From Erasmus of Rotterdam by Stefan Zweig:

Erasmus loved books, not merely for their contents, but also for their material selves, he being the first thoroughgoing bibliophile. He worshipped their form, he liked handling them, he admired their artistic presentation. His moments of sheerest happiness were those passed at Aldus’s printing-house in Venice, or with Frobenius in Basle, standing among the workers in the low-ceilinged room, receiving the galleys still damp from the press, setting up with the masters the delicate and beautiful initial letters, running to earth like an expert huntsman with swift and finely pointed quill the most elusive of printer’s errors, deftly rounding off a clumsy phrase; to be with books, dealing with them, working at them – this seemed to him the most natural form of existence. Thus Erasmus never lived among the peoples whose lands he travelled through, never shared in their life and activities; he dwelt above them, in the clear, still ether, in the ivory tower of the artist and academician. But from this tower, which was built entirely of books and labour, he gazed forth, keen of sight like another Lynceus, in order to see and to understand clearly and correctly the living life below.

Only when the impulse to violence is inspired with an idea, or is made to serve an idea, do genuine “tumulti” occur. Then come the bloody and destructive revolutions, then the bands of ragamuffins get formed into a party hastening to obey the rallying-cry, then by organization is an army created, then does a dogma help to promote a movement. All the great and vehement conflicts that have arisen among men are more rightly described as the outcome of certain ideologies than as being due to the violence and bloodthirstiness of the human animal; for an idea may let loose the will to violence and drive it to the attack. Fanaticism, the bastard begotten out of brain and power, fancies itself dictator in the realm of thought, so that only what it thinks is acceptable and must be forced upon the whole universe; it thus splits the human community into friends or foes, adherents or opponents, heroes or criminals, believers or heretics; since it recognizes no other system than its own and no other truth than its own, it needs must resort to violence in order to curb and bridle the divine multiplicity of phenomena and to bring everything under one yoke. The forcible curtailment of mental latitude, of freedom of opinions, every kind of inquisition and censorship, of scaffold and stake – these evils were not brought into the world by blind violence, but by rigidly staring fanaticism, that genius of one-sidedness, that hereditary enemy of universality, that captive of a single idea which would shut the whole world up in a cage.

But lo, like a belated swallow, someone came knocking at his window already frosted by the cold of approaching winter. A message flew in to greet him with reverence and love. “Everything that I do, all that I am, I owe to you; and, were I to fail in acknowledging my debt, I should prove the most ungrateful man alive. Salve itaque etiam atque etiam, pater amantissime, pater desusque patriae, literarum assertor, veritatis propugnator invictissime.” (Greeting and yet again greeting, dearest father and honour of the land which gave you birth, champion of the arts, invincible fighter for truth.) The name of the man who wrote these words, and one which was destined to outshine even the name of Erasmus, was Rabelais, who in the dawn of his youthful glory thus acclaimed the dying master whose sun was about to set.

New at IWP Books: Erasmus of Rotterdam (1934) by Stefan Zweig. (Review by Brad Bigelow, at Neglected Books)

“Every book worth reading at all should immediately be read twice, partly because we understand things better in their context the second time and only really understand the beginning when we know the end, and partly because we bring a different spirit and mood to every passage the second time around, which makes for a different impression and is as if we view an object in another light.” (Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena)

“How is ‘real book’ defined? Quite simply: it is a book one wants to reread. It can stand rereading because it is very full – of ideas and feelings, of scenes and persons real or imagined, of strange accidents and situations and judgments of behavior: it is a world in itself, like and unlike the world already in our head. For this reason, this fullness, it may well be ‘hard to get into.’ But it somehow compels one to keep turning the page, and at the end the wish to reread is clear and strong: one senses that the work contains more than met the eye the first time around.” (Jacques Barzun, Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning)

In the république des instituteurs, Emile-Auguste Chartier was sovereign. He signed himself “Alain.” His was, unquestionably, a commanding presence in European moral and intellectual history. His influence permeated French education and significant elements in French politics from 1906, the year of Dreyfus’s rehabilitation, to the late 1940s. Alain’s prose possesses unsurpassed economy and clarity. His stoic integrity held generations of pupils and disciples spellbound. Comparison with Socrates became routine. Alain was “the sage in the city,” the Maître des maîtres. In addition to philosophical and political writings, in addition to essays on the arts and on poetry, such as his elucidation of Valéry’s La Jeune Parque, Alain published autobiographical reflections. L’Histoire de mes pensées of 1936 is a jewel. As are his meditations on war in Mars.

