Of Academics
For the words and facts of the ancients are as bricks, from which we build the fortresses of our arguments, ever quarreling over the lines of the walls. These walls are torn down and rebuilt with such haste and such fury, that it does not seem strange when they are torn down again, or prove useless for defense. For that is the point, is it not? That is why we build these walls, to have some sort of defense—to collect the little commonality of mankind into some semblance of order…
And for this I sit in my room, walled round with books, and play with smaller blocks, culled from one work rather than a corpus, as toys. Is it any wonder, then, that being used to playing at construction, when called upon to handle mortar I find myself at a loss? Why expend the labor on a wall to be torn down, even if one does see how the bricks might go?
From the streets seep the sounds of the football fans, set free from the evening’s match; I do not know who won.