mis-
chievous ; if it agrees, it is superfluous." It has, perhaps,
escaped notice that this saying is a conscious or unconscious
parody of that reply of the Caliph Omar about the books of
the Alexandrian Library^ which caused them to be burnt. " If
the books," said the Commander of the Faithful to his lieuten-
ant, " differ from the book of the Prophet, they are impious , if
they agree, they are useless." The reasoning is precisely the
OF FOREIGN Q UO TA TIONS. 2 3 3
same in both cases and starts from the same assumption. It
takes for granted that a particular utterance is divine. If the
Koran is the inspired and exclusive word of God, Omar was
right; if Vox Populi,vox Dei expresses a truth, Sieycs was
right. If the decisions of the community, conveyed through
one particular organ, are not only imperative but all-wise, a
Second Chamber is a superfluity or an impertinence. . . .
There appears to me to be no escaping from the fact that all
such institutions as a Senate, a House of Peers, or a Second
Chamber, are founded on a denial or a doubt of the proposi-
tion that the voice of the people is the voice of God. They
express the revolt of a great mass of human common-sense
against it. They are the fruit of the agnosticism of the
political understanding.
Sir Henry Maine : " Popular Government," pp. 178, 179.
Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib und Gesang,
Der bleibt ein Narr sein Lebelang.
He ivJio loves not zi'ine, tvoinen, and song, remains a fool
his whole life long. These inspiring lines are commonly
attributed to Martin Luther, but, according to Biichmann,
without any authority. Lessing writes (Liedern, i., 6) :
Zu viel kann man Mohl trinken,
Doch trinkt man nie genug.
" One may well drink too much, but yet one never drinks
enough."
Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergiebt,
Ach ! der ist bald allein. (goethe, w ilhelim meister,
LEHR. II., 13.)
He who gives himself over to solitude^ ah ! he is soon alone.
Several quotations from Goethe are to be found in this
Manual followed by extracts from English writers in which
they are used. To these the following may well be added :
234 ^ LITERARY MANUAL
Grau, teurer Freund, ist alle Theorie,
Und griin des Lebens goldner Baum. (Faust.)
" Gray, dear friend, is every theory,
And green the golden tree of life."
Es ist eine der grossten Himmelsgaben,
So ein lieb Ding im Arm zu haben. (Faust.)
" It is one of Heaven's best gifts to hold such a dear
thing in one's arms."
Es erben sich Gesetz' und Rechte
■ Wie eine ew'ge Krankheit fort. (Faust.)
" Laws and claims are inherited like an everlasting sick-
ness."
Wer nie sein Brot mit Thranen ass,
Wer nie die kummervollen Nachte
Auf seinem Bette weinend sass,
Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Machte. (Wilhelm Meister,
ii., I3-)
" Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,
Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours
Weeping upon his bed has sate,
He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers."
— Longfellow's " Hyperion."
Meine Ruh' ist hin,
Mein Herz ist schwer. (Faust.)
" My peace is gone, my heart is heavy."
Denn alle Schuld racht sich auf Erden. (Wilhelm Meister.)
" For all guilt is avenged on earth."
Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen bliihen,
Im dunkeln Laub die Gold-Orangen gliihn,
Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht,
Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht ?
Kennst du es wohl ?
Dahin ! Dahin,
Mocht' ich mit dir O mein Geliebter, ziehn. (Mignon's song in Wil-
helm Meister.)
" Knowest thou the land where the lemon-trees flourish,
where amid the shadowed leaves the golden oranges glisten,
— a gentle zephyr breathes from the blue heavens, the myrtle
OF FORIilGN QUOTATIONS. 235
is motionless, and the laurel rises high ? Dost thou know
it well ? Thither, thither, fain would I fly with thee, O my
beloved ! "
It has been said that all the romantic charm of Italy
is in these linos, which, unfortunately, absolutely defy
translation. Byron's " Bride of Abydos " begins with a
faint reflection of their splendor.
In the next stanza of Mignon's song are the verses :
Und Marmorbilder stehn und sehn mich an :
Was hat man dir, du armes Kind, gethan ?
" And marble statues stand and gaze at me : what has
been done to thee, thou poor child ? "
Macaulay wrote in his diary at Florence, November 3,
1838 : " My rooms look into a court adorned with orange-
trees and marble statues. I never look at the statues
without thinking of poor Mignon —
Und Marmorbilder stehn und sehn mich an :
Was hat man dir, du armes Kind, gethan ?
I know no two lines in the world which I would sooner
have written than those."
Ein guter Mensch, in seinem dunkeln Drange
1st sich des rechten Weges wohl bewusst. (Faust, Prolog.)
'* A good man, amid his dark strivings, is conscious of the
true path."
Entbehren sollst du ! soUst entbehren. (Faust.)
" Thou shalt abstain.
Renounce, refrain."