Yet the very name of Alain is virtually unknown in the Anglo-American world. Hardly any of his writings have been translated. Why should this be? I have no good answer. There is, no doubt, a problem of context. Alain’s Propos, the succinct but often highly wrought memoranda of which he published some five thousand in the daily or weekly press from 1906 to 1936 – there is a hiatus between 1914 – touch on “universals”; but they do so with incisive reference to the immediate, to the political, social, ideological, or artistic occasion of the day. Alain’s brevities assume shared knowledge. For any outsider, for French readers after the second world war and the young today, the informing circumstance has faded. Alain’s texts, moreover, were resonant with his teaching voice. With the distancing, with the disappearance of the man, the life-giving force may have drained from the page. Nevertheless, so much wisdom and warmth of feeling endures. Again: why the blank in British and American awareness? (Lessons of the Masters, George Steiner)

My long pupilship with Jacques Barzun began when I was a sophomore at Columbia College and he was an instructor teaching a course entitled “The Historical Background of English Literature.” We students were asked to read a long series of excerpts from notable authors, together with Trevelyan’s History of England, but the class discussions took an unexpected turn. At the first meeting, as I remember it, Mr. Barzun introduced Byron’s irregular sonnet beginning “She walks in beauty like the night” to illustrate the method of relating a literary work to the historical setting in which it was produced. The class flung itself upon this example with avidity and, with the instructor’s encouragement, found so much to consider in the piece that its eighteen lines and their historical background remained our topic for most of the term. The lesson I still retain from that course is that the close, patient and unhurried reading of a single text is more profitable than the hasty reading of many. (Theodore Caplow, in Dora B. Weiner and William R. Keylor, eds., From Parnassus: Essays in Honor of Jacques Barzun)

Pour mon goût, voyager c’est faire à la fois un mètre ou deux, s’arrêter et regarder de nouveau un nouvel aspect des mêmes choses. Souvent, aller s’asseoir un peu à droite ou à gauche, cela change tout, et bien mieux que si je fais cent kilomètres. (Propos Sur le Bonheur, Alain)

From The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, Edited by Clifton Fadiman:

During William Morris’s last visit to Paris, he spent much of his time in the restaurant of the Eiffel Tower, either eating or writing. When a friend observed that he must be very impressed by the tower to spend so much time there, Morris snorted, “Impressed! I remain here because it’s the only place in Paris where I can avoid seeing the damn thing.”

Censuring Stalin at a public meeting, Khrushchev was interrupted by a voice from the audience. “You were one of Stalin’s colleagues,” shouted the heckler. “Why didn’t you stop him?” “Who said that?” roared Khrushchev. There was an agonizing silence in the room. Nobody dared to move a muscle. Then, in a quiet voice, Khrushchev said, “Now you know why.”

A Thessalian brought an exceptionally beautiful horse, named Bucephalus, to the Macedonian court, offering to sell it to King Philip. However, when the royal grooms tried to test its paces it proved wild and unmanageable. The young Alexander asked his father for permission to try his skill. Philip reluctantly agreed, saying that if the prince failed to ride Bucephalus he was to pay his father a forfeit equal to its price. Alexander walked quickly to the horse’s head and turned it to face into the sun, for he had noticed that the horse’s own shadow was upsetting it. He calmed it, then mounted it, and Bucephalus obediently showed off his paces. The court, which had feared for the prince’s safety, broke into loud applause. Philip was overjoyed. He kissed his son, saying, “Seek another kingdom that may be worthy of your abilities, for Macedonia is too small for you.”

After Einstein had gone into exile, a hundred Nazi professors published a book condemning his theory of relativity. Einstein was unconcerned. “If I were wrong,” he said, “one professor would have been enough.”

