A five-minute walk from the café in downtown Copenhagen where I’m writing this, the Dutch book sale in the HeiligGeist Church Community House has now closed down the most recent event (the friendly folks at Nordisk-Antikvariat are, however, scheduled to start a new episode on Aug.13). Here’s some of what I found recently (at a price of 5 Kr or 10 Kr ($0,75 – 1,50) respectively).
As usual I give sample quotes in the language of the book.
1. FRANSKE EMNER. Af Tage Brüel. København, 1946, Wivels Forlag. 175 p. Softcover. (5 Kr)
I’m rather sure I already own a copy of this thin volume, but at 75 cents, and as this specimen is quite nice, I thought I could treat myself to a keeper and a user.
Quite apart from the price it seems an admirable little work with much of interest. Here’s what they say on the back cover.
‘DE GODE VILJER’S oversætter, lektor Tage Brüel udsender hermed et bind af sine artikler og radioforedrag om franske historiske og litterære emner, skrevet i tidsrummet 1928-1946.
‘Udvalget giver et fyldigt billede af moderne fransk historieskrivning, som paa afgørende maade ændrer den traditionelle opfattelse af Frankrigs historie i det 18. og 19. aarhundrede.
‘For skønlitteraturens vedkommende koncentreres opmærksomheden om enkelte hovedværker eller centrale forfatterskaber fra dette aarhundrede, der karakteriseres med kølig nøgternhed og overlegen humor.
‘Bag den rigt facetterede stilkunst, som gør fremstillingen nærværende og livfuld, røbes et udtømmende kendskab til de foreliggende emner.’
And here’s a few sample quotes from his (radio) lecture (1946) on the french writer JEAN GIRAUDOUX (1882-1944) (p.162f)
‘Giraudoux er født 1882 i den lille midtfranske by Bellac. Han viste sig tidlig at være ikke blot en original begavelse, men ogsaa en receptiv begavelse, og han blev, vel navnlig i denne sidste egenskab, forgudet af sine lærere.
‘Fra skolefjendtlig side fremføres altid, at Henrik Ibsen klarede sig daarligt i Gymnasiet. Giraudoux er et smukt bevis paa, at det ikke ligefrem er en betingelse for at blive en stor digter at have faaet 2. karakter til studentereksamen.
‘Men pædagogerne skal alligevel ikke glæde sig for tidlig. I det lille skuespil INTERMEZZO spotter Giraudoux med piblende vid over den autoritetsbundne opdragelsesmetode og lovpriser som modsætning dertil instinktet og naturtilstanden; han drømmer om Tahitiøerne, hvor jorden bliver gold, naar man pløjer den, og hvor træerne gaar ud, naar de bliver beskaaret.
‘Giraudoux tog magisterkonferens i tysk og berejste saa det halve Europa og Nordamerika. Efter sin hjemkomst valgte han den diplomatiske bane, hvad der førte ham ud paa nye rejser, blandt andet til Rusland og Orienten. I 1914 blev han mobiliseret og kæmpede ved Marne og ved Dardanellerne.
‘Derefter genoptog han sit arbejde i udenrigsministeriet, hvad der ikke hindrede ham i at udfolde en omfattende romanproduktion. De franske ministerialkontorer synes overhovedet at have haft en vis betydning for digtekunsten.
‘Maupassant, som var ansat i Marineministeriet, skrev mange af sine bedste noveller paa kontoret. Den kendte romanforfatter Huysmans, som var ansat i Indenrigsministeriet, digtede bedst i kontortiden. Hans berømte roman Lá-bas blev i sin helhed udarbejdet i ministeriet. Han tog ikke engang papirerne med hjem, naar han om eftermiddagen forlod kontoret.
‘For Giraudoux’s vedkommende synes det snarere at have været saaledes, at han søgte hen i sit ministerium for at slippe for at høre om udenrigspolitik. Han bemærker i hvert fald et sted, om end i en spøgende tone, at naar hans portnerkone eller tobakshandler tuder ham ørene fulde af udenrigspolitik, saa tyr han til sit ministerium på Quai d’Orsay.