— Taylor's Translation.
This verse has been said to be the key to the mean-
ing of Faust, — life must be a resignation. Tourgeneff
took it as the motto of his story called " Faust," a trans-
lation of which was published in the Galaxy Magazine
for May and June, 1872. The hero of that story says,
towards the end : " In finishing this letter I will tell you
236 A LITERARY MANUAL
that the conviction I have acquired in the experience
of these last years is that life is not a jest, it is not even
enjoyment, but a difficult task. Resignation, firm resig-
nation — that is the meaning of the law of life, that is the
solution of the enigma."
Wenn ich dich lieb habe, was geht's dich an. (Wilhelm Meister,
iv., 9.)
''If I love you, what business is that of yours ?"
Biichmann cites Goethe's reference to this in his
" Wahrheit und Dichtung" (14 Buch) : " That wonderful
saying (of Spinoza) that he who loves God truly must not
ask that God should love him in return, with all the
principles upon which it rests and with all the conse-
quences which flow from it, filled my entire thoughts. To
be unselfish in everything, most unselfish of all in love and
friendship, was my highest wish, my maxim, my endeavor,
so that that later saucy saying, tvcnn ich dich licb habe, ivas
geht's dich an, came right from my heart." The sentence
of Spinoza's referred to is in his "Ethics" (v., 19): Qui
Deiim aniat, conari non potest ut Dens ipsiivi contra arnet.
Was uns alle bandigt, das Gemeine.
"What binds us all, the commonplace."
This first appeared in the Taschenbuch fiir Damen auf
das Jahr 1806. Matthew Arnold comments on the saying
in his essay on " The Literary Influence of Academies."
Sie ist die Erste nicht.
" She is not the first."
This is the remark of Mephistopheles concerning
Gretchen. Biichmann says that it is not of Goethe's
invention, but an old saying.
Wer den Dichter will verstehen
Muss in Dichters Lande gehen. (Notes on West-O. Divans.)
" He who would understand the poet must go into the
poet's country."
OF FOREIGN QUOTA TIONS. 237
Amerika, du hast es besser. (Die Ver. Staaten.)
" America, thou art better off."
Denn das Naturell der Frauen
1st so nah mit Kunst verwandt. (Faust, 2 Teil, i Akt.)
'■ For the nature of women is closely allied to art."
One of Burke's fine aphorisms is : " Art is man's nature."
Wer kann •was Dummes, wer was Kluges denken,
Das nicht die Vorwelt schon gedacht. (Faust, 2 Teil, 2 Akt.)
"Who can think any thing stupid or any thing clever that
older times have not already thought."
Du sprichst ein grosses Wort gelassen aus. (Iphig., i., 3.)
"You utter a great saying calmly."
Wie einer ist, so ist sein Gott,
Darum ward Gott so oft zu Spott. (Gedichte.)
" As a man is, so is his God ; therefore God was so often
an object of mockery."
In the same spirit Pope's line has recently been changed
so as to read : " An honest God 's the noblest work of
man." But Lichtenberg long ago said : " God created
man in his own image — that means probably man created
God in his." And one of Feuerbach's aphorisms is
(" Wesen des Christenthums ") : Die TJicologie ist die An-
tJiropologie — " Theology is anthropology."
Ueber alien Gipfeln ist Ruh'.
" Beyond all the peaks is rest."
This was written by Goethe on the window of an inn
in the Thuringian Forest. He added to it in the song
entitled " Ein Gleiches."
Zwei Seelen und ein Gedanke,
Zwei Herzen und ein Schlag ! (halm, der sohn der
WILDNIS.)
" Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one."
This is Maria Lovell's translation in " Ingomar the
Barbarian," act 2.
INDEX OF LATIN QUOTATIONS.