During the Peloponnesian War an eclipse occurred when Pericles was about to set out to sea. As the pilot was too terrified to perform his duties, Pericles stepped forward and covered the man’s head with his cloak. “does this frighten you?” he asked. “No,” said the pilot. “Then what difference is there between the two events,” inquired Pericles, “except that the sun is covered by a larger object than my cloak?”

Some months after the end of his term as president, Eisenhower was asked if leaving the White House had affected his golf game. “Yes,” he replied, “a lot more people beat me now.”

New at IWP Books: Jeremiah (1917) by Stefan Zweig.

Fogem as neves frias
dos altos montes, quando reverdecem
as árvores sombrias;
as verdes ervas crescem,
e o prado ameno de mil cores tecem.

Zéfiro brando espira;
suas setas Amor afia agora;
Progne triste suspira
e Filomela chora;
o Céu da fresca terra se enamora.

Vai Vênus Citereia
com os coros das Ninas rodeada;
a linda Panopeia,
despida e delicada,
com as duas irmãs acompanhada.

Enquanto as oficinas
dos Cíclopes Vulcano está queimando,
vão colhendo boninas
as Ninfas e cantando,
a terra co ligeiro pé tocando.

Desce do duro monte
Diana, já cansada d’espessura,
buscando a clara fonte
onde, por sorte dura,
perdeu Actéon a natural figura.

Assim se vai passando
a verde Primavera e seco Estio;
trás ele vem chegando
depois o Inverno frio,
que também passará por certo fio.

Ir-se-á embranquecendo
com a frígida neve o seco monte;
e Júpiter, chovendo,
turbará a clara fonte;
temerá o marinheiro a Orionte.

Porque, enfim, tudo passa;
não sabe o tempo ter firmeza em nada;
e nossa vida escassa
foge tão apressada
que, quando se começa, é acabada.

Que foram dos Troianos
Hector temido, Eneias piadoso?
Consumiram-te os anos,
Ó Cresso tão famoso,
sem te valer teu ouro precioso.

Todo o contentamento
crias que estava no tesouro ufano?
Ó falso pensamento
que, à custa de teu dano,
do douto Sólon creste o desengano!

O bem que aqui se alcança
não dura, por possante, nem por forte;
que a bem-aventurança
durável de outra sorte
se há-de alcançar, na vida, para a morte.

Porque, enfim, nada basta
contra o terrível fim da noite eterna;
nem pode a deusa casta
tornar à luz supernal?
Hipólito, da escura noite averna.

Nem Teseu esforçado,
com manha nem com força rigorosa,
livrar pode o ousado
Piritoo da espantosa
prisão leteia, escura e tenebrosa.

From 2007, Arthur Krystal on Jacques Barzun:

Next month, Barzun, the eminent historian and cultural critic, will turn one hundred. His idea of celebrating his centenary is to put the finishing touches on his thirty-eighth book (not counting translations). Among his areas of expertise are French and German literature, music, education, ghost stories, detective fiction, language, and etymology. Barzun has examined Poe as proofreader, Abraham Lincoln as stylist, Diderot as satirist, and Liszt as reader; he has burnished the reputations of Thomas Beddoes, James Agate, and John Jay Chapman; and he has written so many reviews and essays that his official biographer is loath to put a number on them. There’s nothing hasty or haphazard about these evaluations. Barzun’s breadth of erudition has been a byword among friends and colleagues for six decades. Yet, in spite of his degrees and awards (he was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur and has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom), Barzun regards himself in many respects as an “amateur” (the Latin root, amator, means “lover”), someone who takes genuine pleasure in what he learns about. More than any other historian of the past four generations, Barzun has stood for the seemingly contradictory ideas of scholarly rigor and unaffected enthusiasm.

“Before 1914 the critics and scholars of Central Europe were particularly free of national bias. They wrote about past and present art with such zeal and sympathy as to diffuse an atmosphere akin to that of the cosmopolitan 18C. It contributed to the mood of joy in creation and appreciation that made later comers look back on those years as a belle époque. Artists traveled freely — no passports or visas — many to Paris, where they might stay for a time, because the excitement there was the hottest; and, when back in Berlin, Vienna, Prague, or St. Petersburg, they merged their newfound inspirations with local influences and independent innovations. [The book to read is The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig.]” (Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence)