As others see us
. . . both as Americans and as writers . . .
I was rereading Byron's letters and journals over breakfast, and these two entries caught my eye:
Whenever an American requests to see me-(which is not unfrequently) I comply-firstly, because I respect a people who acquired their freedom by firmness without excess-and secondly, because these transatlantic visits “few and far between” make me feel as if talking with Posterity from the other side of the Styx: in a century or two the new English and Spanish Atlantides will be masters of the old Countries in all probability-as Greece and Europe overcame their Mother Asia in the older or earlier ages as they are called.
On him being compared to Rousseau, after he enumerates all the figures to whom he's been compared, from Satan to Harlequin to Euripides:
I can't see any point of resemblance-he wrote prose-I verse-he was of the people-I of the Aristocracy--he was a philosopher-I am none-he published his first work at forty-I mine at eighteen-his first essay brought him universal applause-mine the contrary-he married his housekeeper-I could not keep house with my wife-he thought all the world in a plot against him; my little world seems to think me in a plot against it-if I may judge by their abuse in print and coterie.
I was rereading Byron's letters and journals over breakfast, and these two entries caught my eye:
Whenever an American requests to see me-(which is not unfrequently) I comply-firstly, because I respect a people who acquired their freedom by firmness without excess-and secondly, because these transatlantic visits “few and far between” make me feel as if talking with Posterity from the other side of the Styx: in a century or two the new English and Spanish Atlantides will be masters of the old Countries in all probability-as Greece and Europe overcame their Mother Asia in the older or earlier ages as they are called.
On him being compared to Rousseau, after he enumerates all the figures to whom he's been compared, from Satan to Harlequin to Euripides:
I can't see any point of resemblance-he wrote prose-I verse-he was of the people-I of the Aristocracy--he was a philosopher-I am none-he published his first work at forty-I mine at eighteen-his first essay brought him universal applause-mine the contrary-he married his housekeeper-I could not keep house with my wife-he thought all the world in a plot against him; my little world seems to think me in a plot against it-if I may judge by their abuse in print and coterie.