r
Abeunt studia in mores, I
Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit, 144
Ab imo pectore, i
Ab ovo, 2
Ab ovo usque ad mala, 3
Ab uno disce omnes, 3
Abusus non tollit usum, 3
Acceptissima semper munera sunt,
auctor qua; prasciosa facit, 209
Ad captandum vulgus, 4
Addictus jurare in verba magistri, 137
Ad hoc, 4
Adhuc sub judice lis est, 178
Ad majorem Dei gloriam, 4
Ad perpetuam rei memoriam, 4
Adsum qui feci, no
Ad usum Delphini, 5
Ad ungueni factus homo, 5
Advocatus Diaboli, 5
jtquam memento rebus in arduis ser-
vare mentem, 6
^s triplex, 6
Alea jacta est, 7
Alieni appetens sui profusus, 8
Alter ego, 8
Amantes sunt amentes, 8
Amantium iras, amorisintegratio est, 9
Amare et sapere vix Deo conceditur, 9
Amicus Plato, sed magis amica Veri-
tas, 9
Amor vincit omnia, 142
Animum rege qui nisi paret imperat, 1 1
Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto,
12
Aquila non capit muscas, 12
Arbiter elegantiarum, 13
Arcades ambo, 13
Argumentum ad hominem, 13
Ars est celare artem, 14
Ars longa, vita brevis, 14
Atra cura, 155
Audacter calumniare, semper aliquid
hseret, 22
Audentes fortuna juvat, 15
Audi alteram partem, 16
Aurea mediocritas, 17
Auri sacra fames, 17
Aurora musis amica est, 17
Aut Cresar, aut nihil, 18
Aut inveniam viam aut faciam, 18
Ave Ceesar, morituri te salutamus, 19
A verbis ad verbera, 20
Beati possidentes, 180
Beatus ille qui procul negotiis, 180
Bene qui latuit, bene vixit, 209
Bis dat qui cito dat, 20
Bonus dormitat Homerus, 163
Brevis esse laboro obscurus fio, 21
Cacoethes scribendi, 21
Cassarem vehis et fortunam ejus, 7
Capax imperii nisi imperasset, 143
Capiat qui capere possit, 22
Caput mortuum, 23
Carent quia vate sacro, 23
Carpe diem, 23
Castigat ridendo mores, 24
Causa latet ; vis est notissima, 209
Cedant arma togne, 25
Certum est quia impossibile est, 25
Cineri doloso, 80
Civis Romanus sum, 29
Civium ardor prava jubentium, 92
Clarum et venerabile nomen, 29
Ccelum non animum mutant qui trans
mare currunt, 30
Cogito ergo sum, 30
Compesce mentem, 179
Consule Planco, 31
Contraria contrariis curantur, 191
Coram populo, 32
239
240
INDEX OF LA TIN QUOTA TIONS.
Corruptio optimi pessima, 32
Cras ingens iterabimus jequor, 138
Credat Judteus Apella, 34
Credo quia absurdum est, 26
Credula res amor est, 209
Cui bono, 35
Culpam pcena premit comes, 180
Cum grano salis, 35
Cur in theatrum Cato severe venisti, 35
Curiosa felicitas, 36
Currente calamo, 36
Dabit Deus his quoque finem, 36
Dat Galenus opes, dat Justinianus
honores, 37
Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura co-
lumbas, 159
Davus sum, non CEdipus, 38
Debellare superbos, 148
Debemur morti nos nostraque, 38
Decipimur specie recti, 105
De gustibus non est disputandum, 39
Delenda est Carthago, 41
De mortuis nil nisi bonum, 41
De omni re scibili, 42
Desinat in piscem, mulier formosa
superne, 43
Desipere in loco, 51
De te fabula narratur, 116
Detur digniori, 44
Deus ex machina, 44
Dicique beatus ante obitum nemo
supremaque funera debet, 209
Diem perdidi, 45
Difficile est proprie communia dicere,
46
Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es
idem, 119
Digito monstrari, 46
Dignus vindice nodus, 117
Dimidium facti qui bene coepit habet,
Dis aliter visum, 47
Disce puer virtutem ex me verumque
laborem, 47
Disjecta membra, 48
Divide et impera, 49
Domus et placens uxor, 50
Donee eris felix multos numerabis
amicos, 51
Duke est desipere in loco, 51
Duke et decorum est pro patria mori, 5 1
Duke ridentem Lalagen amabo, 179
Dukes moriens reminiscitur Argos, 211
Dummodo risum excutiat sibi, 181
Dum spiro, spero, 52
Dum vivimus vivamus, 52
Durum sed levins fit patientia quicquid
corrigere est nefas, 179
Dux femina facti, 28
Eheu ! fugaces labuntur anni, 52
Emollit mores nee sinit esse feros, 83
Eg ipso prsefulgebant quod non vise-
bantur, 53
E pluribus unum, 53
Eripuit ccelo fulmen sceptrumque ty-
rannis, 55
Errare malo cum Platone, 10
Est deus in nobis, 209
Est modus in rebus, 56
Esto perpetua, 56
Et ego in Arcadia, 15
Et tu, Brute, 56
Evadere ad auras, 72
Exegi monumentum sere perennius, 57
Ex nihilo nihil fit, 58
Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus
ultor, 58
Ex pede Herculem, 58
Expende Hannibalem, 159
Experimentum in corpore vili, 64
Experto crede, 59
Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius, 59
Ex ungue leonem, 60
Faber est quisque fortunse suae, 60
Facies non omnibus una nee diversa
tanien, 208
Facile princeps, 60
Facilis est descensus Averni, 60
Facit indignatio versum, 61
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, 63
Fas est ab hoste doceri, 63
Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere
causas, 210
Festina lente, 64
Fiat experimentum in corpore vili, 64
Fiat justitia ruat coelum, 65
Fidus Achates, 65
Finis Polonice, 173
Flectere si nequeo Superos, Acheronta
movebo, 66
Fcenum habet in cornu, 66
Forsan et hoec olim meminisse juvabit,
66
INDEX OF LA TIN QUOTA TfONS.