‘Mit eneste fristed’, skriver han. ‘Her kan jeg – ligesom i sin tid i skyttegravene, hvor krigen aldrig blev drøftet -, endelig udveksle meninger med mine kolleger om, hvordan man skal klippe sin puddelhund, eller om den bedste maade at indramme sine Daumiertegninger paa.’
‘Giraudoux var 45 aar, da han debuterede som dramatiker, men han havde forlængst inden for snævrere kredse vundet ry som romanforfatter.
‘Der er ingen grund til at skjule, at hans romaner er en meget vanskelig læsning. Ikke fordi han omgiver sig med dunkelhed; tværtimod; han har skrevet ting af en krystalklar skønhed, som næsten er nok til at forsone én med tilværelsen.
‘Men han omformer virkeligheden paa en saa subjektiv maade, og hans opfindsomme fantasi knytter saa mange nye og uvante tankeforbindelser, at læseren tit har svært ved at følge ham.
‘For Giraudoux er de ydre ting kun tegnene paa en dybere virkelighed. Det er digterens opgave at tyde disse tegn. Hans indre erfaringer er alt.’
2. LITTÉRATURE. Par Jean Giraudoux. Paris, 1941, Editions Bernard Grasset, 7.ed., 318 p. Softcover. (5 Kr)
From the article CARICATURE ET SATIRE here’s a small sample quote (p.179) (as usual I have to omit the French ‘diacritics’ as I’m writing Braille on a Danish keyboard):
‘Plus j’avance dans la vie, plus je m’etonne de voir avec quelle apathie et quelle facilite l’humanite renonce aux deux seules armes sur lesquelles elle pouvait compter de facon un peu certaine comme recours envers la micro et la macrocephalie, envers l’extreme stupidite et l’extreme orgueil, envers les mefaits de la poesie et de la presse, de la nudite et de l’habillement: je veux dire a la caricature et a la satire.’…
(page 186:)
‘Mais que la satire, – genre litteraire anodin et qui ne demande ni la fin du monde ni le voisinage du Leviathan; qui est un art foncierement loyaliste envers l’humanite, puisque, loin de contester l’a-propos de son existence, il prend au serieux ses vertus et ses travers; qui fait appel aux deux humeurs ou elle se complait le plus, le denigrement et l’indignation, – n’ait plus chez nous ses lettres de creances, c’est ce que je trouve le plus difficilement explicable.
‘En France particulierement la bourgeoisie lisante et pensante n’admet plus, en depit de toute gale, cette fourchette a gratter le dos. Elle tolere l’insulte, la calomnie, la medisance. Il ne viendra jamais au regime au a l’opinion publique l’idee de protester contre la grossierete ou la vulgarite des discours ou des articles, justes ou injustes.
‘Elle tolere meme le talent, a condition qu’il ne comporte pas l’ironie. Elle tolere celui qui la fustige, a condition que ce soit avec consideration. Mail il n’est pas jusgu’aux formes secondaires de la satire, le persiflage ou la parodie, qui ne lui paraissent condamnables et qu’elle ne s’ingenie a faire prende pour des delits de lese-humanite….
‘….la satire est un espion qui rit, et qui nous denonce, non aux autorites reconnues, ce qui serait legal, mais a tout ce et a tous ceux qui n’ont rien a voir dans l’affaire, aux jeunes gens, aux jeunes filles, a la saison, a la mode, et, par l’emploi de cette ironie proprement insupportable, dont l’autre joue est l’inspiration, qui nous donne l’impression d’etre juges par une autre race, moins serieuse que la notre.
