Truth is More Sacred [antikvár]

on james joyce: 1 DEAR HERBERT: It is my fear that in this century of woe and panic literature may pass away, and that after the terrible hecatombs to come, it will be harder to find good books than the body of Osiris. These letters to you are poor oblations to the Muses, for like the Athenian women sacrificing at the tomb of Tereus, I offer you gravel instead of barley groats. Your Annals of Innocence and Experience are lovely bucolics, and your sylvan notes are quiet, whereas I am rough and feral, and am likely to bite the tradesmen of letters. Dryden owned that he could censure bad works more easily than he could praise good ones; no matter, I prefer a virile negation to a comfortable, flaccid yea. I abhor venal authors as well as the poet who is solely concerned with his dithyrambs and iambics, and who gives all his thoughts to words, without thinking about justice, affection and hope. His verses are the stibium pot of the harlot, or the hair-dye of the Colchian Medea. Though the external work be as white as the marble sepulchre, it is corrupt within. Sokrates prayed to Pan 11