241
Fortes fortuna adjuvat, 15
Fortunatos iiimium sua si bona norint,
140
Fronti nulla fules, 67
I'ruges consumere nati, 67
l''ut;aies labuntur anni, 52
Fugit irreparabile tempus, 67
Fuit Ilium, 211
Fumuni et opes strepitumque Romce,
180
Genus irritabile vatum, 63
Gntcia capta feruni victorem cepit, 182
Grammatici certant et adhuc sub ju-
dice lis est, 17S
Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sad scepe
cadendo, 69
Habemus confitentem ream, 69
Habent sua fata libelli, 69
Hkc decies repetita placebit, 178
Hxc studia adolescentiam agunt, 145
Hceret lateri lethalis arundo, 70
Ilanc veniam petimusque damusque
vicissini, 70
Hannibal ad portas, 145
Hie jacet, 70
Hinc \\\x lacrimiE, 71
Hoc erat in votis, iSi
Hoc opus, hie labor est, 71
Hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione
voluntas, 72
Homo proponit sed Deus disponit, 102
Homo sum ; humani nihil a me alienum
puto, 72
Homo unius libri, 73
Honos alit artes, 74
Horre^co referens, 75
Humanum est errare, 75
Ignoti nulla eupido, 77
Ignotum pro magnitico, 140
Impaviduni ferient ruina?, 190
Imperium et libertas, 79
In articulo mortis, 80
Incedis per ignes suppositos cineri
doloso, 80
Incidis in Scyllam cupiens vitare Cha-
rybdin, 81
Indocilis pauperiem pati, 82
Infandum renovare dolorem, 82
In forma ]iauperis, 83
Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes emol-
lit mores, 83
In hoe signo vinces, 83
In medias res, 84
In medio tutissimus ibis, 109
In necessariis unitas, in dubiis liber-
tas, in omnibus caritas, 85
Inopi benelicium bis dat qui dat ce-
leriter, 20
In propia persona, 85
In sivcula sreeulorum, 86
Integer vitce scelerisque purus, 179
Interdum vulgus rectum videt, 86
Inter poeula, 87
Intus et in cute, 87
Inveni portum. Spes et fortuna va-
lete, 87
In verba magistri, 137
In vino Veritas, 89
Invita Minerva, 89
Ira furor brevis est, 181
Jaeta alea est, 7
Jucundi acti labores, 145
Justumet tenacem propositi virum, 92
Laborare est orare, 93
Labor ipsa voluptas, 93
Labor omnia vincit improbus, 93
Laborum dulce lenimen, 180
Latet anguis in herba, 97
Laudari a laudato viro, 97
Laudator temporis acti, 97
Leve fit quod bene fertur onus, 2og
Lima; labor et mora, 102
Litera scripta manet, 103
Longo sed proximus intervallo, 2IO
Lucus a non lucendo, 103
Lumenque juventce purpureum, 210
Lusisti satis, edisti satis atque bibisti,
182
Magna civitas, magna solitudo, 104
Magna est Veritas et prrevalebit, 105
Magnis tamen excidit ausis, 106
Magnum vectigal est parsimonia, 106
Manet alta mente repostum judicium
Paridis, 195
Materiam superabat opus, 106
Matre pulchra lilia pulchriur, 107
Maxima debetur puero reverentia, 107
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, 108
Mea virtute me involvo, 109
Mediocribus esse poetis, 109
Medio de fonte leporum surgit amari
aliquid, 199
242
INDEX OF LATIN QUOTATIONS.