‘C’est ce tribunal d’oiseaux, de lapins, de biches, institue jadis par Aristophane et notoirement incompetent en matiere civile, commerciale et internationale, que le monde entier s’occupe actuellement a recuser, dans la crainte peut-etre que surgisse le nouvel Aristophane…Le vieux est mort de rire en voyant un ane manger une figue de Barbarie. C’est bien fait…Que Leon-Paul Fargue reflechisse a cette triste fin, quand il nous regarde en riant manger la notre…’
> Good thing Mr. Giraudoux don’t live today – as I seem to recall that the New York Times recently (and INCREDIBLY) has banished the (satirical) cartoon from it’s pages!
The ‘modern barbarians’ are seemingly afraid of insulting the impostors?
3. UNE HISTOIRE VIVANTE DE LA LITTÉRATURE d’AUJOURD’HUI – 1939-1959. Par Pierre de BOISDEFFRE. PARIS, 1959, Le Livre Contemporain. 775 p., reliure pleine toile. (5 Kr)
From the inside flap of the dustcover:
‘Rien n’est plus difficile que d’ecrire une Histoire de la litterature contemporaine. On manque de recul pour juger la vraie dimension des ecrivains. On craint de froisser des amours-propres, d’obeir a des modes, a des idees preconcues.
‘M.Pierre de Boisdeffre a echappe a tous ces dangers. Meprisant les victoires faciles du denigrement et de la mechancete, il a donne a chaque ecrivain d’aujoud’hui sa vraie place…
‘Autant qu’une ‘Histoire Vivante’, il a ecrit une histoire equitable de la litterature d’aujourd’hui.’
(Paul Guth – Impromptu de Paris).
> Sounds good… Except, perhaps: Is there a TRUTH (vraie place) in literature? Here’s a short sample quote from the treatment of M. Jean Giraudoux (p.197f):
‘Jean Giraudoux s’etait eclipse discretement, a la veille de la Liberation. Personne n’avait mesure, sous l’etincelant revetement de ses propos, la gravite, le desespoir du moraliste….Et les creations posthumes – n’ont pas encore dissipe le malentendu qui pese sur une oeuvre moins legere qu’aigue.
‘Les dernieres annees de sa vie avaient desenchante le magicien. Le propagandiste s’etait montre impuissant a toucher les foules. Le diplomate avait quitte le Carriere sans occuper une ambassade. Le patriote constatait l’abaissement de son pays. Le pacifiste mourait en pleine guerre.
‘Giraudoux avait deja consigne ses deceptions dans SANS POUVOIRS et PLEINS POUVOIRS (dont on n’a pas assez loue la ferveur et la lucidite) et dit son espoir de voir un jour les villes et les campagnes francaises retrouver leur saveur et leur beaute.
‘Comme Saint-Exupery, comme Bernanos, il sentait venir l’avenement des robots et protestait contre la deshumanisation de la vie moderne.
‘Son pessimisme allait s’accentuant. Dans SODOME ET GOMORRHE (1943), il sonda la malediction du couple, avant de porter, dans LA FOLLE DE CHAILLOT (1944), sous le masque bariole d’une comedie poussee a la caricature, une condamnation irremediable de la societe contemporaine.
‘….Et sans doute etait-il conscient de n’avoir que peu d’attaches avec le reel puisqu’il denonce dans sa livre LITTERATURE (1941) – peut-etre le plus beau de ses livres – son peche mignon: une culture qui l’isole du peuple et l’en eloigne au moment meme ou il voudrait le retrouver….’
> Note: “…il sentait venir l’avenement des robots et protestait contre la deshumanisation de la vie moderne”. Compare link 1, (below).
Another fine buy for 75 cents, it seems.
4. THE SYMBOLIC MEANING. By H.D.Lawrence. The Uncollected Versions Of Studies In Classic American Literature. Ed. by Armin Arnold; with a preface by Harry T. Moore. London, 1962, Centaur Press. 264 p. Hardcover, org. dust cover. (5 Kr)
From the front inside flap of the dustcover:
‘This is an unpublished book by D.H.Lawrence, and perhaps his best work of literary criticism.
