Hamartini -- the tragic flaw of alcoholism.
Monkish and miserable sophistry -- Milton's judgment of University
To justify my ability with creation.
"But you're a woman. Your bark is your bite."
I was, like Milton, "church-outed by the prelates."
As Gibbon says in his Autobiography, every man has two educations: that which he receives from his teachers and that which he owes to himself.
"But every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers; the second, more personal and more important, from himself.".."happy for my eyes and my health, that my temperate ardour has never been seduced to trespass on the hours of the night."
A period of self-centered isolation.
Few men have mastered more things worth mastering -- best proof: his poems with their "undercurrent of perpetual allusion."
ohne Hast, aber ohne Rast -- without haste, but without rest -- Goethe's motto, Carlyle had it inscribed on the seal given to Goethe on the latter's b-day.
coign of seclusion -- protected corner in which to think; coign of vantage -- favorable position for observation.
the careless hedonism of the cavalier world vs. the deepening austerity of puritanism.
Monody -- an ode sung by a single person; meed -- deserved share or reward ("meed of some melodious tear", Lycidas); farrago -- confused mixture (farrago of scurrilities); lacrimae rerum -- tears for things; amanuensis -- literary assistant, one who takes dictation;
"with denial vain, and coy excuse", fame -- that last infirmity of the noble mind; Lycidas; Dryden complained that Milton saw nature through the spectacles of books; Shakespeare -- "My nature is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer's hand"; to go sore against the grain; Milton -- "...proud Imprimaturs not to be obtained without the shallow surview, but not shallow hand of some mercenary, narrow-souled, and illiterate chaplain"; who can advise may speak;
Let us remain in hell!
Since there is more content
To live in liberty, tho' all condemn'd,
Than, as his vassals, blest.
Why do I tarry? My innerds are not yet ripe. I have not yet completed to my mind the full circle of my private studies.
"That by labor and intense study, joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to aftertimes, as they should not willingly let it die." -- Milton
'Tis a toilsome vanity to make verbal curiosities the end.
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; And when they list, their lean and flashy songs grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; the hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, but swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw, rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread; besides what the grim wolf with privy paw daily devours apace, and nothing said.
For so to interpose a little ease, let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.
Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high; tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
Be not, ye poets, mere idle singers of an empty day!
Gaming, drinking, fencing, swearing, quarreling, and drabbing (whoring) are companions noted and most known in youth and liberty. I, for one, am open to incontinency.
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, with windlasses and with assays of bias, by indirections find directions out. Observe his inclination in yourself, and let him ply his music.
It is proper in our age to cast beyond ourselves in our opinions, as it is common for the younger sort to lack discretion.