Medio tutissimus ibis, 109
Me, me adsum qui feci, no
Mens agitat molem, no
Mens divinior, in
Mens tequa in arduis, 6
Mens Sana in corpore sano, in
Mens sibi conscia recti, 112
Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem, 180
Miseris succurrere disco, 130
Modus vivendi, 115
MoUissima fandi tempora, 115
Monstrum horrendum, informe, in-
gens, cui lumen ademptum, 210
Monumentum cere perennius, 57
Morituri te salutant, 19
Mulier formosa superne, 43
Mutate nomine de te fabula narratur,
116
Nam tua res agitur paries cum proxi-
mus ardet, 182
Naturam expellas furca tamen usque
recurret, 117
Nee Deus in tersit, nisi dignus vindice
nodus, 117
Nee pluribus impar, iiS
Nee plus ultra, 118
Nee tecum possum vivere, nee sine te,
"9
Nee vixit male qui natus moriensque
fefellit, 182
Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit,
121
Nemo repente fuit turpissimus, 121
Neque semper arcum tendit Apollo,
122
Ne quid nimis, 122
Ne quid res publicadetrimenti capiat,
145
Ne sutor ultra crepidam, 124
Nihil est ab omni parte beatum, 180
Nihil tam absurde dici posset quod
non dicatur, 145
Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit, 124
Nil actum reputans si quid superesset
agendum, 126
Nil admirari, 127
Nil conscire sibi, nulla jiallescere cul-
pa, 127
Nil desperandum Teucro duce, 179
Nil mortalibus ardiuim est, 179
Nil sine magno vita labore dedit mor-
talibus, 127
Nimium ne crede colori, 210
Nitimur in vetitum semper cupimus-
que negata, 171
Nitor in adversum, 128
Noli me tangere, 128
Non amo te, Sabidi, nee possum di-
cere quare, 129
Non cuivis homini contingit adire Co-
rinthum, 182
Non equidem invideo, miror magis,
130
Non ignara mali miseris succurrere
disco, 130
Non nisi parendo vincitur, 131
Non nostrum inter vos tantas com-
ponere lites, 132
Non omnia possumus omnes, 133
Non omnis moriar, 133
Non plus ultra, 118
Non possidentem multa vocaveris recte
beatum, iSo
Non possumus, 133
Non sum qualis eram, 134
Non tali auxilio nee defensoribus istis
tempus eget, 134
Noscitur a sociis, 135
Nuda Veritas, 179
Nulla dies sine linea, 136
Nulla fere causa est in qua non femina
litem moverit, 28
Nulla pallescere culpa, 127
Nullius addictus jurare in verba ma-
gistri, 137
Nullum est jam dictum quod non dic-
tum sit prius, 137
Nullum magnum ingenium sine mix-
tura dementia? fuit, 138
Nunc vino pellite curas, 138
Oderint dum nietuant, 145
Odi et amo, 138
Odi profanum vulgus et arceo, 139
O fortunatos nimium sua si bona
norint, 140
Ohe ! jam satis est, 181
O imitatores, servum pecus, 182
Olim meminisse juvabit, 66
Omne ignotum pro magnifico, 140
Omne scibile, 42
Omne solum forti patria est, 209
Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile
dulci, 141
Omnia mea mecum porto, 141
INDEX OF LATIN QUOTA TIONS.
243
Omnia serviliter pro dominatione, 142
Omnia vincitamor, 142
Omnium consensu capax imperii nisi
imperasset, 143
Orator tit, poeta nascitur, 143
O rus quanclo te aspiciam, 178
O sancta Simplicitas, 143
Os homini sublime dedit, 209
O tempora ! O mores ! 144
O terque, quaterque beati, 146
Otium cum dignitate, 146
Paete, nondolet 175
Pallida mors jequo pulsat pede, 179
Panem et circenses, 147
Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos,
148
Parendo vincitur, 131
Par nobile fratrum, 181
Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus
mus, 148
Passi graviora, 37
Pater ipse colendi baud facilem esse
viam voluit, 150
Pectus est quod disertos facit, 150
Pereantqui antenosnostradixerunt, 137
Per fas et nefas, 150
Permissum fit vile nefas, 170
Persona grata, 151
Per varios casus, per tot discrimina
rerum, 210
Pia fraus, 208
Piscem natare doces, 151
Pons asinorum, 153
Populusmesibilat, at mihi plaudo, 153
Populus vult decipi, 155
Possunt quia posse videntur, 156
Post equitem sedet atra cura, 155
Post hoc ergo propter hoc, 156
Potius amicum quam dictum perdere,
181
Prffifulgebant quod non visebantur, 53
Primus in orbe deos fecit timor, 158
Primus inter pares, 158
Principiis obsta, 159
Principibus placuisse viris, non ultima
laus est, 182
Probitas laudatur et alget, 159
Procul, o procul este profani, 160
Profanum vulgus, 139
Pulvis et umbra sumus, 161
Quse regio in terris nostri non plena
laboris, 161
Quasrenda pecunia [irimum est ; virtus
post nummos, 162
Quam parva sapientia mundus regitur,
163
Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus,
163
Quanquam ridentem dicere verum quid
vetat, 181
Quantum mutatus ab illo Ilectore, 210
Quern di diligunt adolescens moritur,
165
Quern vult perdere Jupiter prius de-
mentat, 166
Quicquid agunt homines, 166
Quicquid delirant reges plectuntur
Achivi, 167
Quicquid multis peccatur inultum, 167
Quid leges sine moribus vame pro-
ficiunt, 180
Quid sit futurum eras, fuge quaerere,
179 .