‘In 1917, in a letter to his agent J.B. Pinkier, Lawrence mentions for the first time his plans for writing a series of essays on American literature.
‘Originally he intended to use them as lectures to be delivered in America; but he was unable to leave England at the time, and he thought of publishing the essays as a book, under the title: The Transcendental Element in American Literature. He completed it in June 1918….
‘They met with no response from the public, and Austin Harrison, the editor, did not print the last four.
‘Here, then, is the first version of the essays which were later published – and at the time, poorly received – as Studies in Classic American Literature…
‘It seems likely that these perceptive essays will at last assume their proper place and receive the recognition they deserve; Lawrence was not only a great novelist and poet, but one of the most remarkable critics of this century.’
Here are a few sample quotes from his interesing essay from 1918: THE SPIRIT OF PLACE. (p.16):
‘It is natural that we should regard American literature as a small branch or province of English literature. None the less there is another view to be taken.
‘The American artspeech contains a quality that we have not calculated. It has a suggestive force which is not relative to us, not inherent in the English race. This alien quality belongs to the American continent itself.
‘All art partakes of the Spirit of Place in which it is produced. The provincial Latin literature ferments with a foreign stimulus. It is Africa, and the mysterious religious passion of Lybia, which, voicing itself in Latin, utters the infant cry of Tertullian, Augustine, Athanasius, the great saints of the African Church.
‘These are not Romans. They are the prelude to a new era. It is not only that they utter the ideas which made Europe. Chiefly in them is felt the first throb of the great mystic passion of mediaeval life.
‘And in Apuleius, decadent and sensuous, we feel the last throb of the old way of sensuality, Babylon, Tyre, Carthage. Africa, seething in Roman veins, produces these strange pulses of new experience, incipient newness within the old decadence.
‘In the same way America, the new continent, seething in English veins, has produced us the familiar American classics, of Hawthorne, Poe, Whitman, or Fenimore Cooper, for example.
‘We read the English utterance without getting the alien American implication. We listen to our own speech in American mouths, but our ears have been shut to the strange reverberation of that speech.
‘We have not wanted to hear the undertone, the curious foreign, uncouth suggestion, which is in the over-cultured Hawthorne or Poe or Whitman. Augustine and Apuleius are both writers of the Roman decadence.
‘The orthodox Romans, do noubt, saw mainly the decadence, and objected to it. They could not see that the qualities which they called decadence, judging from the standards of Virgil and Cicero and Tacitus, were perhaps the incipient realities of a whole new era of experience.
‘It is time now, for us, who have always looked with indulgence on the decadent or uncouth or provincial American literature, to open new eyes, and look with respect, if not with fear.
‘It is time for us now to see that our great race experience is surpassed and exceeded. Our race idea may apparently hold good in the American mind. What we have to realise is that our way of feeling is superseded, just as Cicero’s way of feeling was superseded in Apuleius.
‘It is the quality of life-experience, of emotion and passion and desire, which has changed in the Romans of Africa, and in the English-speaking Americans. Life itself takes on a new reality, a new motion, even while the idea remains ostensible the same…
(p.24)
‘For, if we consider the early American colonies, the Pilgrim Fathers were not Christians at all – not in any reasonable sense of the word. They were no more Christians than the dark and violent Spaniards of the Inquisition were Christian.
‘At the close of the fifteenth century Spain fell back from Christian Europe and became a thing apart. In the same way the first Americans departed from the Christian and the European vital mystery.
‘They became dark, sinister, repellent. They seemed to seek, not liberty, but a gloomy and tyrannical sense of power. They wanted to have power over all immediate life.
‘They had a gloomy passion, similar to that of some of the African sects of the Early Christian Church, to destroy or mutilate life at its very quick, lusting in their dark power to annihilate all living impulses, both their own and those of their neighbour.
