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Furth in Field; A Volume of Essays on the Life, Language and Literature of Old Scotland
Furth in Field A Volume of Essays on the Life Language and Literature of Old Scotland Author:James Logie Robertson General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1894 Original Publisher: T. F. Unwin Subjects: Scotland Leven, River (Strathclyde, Scotland) Leven, Loch History / Europe / Great Britain Literary Criticism / Poetry Poetry / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Travel / Europe / Great Britain Notes: This is a black... more » and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: ALL FOOLS' DAY. It is with a touch of characteristic humour that Lamb, in the delightful essays of Elia, makes incidental reference to All Fools' Day as "the general holiday." The expression may be said to imply sarcasm, but there is no sting in it -- for it covers the speaker. It is genial and gently insinuated. As genially inclusive but more explicit is the testimony of Sir Walter: "All Fools' Day, the only saint that keeps up some degree of credit in the world; for fools we are with a vengeance." How different is the direct denunciation of Carlyle, that the population of these islands -- a representative community -- amounts to so many millions, " mostly fools !" One is certain the grim censor did not include himself. There is a time for everything, says Solomon; and the world, in addition to indiscriminate and mostly unseasonable indulgence of the frailty, has even set apart a statutory time for the practice of folly. Even the grave and ponderous Roman, dominus orbis terrarum, stooped to hy-jinks, and found it sweet in its place; he permitted the Saturnalia, when Davus domineered, and he donned the demeanour of Davus, and topsyturvydom reigned in the social world. Christianity, which put an end to the folly of Pagan worship, foundit a harder task to suppress the folly of Pagan fun, and was fain to compound for the loss of its dignity by a nominal control of the...« less