Quid times, Cresarem vehis, 7
Quieta non movere, 168
Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare,
169
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, 169
Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus,
170
Quod licet ingratum quod non licet
acrius urit, 170
Quorum pars magna fui, 171
Quol homines, tot sententiae, 171
Quousque tandem abutere patientia
nostra, 145
Rara avis in terris, 172
Rari nantes in gurgite vasto, 12
Regia, crede mihi, res est succurrere
lapsis, 209
Requiescat in pace, 172
Res angusta domi, 172
Rex nunquam moritur, 98
Rex regnat sed non gubernat, 173
Risum teneatis amici, 178
Rudis indigestaque moles, 177
Rus in urbe, 177
Sacra fames auri, 17
Ssepe stilum vertas, 181
Salus populi suprema lex, 177
Sancta simplicitas, 143
Sapere aude, 17S
Scribendi recte sapere est et principium
et fons, I S3
244
INDEX OF LATIN QUOTATIONS.
Scribimus indocti doctique poemata
passim, 183
Secundum artem, 183
Semel emissum volat irrevocabile ver-
bum, 182
Semper ad eventum festinat, 184
Semper, ubique, et ab omnibus, 184
Sic itur ad astra, 186
Si componere magnis parva mihi fas
est, 208
Sic transit gloria mundi, 186
Sicut meus est mos, 187
Sic volo, sic jubeo, 72
Sic vos non vobis, 187
Si fractus illabatur o'rbis, 190
Silent leges inter arma, 25
Similia similibus curantur, 191
Si monumentum qu^ris, circumspice,
125
Simplex munditiis, 179
Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus, 191
Sine qua non, igi
Si Pergama dextradefendi possent, 192
Si quid novisti rectius istis, candidus
imperii, 181
Sit tibi terra levis, 88
Si vis me flere dolendum est primum
ipsi tibi, 192
Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant,
193
Spes et Fortuna valete, 87
Splendide mendax, 193
Spolia opima, 194
Spoliatis arma supersunt, 194
Spretje injuria form^e, 194
Stare super antiquas vias, 195
Stat magni nominis umbra, 196
Strenua inertia, 181
Suave mari magno, 196
Suaviter in modo fortiter in re, 198
Summum jus summa injuria, ig8
Sunt lacrimoe rerum, 19S
Surgit amari aliquid, 199
Sursum corda, 199
Tarn cari capitis, 170
Tantsene animis crelestibus \xx, 200
Tantas componere lites, 132
Tantum religio jiotuit suadere malo-
rum, 201
Tantas componere lites, 132
Tantum religio potuit suadere malo-
rum, 20 r
Tempora nuitantur et nos nuitamur in
illis, 202
Tempus edax rerum, 20S
Terque, quaterque beati, 146
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes, 203
Totus teres atque rotundus, 203
Trahit sua quemque voluptas, 208
Tristis eris si solus eris, 208
Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine
agetur, 210
Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior
ito, 210
Tu regere imperio, populos Romane,
memento, 148
Ultima ratio, 211
Una salus victis nullam sperare salu-
tem, 210
Unusquisque tantum juris habet quan-
tum potentia valet, 104
Urbi et orbi, 212
Utile dulci, 141
Vpe soli, 213
Vte victis, 213
Vanitas vanitatum, 214
Varium et mutabile semper femina, 215
Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tem-
pus, 211
Veni, vidi, vici, 217
Vera incessu patuit dea, 218
Verba volant scripta manent, 103
Veritas nunquam perit, 105
Vestigia nulla retrorsum, 220
Victrix causa deis placuit sed victa
Catoni, 220
Videant consules ne quid res publica
detrimenti capiat, 145
Video meliora proboque deteriora se-
quor, 221
Vino pellite curas, 138
Vires acquirit eundo, 221
Virtus post nummos, 162
Vita; summa brevis spem nos vetat in-
choare longam, 179
Vivamus, mea Ixsbia, atque amemus,
222
Vivit sub pectore vulnus, 211
Vix ea nostra voce, 209
Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona, 223
Vixere si recte nescis,decede peritis,i82
Vos exemplaria (jntca nocturna versate
manu, 178
Vox claniantis in deserto, 231
\'ox et praterea nihil, 231
\'()X faucibus h;vsit, 231
\'(ix jiopuli, vox Dei, 232
INDEX OF ITALIAN QUOTATIONS.
Al fresco, 8
Anch' io sono pittore, ii
Che sara, sara, 28
Chiesa libera in libero stato, 175
Chi va piano va sano, chi va sano va
lontano, 29
Dolce far niente, 50
Donna e mobile, 215
E pur si muove, 54
Fatti maschii parole femine, 63
11 meglio e I'inimico del bene, 98
II re galant'uomo, 175
In petto, 85
Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate,
96
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita,
120
Nessun maggior dolore, Che ricordarsi
del tempo felice, Nella miseria, 123
Non e vero ma ben trovato, 185
Non mi ricordo, 131
Passato il pericolo gabbato il santo, 149
Se non e vero e ben trovato, 185
Traduttore, traditore, 207
Vedi Napoli e poi mori, 216
Vengo di Cosmopoli, 216
Volto schiolto e pensieri stretti, 224
INDEX OF FRENCH QUOTATIONS.