‘For all of which the Christian religion served as a word, a weapon, an instrument: the instrument of their dark lust for power over the immediate life itself, as it stirred to motion in the breasts and bowels of the living….
(p.26)
‘Whereas, if we have one spark of sanity, we know that we can never possess and direct the life-mystery. The utmost of our power is to possess and destroy.
‘The life-mystery precedes us. Our simplest spontaneous movement precedes all knowing and willing. Secondly, and afterwards, we are conscious, we have voluntary control.
‘Our knowing is always secondary and subsequent to our being, which is an issue of the creative unknown. And our volition is always subsidiary to our spontaneous arrival.
(p.27)
‘The great field for the lust of control in the modern world is America. Whether we read the history of Spanish America or of English-speaking America, it is the same, a disheartening, painful record of the lusting triumph of the deliberate will.
‘On the one hand, the Spaniards in America, following the Spaniards of the Inquisition, lusted in the overweening sensual desire for repression of freedom in the spiritual self, whereas the North Americans lusted spiritually for utter repression in the sensual or passional self….
‘…The spondaneous passion of social union once destroyed, then it was possible to establish the perfect mechanical concord, the concord of a number of parts to a vast whole, a stupendous productive mechanism.
‘And this, this vast mechanical concord of innumerable machine-parts, each performing its own motion in the intricate complexity of material production, this is the clue to the western democracy.
‘It has taken more than three hundred years to build this vast living machine. It has taken just as long to produce the modern Mexican, a creature of incomprehensible sensual reactions, barely human any longer…
‘…After only two generation in New England the first Yankeed noticed that their stock had changed. The sturdy, ruddy, lusty English yeoman had disappeared, the long-jawed, sallow American took his place, with a pale, nervous women-folk such as England has only lately begun to reckon with.
‘Uprooted from the native soil, planted in strong aboriginal earth, this thing happened to the English stock. The natural impulsive being withered, the deliberate, self-determined being appeared in his place.
‘There was soon no more need to militate directly against the impulsive body. This once dispatched, man could attend to the deliberate perfection in mechanised exisence. This is what makes good business men. And in this the American is like the Jew: in that, having conquered and destroyed the instinctive, impulsive being in himself, he is free to be always deliberate, always calculated, rapid, swift, and single in practical execution as a machine.
‘The perfection of machine trimphs, of deliberate self-determined motion, is to be found in the Americans and the Jews. Hence the race talent for acting. In other races the impulsive mystery of being interferes with the deliberate intention of the individual. In these not.
‘Only, Americans and Jews suffer from a torturing frictional unease, an incapacity to rest. They must run on, like machines, or go mad. The only difference between a human machine and an iron machine is that the latter can come to an utter state of rest, the former cannot.
‘No living thing can lapse into static inertia, as a machine at rest lapses. And this is where life is indomitable. It will be mechanised, but it will never allow mechanical inertia. Hence the Orestes-like flight of unrest of Americans and Jews.’
> A few notes: Firstly the above is only sample extracts, which no doubt makes for a less meaningful read.
Second: The essay brings to mind an equally polemic book from 1923, THE CONTRAST, by Hillaire Belloc. The French born British author Belloc (1870-1953) likewise endeavours to paint the soul of the American Land as different from (and almost incomprehensible to?) the UK.
Third: Perhaps Lawrence was also influenced to some degree by the great economic historian Werner Sombart (1863-1941), that in his massive Economic History from 1902, ‘Der Moderne Kapitalismus’ (MODERN CAPITALISM), asserts that ‘America is in all it’s part a Jewish Country’. It should perhaps be noted here, that Sombart was a great admirer of the Jews (and their business acumen).
Fourth: Lawrence propounds the view that the ‘modern’ Americans are basically (living) ‘machines’. In other words, what he tries to delineate, although in a quite roundabout way typical of his generation, is a people with subdued right half-brain functions: They are mostly left-brainers, tending towards being ‘machines’ or robots.
