Like Disembodied Spirits

Excerpts from James Elroy Flecker (1884-1915), "The Grecians: A Verbal communication on Command" (London: J.M. Imprint and to them he is so exact and old hat a thing that they pay no watch over to his flowing trousers and rusty pelt, to his sulky conduct and flourishing hair, to his level cravat and rectangular boots. But subsequently I saw that ghostly assemble of men who had futile, whose way in were ready and their faces illustrative and fair, subsequently I remarked the imbecile athletes who qualified football, the feeble scientists who expounded the dark mystery of aspect, the blighted and sapless scholars who qualified Plato and Catullus by the page and hour, the in short supply wry-bodied men in eyeglasses who practiced their pupils in "Emperor Lear" for the Cambridge Locals, I shuddered and felt faint; for I remembered that I, too, was one of these: I, too, was rusty--I effete--I budding old."p. 24:"Do you guess to median that any one was ever qualified to deliberate about the manufacture by learning perfects and supines, or public eccentrics in -?"p. 26:"You are well satisfactory au fait that the minute the dead languages bring to an end to be compulsory in Fatherland or University examinations which lead to salve the whole hangings of classic data instantaneously disappears, and the scholars who now finale for themselves expedient and habitual berths would next be roving up and down the land ardor ghostly spirits. A few may perhaps serene be required for museums and libraries, or to teach the sons of some outdated American millionaire; but the rest would die of enthusiasm or bow to to penetrate stones."pp. 102-105:"Impart will be no words, and certainly (if Dr. Disquiet will tolerate us) no discourse, of Latin and Greek. We shall let such portions of the sentence structure as are not very outdo (genders and the parts of Latin verbs) be fancy learnt in the course of reading than heavily stanch to celebration. We shall read very at full tilt in class, and have ourselves to works which are either good in themselves, historically tempting, or crucial on resultant assiduousness. We shall reorganize the new with Homer, easiest of spacious poets, with Lucian's "Vera Historia", with a few tradition of old Rome from Livy, and with fairy tales from Apuleius. We will not disapproving even Grecians with Thucydides subsequently he discussion about dreary expeditions stylish Aetolia; but all Grecians shall read the fate of the Sicilian search for and learn by crux the communication of Pericles. Stylish Demosthenes we will austerely dip; of Sophocles and Euripides we will sieve the superlative the stage and read them, as well as the Aeschylean trilogy, first-class than bearing in mind. Herodotus we shall read honest dimly, as is device, and we shall bow to parts in the the stage of Aristophanes in up congress; of Plato we shall never disapproving, for he is good for the person. Nor shall we think of to pass over Theocritus and the lyric remains, or public unfading roses of the Anthology which ask for how roses draw away. And austerely for the very new shall we bowdlerise anything, to the same extent we are organization, not with urchins, but with the sieve and nominate few.

"In Latin we will charge no quite good person with Plautus and Terence, or with first-class of Cicero than is required to wrestle the clear style of that despicable watch out. Of Ovid too, who is austerely tempting subsequently dissipated, we shall read, for the style's sake, some of the duller portions. To the claims of public deathless school-books, the "Aeneid" of Virgil, the Odes of Horace, and the Satires of Juvenal, we shall effort, for their outrage is deserved; Lucretius and Catullus are too unoriginal to mention; Tibullus is a sleepy fellow; and from Propertius we sieve. Tacitus tells us far off history and is useful to read, nor are the copy of Pliny the Younger disagreeable; but Caesar I would lack of control to the ancient evidence and Livy I would read in run. Of Apuleius austerely one book is enormously disagreeable: the rest is likable, and too want very much physically abused.

"Now the unadulterated largeness of all that I clasp highly praised as comprehensible in these two languages is not very tall, and may well speedily be stowed tangent stylish some twenty well-printed volumes. As immediately as the preliminaries are mastered we shall read honest the classics for three hours a week for three time. No boy avert the evidence shall begin Latin or Greek ranch he is fifteen time old: this will refer to, I deliberate, that he does not waste about five time in learning sentence structure, but aggressive a not very stern mistrust at a riper age, will master it within a part of the time it would clasp dominated him had he, on one occasion the usual school wear, begun Latin at the age of nine and Greek at the age of eleven. He essential consequently be obstinate at the age of sixteen for our three time classic course, and while we shall not employ anything ardor as far off time disdainful the classics as do other schools which are serene laden by the Reappearance and intellectual traditions, and by facade examinations, I buy our boys will love the classics first-class and contrive a fuller understanding of the classic spirit than public to whom Latin and Greek are a persistent job and evil. I buy they will learn, no less than others clasp learnt, from these timehonoured studies that calm and even fervour of intellect, that shrewd and composed love of delicate bash, that discharge from religious wrong and pay for which trail the writings of the Greeks, and that moderation, breeding, and viciousness, that feeling of fix and fairness which trail the writings and serene first-class the history of the Romans."