Aide-toi, le ciel t'aidera, 227
A la guerre comme a la guerre, 7
A outrance, 11
Amphitryon ou Ton dine, loi
Apres moi le deluge, 12
A propos de bottes, 12
Au demeurant, le meilleur fils du
monde, 226
Au grand serieux, 16
Au pied de la lettre, 17
Au royaume des aveugles les borgnes
sont rois, 17
Autres temps, autres moeurs, 18
Beaute du diable, 20
Bon chien chasse de race, 21
(^a ira, 177
Calomniez, calomniez, il en restera
toujours quelque cliose, 22
Cela va sans dire, 25
Ce qui est differe n'est pas perdu, 16
Ce qui fait que les amants et les mai-
tresses ne s'ennuient point, 230
Ce qui nous rend la vanite des autres
insupportable, 230
C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la
guerre, 26
C'est plus qu'un crime, c'est une faute,
176
Cet age est sans pitie, 227
Cet animal est tres mechant, 228
Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop.
Chat echaude craint I'eau froide, 227
Chateau qui parle, femme qui ecoute
sont prets a se rendre, 27
Cherchez la femme, 28
Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche,
175
Comme il faut, 31
Cordon bleu, 32
Coup de grace, 33
Coup de main, 33
Coute que coute, 33
Creme de la creme, 34
Dans I'adversite de nos meilleurs amis
nous trouvons quelque chose qui ne
nous deplait pas, 228
De haut en bas, 40
De I'audace, encore de I'audace et
toujours de I'audace, 40
Dis moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce
que tu es, 49
Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un
pas, 77
Entre la poire et le fromage, 53
Et Ton revient toujours, A ses pre-
miers amours, 225
Et rose, elle a vecu ce que vivent les
roses, L'espace d'un matin, 226
Faire de la prose sans le savoir, 61
Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra,
63
Femme qui ecoute, 27
Fin de Siecle, 65
Glissez, mortels, n'appuyez pas, 226
Honi soit qui mal y pense, 74
II est avec le ciel des accommode-
ments, 227
II faut laver son linge sale en famille,
77
II n'a pas invente la poudre, 78
II n'y a que le premier pas qui coute,
78
II se recule pour mieux sauter, 79
Je n'en vois pas la necessite, 176
Je ne sais quoi, 89
Je prends mon bien oii je le trouve, 91
Je veux que le dinianche chaque paysan
ait sa poule au pot, 175
246
INDEX OF FRENCH QrOTATIONS.
247
J'y suis, j'y reste, 92
La carricre ouverte aux talents, 94
La critique est aisee et I'art est difficile,
La fortune ne parait jamais si aveugle
qu'a ceux a qui elle ne fait pas de
bien, 230
La France est une monarchic absolue
temperee par des chansons, 206
La CJarde meurt et ne se rend pas, 94
Laissez faire, laissez passer, 94
La parole a ete donnee a I'homme
pour deguiser ses pensees, 95
L'appetit vient en mangeant, 95
La proprie'te c'est le vol, 95
La raison du plus fort est toujours la
meilleure, 104
Le crime fait la honte et non pas I'e-
chafaud, 227
Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle, 98
Le mieux est I'ennemi du bien, 98
Le moi est haissable, 98
Le monde recompense plussouvent les
apparences du merite, 229
Le nez de Cleopatre, s'il eut ete plus
court, 230
Le roi est mort, vive le roi, 98
Le roi regne et ne gouverne pas, 173
Les grandes pensees viennent du cceur,
150
Le silence du peuple est la le9on des
rois, 176
Le style c'est I'homme, 99
Le superflu, chose tres necessaire, 99
L'etat c'est moi, 100
L'hypocrisie est un hommage que le
vice rend a la vertu, 229
Le trident de Neptune est le sceptre
du monde, 227
Le vrai Amphitryon est celui ou Ton
dine, icx)
Le vrai pent quelquefois n'etre pas
vraiseniblable, 102
L'honime propose et Dieu dispose, 102
L'ordre regne a Varsovie, 193
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan ? 226
Mauvais quart d'heure, 107
Meme quand I'oiseau marche on sent
qu'il a des ailes, 226
Mon siege est fait, 115
Noblesse oblige, 12S
Nous avons change tout cela, 135
Nous avons tons assez de force pour
supporter les maux d'autrui, 228
Nul n'est content de sa fortune, 228
On croit quelquefois hair la flatterie,
230
On pent etre plus fin qu'un autre, 230
Oil la vertu va-t-elle se nicher? 226
Ou sont les neiges d'antan ? 226
Paris vaut bien une messe, 175
Passons au deluge, 149
j Plus 9a change, plus c'est la meme
chose, 152
Plus d'amour, partant plus de joie, 76
Point d'argent, point de Suisse, 153
I Pour encourager les autres, 157
Quand les vices nous quittent nous
nous flattons, 229
Quand tout le monde a tort tout le
monde a raison, 167
Que diable allait il faire dans cette
galere, 164
Qui a bu, boira, 166
Qui est-ce qu'on trompe ici ? 168
Qui trop embrasse mal etreint, 170
\ Reculer pour mieux sauter, 79
I Revenons k nos moutons, 173
Sauve qui pent, 182
Se soumettre ou se demettre, 92
Si Dieu n'existait pas il faudrait I'in-
I venter, 1S9
Souvent femme varie, 215
I Surtout point de zele, 200
Tel est notre bon plaisir, 201
Tous les genres sont bons hors '
genre ennuyeux, 225
Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonnt
203
Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur
des mondes possibles, 204
Tout est perdu fors I'honneur, 205
Tout finit par des chansons, 206
Tout vient a qui sait attendre, 206
i Vogue la galere, 224
I Vous etes orfevre, ^L Josse, 225
I Vous I'avez voulu, George Dandin, 225
INDEX OF GERMAN QUOTATIONS.
