"SamuelButler-CambridgePieces" - читать интересную книгу автора (Butler Samuel)

SAMUEL BUTLER'S CAMBRIDGE PIECES

by Samuel Butler




Contents:
On English Composition and Other Matters
Our Tour
Translation from an Unpublished Work of Herodotus
The shield of Achilles, with variations
Prospectus of the Great Split Society
Powers
A skit on examinations
An Eminent Person
Napoleon at St. Helena
THE TWO DEANS
The Battle of Alma Mater
On the Italian Priesthood
Samuel Butler and the Simeonites



ON ENGLISH COMPOSITION AND OTHER MATTERS



This essay is believed to be the first composition by Samuel Butler
that appeared in print. It was published in the first number of the
EAGLE, a magazine written and edited by members of St. John's
College, Cambridge, in the Lent Term, 1858, when Butler was in his
fourth and last year of residence.

[From the Eagle, Vol. 1, No. 1, Lent Term, 1858, p. 41.]

I sit down scarcely knowing how to grasp my own meaning, and give it
a tangible shape in words; and yet it is concerning this very
expression of our thoughts in words that I wish to speak. As I muse
things fall more into their proper places, and, little fit for the
task as my confession pronounces me to be, I will try to make clear
that which is in my mind.

I think, then, that the style of our authors of a couple of hundred
years ago was more terse and masculine than that of those of the
present day, possessing both more of the graphic element, and more
vigour, straightforwardness, and conciseness. Most readers will
have anticipated me in admitting that a man should be clear of his
meaning before he endeavours to give to it any kind of utterance,
and that having made up his mind what to say, the less thought he