The mainstream view of the period was, I suppose, that of Dr. Freud and his associates: It is suppressed eroticism that make humans act ‘unnaturally’?
Hence Lawrence’s proposition that the Jew’s circumcision and the New Englander’s soaking up the soul of the American lands resulted in suppression of eros and strengthning of the will (the so-called ‘will’ being based on the computations of the left-brain and not the intuition and/or empathy of the right-brain).
It would hardly be fair to have expected Lawrence to see through the ubiquitous flim-flam of Dr. Freud et al and realize, that it’s the suppression and/or malfunctioning of the right-side characteristics of the human brain, those of empathy and intuition, and not in particular of the eros, that’s the culprit – making humans tending to behave like ‘machines’ or robots (Link 1).
One of the ‘spiritual’ movements coming most in vogue in this period seem to have advanced their mission using the same fallacious logic as (more or less) formulated by Mr. Lawrence (and Dr. Freud). I have in mind the cult of Tantric Sex-Magic as propounded by Mr. Crowley and his ilk.
Their rituals soon degraded into blatant Satanism. Half a century later it’s most successful missionary perhaps was Mr. Anton Levy (writing under the name of Anton LaVey), the prolific american author and very successful founder of his own Church of Satanism in California.
The Satanists’ overindulgence in more or less perverse ritual sex is combined with their blatantly left-brain servitude or even enslavement (they name it ‘Choosing The Left Path’). Hence their cult activities (reportedly) without a trace of empathy – death, torture and licentious sex?
Their philosophy being, briefly, that arousal of the sexual energies makes you behave more ‘natural’. The fallacy in their logic? If you have choosen ‘The Left Path’ – let the left half-brain dominate you – sex or not is of little avail for the soundness or morality of your demeanour.
Without empathy there can be no true morality. And destitute of genuine morality Earthlings will never be able to navigate and survive in a dangerous, unforgiving Universe.
5. VOYAGE EN ITALIE – 1739-1740. Par Président de Brosses. Nouvelle édition préfacée et annotée par HUBERT JUIN. Le Livre Club du Libraire. 1964. 294 p. Hardcover with org. dustcover. (10 Kr)
The author, ‘comte de Tournay, baron de Montfalcon, dit President de Brosses’ was born in Dijon 1709, died 1777.
He was a prominent man of letters, author and expert historian on Italian early middle age.
His letters from travelling in Italy with several aristocratic friends 1739-1740 has been published in several editions.
This one volume edition is the most accessible, no doubt, but nevertheless not unattractive. The French Wikipedia mentions several editions of his letters, but curiously don’t mention this particular edition with one word.
In fact it’s both beautifully printed, bound and illustrated, although the paper quality is somewhat uneven throughout the book.
Here’s a small sample quote from page 223:
‘La nouvelle qui, sans doute, vous occupe beaucoup aujourd’hui a Dijon, ne fait pas moins de bruit a Rome.
‘Hier j’etais a souper au palais (ambassade) de France, chez madame Detroy, lorsqu’on vint me dire a une heure et demie apres minuit, que l’on demandait a me parler de la part de M. l’ambassadeur.
‘Ce message presse me surprit a une telle heure. Son secretaire du Brocard, entra, et me dit d’un air fort triste, que M. l’ambassadeur venait d’apprende par un courrier expres la nouvelle de la mort de M. le duc, notre gouverneur; puis il ajouta d’un air tres joyeux, que le gouvernement de Bourgogne avait ete donne au duc de Saint-Aignan, et que celui-ci, ne doutant pas de tout le plaisir que me ferait ce remplacement, l’avait sur-le-champ envoye pour me chercher et m’en faire part.
‘Nous avons ete ce matin, en corps, faire compliment a son excellence. Vous ne sauriez croire combien il est satisfait de se voir si bien place au sortir d’ici, et la joie que lui a donnee cette circonstance d’avoir, en ce moment meme a rome, six gentilshommes de son gouvernement.’