Amerika du hast es besser, 237
Auch ich war in Arkadien geboren, 14
Aufgeschoben ist nicht aufgehoben, 16
Das eben ist der Fluch der bosen
That, Das sie fortzeugend iminer
Boses muss gebaren. 113
Das Ewig-Weibliche Ziehl uns hinan,
37
Denn alle Schuld racht sich auf Er-
den, 234
Denn das Xaturell der Frauen Ist so
nah mit Kunst venvandt, 237
Der Geist der stets vemeint, 75
Der Mensch ist frei \vie ein Vogel im
Katig, 42
Der Mensch ist was er isst. 49
Der Wahn ist kurz, die Reu ist lang,
."3
Die Baukunst ist eine erstarrte Musik,
116
Die schonen Tage in Aranjuez Sind
nun zu Ende, 114 |
Die schone Zeit der jungen Liebe, 113 j
Die Sonne geht in meinem Staat nicht
unter, 114 [
Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltge- '
richt, 113
Du sprichst ein grosses Wort gelassen
aus, 237
Ehret die Frauen ! sie flechten and
weben Himmlische Rosen ins ir-
dische Leben, 114
Ein guter Mensch, in seinem dunkeln |
Drange Ist sich des rechten Wages ]
wohl bewusst, 235
Eisen und Blut, 174
Entbehren sollst du ! solkt entbehren,
235 .
Ernst ist das Leben, heiter ist die
Kunst, 53 I
Es erben sich Gesetz' und Rechte Wie
eine ew'ge Krankheit fort, 234
Es ist eine der grossten Himmels-
gaben, So ein lieb Ding im Arm zu
haben, 234
Frisch gewagt ist halb gewonnen, 47
Fur einen Kammerdiener giebt es
keinen Held, 63
Grau, teurer Freund, ist alle Theorie,
Und griin des Lebens goldner Baum,
234
Grosse Seelen dulden still, 114
Ich bin der Geist der stets vemeint, 75
Ich habe genossen das irdische Gluck ;
Ich habe gelebt und geliebet, 76
Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen
bluhen, 234
Macht geht vor Recht, 104
Meine Ruh' ist hin, 234
Mit der Dummheit kampfen Gotter
selbst vergebens, 112
Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde, 17
Musik ist Poesie der Luft, 116
Nach Canossa gehen wir nicht, 174
O dass sie ewig grune bliebe. Die
schone Zeit der jungen Liebe, 113
Sie ist die Erste nicht, 236
Ueber alien Gipfeln ist Ruh', 237
Und Marmorbilder stehn und sehn
mich an : Was hat man dir, du
armes Kind, gethan, 235
Verweile doch ! du hist so schon, 21 S
24a
INDEX OF GERMAN QUOTA TIONS. 249
Was ist das Leben ohne Liebesglanz,
113
Was uns alle biindigt, das Gemeine, 236
Wenn die Konige bau'n, haben die
Karrner zu thun, 114
Wenn ich dich lieb babe, was geht's
dich an, 236
Wer den Dichter will verstehen, Muss
in Dichters Lande gehen, 236
Wer gar zu viel bedenkt wird wenig
leisten, 113
Wer kann was dummes, wer was
kluges denken. Das nicht die Vor-
welt schon gedacht, 237
Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib und
Gesang, Der bleibt ein Narr sein
Lebelang, 233
Wer nie sein Brot mit Thranen ass,
234.
Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergiebt, Ach !
der ist bald allein, 233
Wie einer ist, so ist sein Gott, 237
Willst du dich selber erkennen, so sieh'
wie die andern es treiben, 114
Zwei Seelen und ein Gedanke, Zwei
Herzen und ein Schlag, 237
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