19.11.01 – Monday
Softly, softly. Malthakôs. The oak leaves are falling at last — air of unreality, setting a scene (tho’ not making one). Received two glorious letters – read them in the afternoon light while waiting for the bus. Invariably waiting for the inevitable bus.
There really is something about reading Plato. I can’t explain it. The Apology is just so beautifully ugly – colloquial (one would suppose) – thinking aloud – interrupting the sense of a sentence to follow the train of thought, before returning at last to the idea at hand. All the echoes of Gorgianic jangling, instead of distracting the listener from the content, draw attention to the sense of the argument.
Epiphany of sorts – sitting in the library, trying to think of a good excuse for my lack of preparation (re: Plato) – could conceivably spend hours constructing more or less plausible reasons. Why not, then, use the time to prepare the passage – it won’t be perfect (it never is), but it will be done. And I read the passage and felt much better about everything.