"Scholarly writing is almost as corrupting a trade as play-acting. The great majority of one's colleagues are vulgar and petty and devoted to the business of bringing those characteristics to ever fuller bloom. Anyone who enters it with any idealistic notions will have a hard time controlling his disgust and hatred."
- Theodor Mommsen, 1878, in a letter to a (scholarly) associate.
These days, it's not all that bad. Mommsen was just bitter and old and German. If tyrannies are best moderated by assassination, academia is at least moderated by alcoholism. And since "beer does more than Milton can, to justify God's ways to man," we're in good hands.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed
ReplyDeleteFrancis