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Such The Golden Crocus,
Fair Flower Of Early Spring; The Gopher White,
And Fragrant Thyme, And All The Unsown Beauty
Which in moist grounds the verdant meadows bear;
The ox-eye, the sweet-smelling flower of love,
The chalca, and
The much-sung hyacinth,
And the low-growing violet, to which
Dark Proserpine a darker hue has given.
They come nearest to our own violets and cowslips - the unsown beauty of
our meadows - to the hawthorn leaf and the high pinewood. I can forget all
else that I have read, but it is difficult to forget these even when I
will. I read them in English. I had the usual Latin and Greek
instruction, but I read them in English deliberately. For the inflexion
of the vowel I care nothing; I prize the idea. Scholars may regard me
with scorn. I reply with equal scorn. I say that a great classic thought
is greater to an English mind in English words than in any other form,
and therein fits best to this our life and day. I read them in English
first, and intend to do so to the end. I do not know what set me on these
books, but I began them when about eighteen. The first of all was
Diogenes Laertius's 'Lives of the Philosophers.' It was a happy choice;
my good genius, I suppose, for you see I was already fairly well read in
modern science, and these old Greek philosophies set me thinking
backwards, unwinding and unlearning, and getting at that eidolon which is
not to be found in the mechanical heavens of this age.
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