6. LA SOCIÉTÉ DU SECOND EMPIRE. Par Comte FLEURY & Louis SONOLET. Tome 4: 1867-1870. D’après les Mémoires contemporains et des documents nouveaux. Ill. (no date). 536 p. Soft cover. Ill. (10 Kr)
This is the fourth and last volume of this (reportedly) ‘major work’. Our specimen is rather well preserved and the pages uncut.
There is an extensive table of contents of the 15 chapters in the back of the volume.
Chapter 4 – ‘Les maîtres de la Science et de la Pensée’ treats of Littré, Renan, Taine and Pasteur – about ten pages each.
Here’s a sample quote from the piece about Littré, pp.290-1.
‘Partout, a la campagne aussi bien qu’a Paris, il assumait le meme formidable labeur, partout il distribuait ses heures avec la meme rigoureuse precision dans leur emploi.
‘Il se levait a huit heures. ‘Pendant, raconte-t-il, qu’on faisait ma chambre a coucher qui etait en meme temps mon cabinet de travail, je descendais au rez-de-chaussee, emportant quelque travail.
‘C’est ainsi que je fis, entre autres, la preface de mon dictionnaire. Le chancelier d’Aguesseau m’avait appris a ne pas dedaigner des moments qui paraissaient sans emploi, que sa femme inexacte faisait toujours attendre pour le diner et qui, lui presentant un livre, lui dit: ‘Voila l’oeuvre des avant-diners’.
‘A neuf heures envoyees par l’imprimeur. D’une heure a trois il assurait sa collaboration au Journal des Savants. De trois a six, il s’occupait de son grand dictionnaire. A six heures il s’asseyait devant un diner toujours pret, mangeait tres legerement, puis revenait au dictionnaire qu’il ne lachait plus.
‘Un premier relai le menait jusqu’a minuit, heure ou le quittaient sa femme et sa fille, un second jusqu’a trois heures du matin.
‘C’etait le terme qu’il s’etait fixe, mais souvent, quand la besogne n’etait pas finie, il continuait jusqu’a l’aube.
C’est avec cet horaire inflexible que Littre vint a bout de la tache quasi surhumaine que lui imposait la composition de son DICTIONNAIRE DE LA LANGUE FRANCAISE, monument gigantesque dont le premier volume parut en 1863.
‘Il avait tout prevu pour le mener a bonne fin sans l’aide de personne. Peu de temps apres la publication de ce premier volume, une forte bronchite l’avait inquite sur son etat de sante.
‘En consequence de cette alarme, son admirable conscience s’interrogea. ‘J’ai 60 ans, se dit-il, j’ai encore pres de dix ans devant moi. Combien de temps me faut-it pour achever mon dictionnaire? Combien d’heures par jour devrai-je travailler puour arriver au but que je me suit propose?’
‘Il fit som compte mathematiquement, trouva qu’il ne lui fallait pas moins de treize heures par jour et courageusement, avec une volonte jamais flechissante, il s’astreignit jusqu’a sa mort a une aussi rude obligation.’
> Littré’s five-volume dictionnaire is in fact a monumental work. The volumes are in folio, each volume in average corresponding to four volumes of ordinary dictionary size with at least 500 pages. Which makes for an ordinary 16 to 20-volume lexicon!
Link 1.
Photography, Your Brain and Napoleon
“Bad people crave power more than good people, and are also willing to do anything to get it. So bad people are in power…”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-29/take-deep-breath-mike-krieger-explains-it-all-24-words
Psychoanalysis and the Illuminati.
“Psychoanalysis and Illuminism were, in effect the same project—the Illuminist term Seelenanalyse is simply the Germanified term of psychoanalysis or vice versa
(25.July/Last upd. 20.Aug.2019)
Crossposted on www.gamleboeger.dk and
http://blocnotesimma.wordpress.com
Tweets on www.twitter.com/gamleboeger