from John Lyly's Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit (1578)
There dwelt in Athens a young gentleman of great patrimonie, and of so comely a personage, that it was doubted whether he was more bound to nature for the liniaments of his person, or to fortune for the encrease of his possessions. But Nature impatient of comparisons, and as it were disdaining a companion, or copartner 5 in hir working, added to this comlinesse of his body suche a sharpe capacitie of minde, that not onely shee proued Fortune counterfaite, but was halfe of that opinion that she hir selfe was onely currant. This younge gallant, of more wit then wealth, and yet of more wealth then wisdome, seeing himselfe inferiour to none in pleasant 10 conceipts, thought himselfe superiour to al in honest conditions, insomuch that he deemed himselfe so apt to all things, that he gave himselfe almost to nothing, but practising of those things comonly which are incident to these sharp wits, fine phrases, smoth quipping, merry taunting, using jesting without meane, & abusing mirth 15 without measure. As therefore the sweetest Rose hath his prickel, the finest velvet his brack, the fairest flowre his bran, so the sharpest witte hath his wanton will, and the holiest heade his wicked way. And true it is that some men write and most men beleeve, that in 20 all perfecte shapes, a blemish bringeth rather a liking every way to the eyes, then a loathing any waye to the minde. Venus had hir Mole in her cheeke which made hir more amiable: Helen hir scarre on hir chinne which Paris called Cos amoris, the Whetstone of love. Aristippus his wart, Lycurgus his wenne: So likewise in the dis- position of the minde, either vertue is overshadowed with some vice, 26 or vice overcast with some vertue. Alexander valiaunt in warre, yet gyven to wine. Tully eloquent in his gloses, yet vayneglorious: Salomon wyse, yet to too wanton: David holye but yet an homicide: none more wittie then Euphues, yet at the first none more wicked. 30 The freshest colours soonest fade, the teenest Rasor soonest tourneth his edge, the finest cloathe is soonest eaten wyth Moathes, and the Cambricke sooner stained then the coarse Canvas: whiche appeared well in this Euphues, whose witte beeinge lyke waxe apte to receive any impression, havinge the bridle in his owne handes, either 35 to use the rein or the spurre, disdayning counsayle, leauinge his countrey, loathinge his olde acquaintance, thought either by wytte to obteyne some conquest, or by shame to abyde some conflicte, and leaving the rule of reason, rashly ranne vnto destruction.... When parent have more care how to leave their children wealthy 40 then wise, & are more desirous to have them mainteine the name, then the nature of a gentleman; when they put gold into the hands of youth, where they should put a rod vnder their gyrde, when in steed of awe they make them past grace, & leave them rich executors of goods, & poore executors of godlynes, then is it no meruaile, that the son 45 being left rich by his fathers Will, become retchles by his owne will. ... There frequented to his lodging and mansion house as well the Spider to sucke poyson, of his fine wit, as the Bee to gather honny, as well the Drone, as the Dove, the Foxe as the Lambe, as well 50 Damocles to betraye him, as Damon to be true to hym. ... They might also have taken example of the wise husbandmen, who in their fattest and most fertile grounde sowe Hempe before Wheate, a graine that dryeth up the superfluous moisture, and maketh the soile more apte for corne: Or of good Gardeiners who in their 55 curious knottes mixe Hisoppe with Time as ayders the one to the growth of the other, the one beeinge drye, the other moyste: or of cunning Painters who for the whitest worke caste the blakest grounde, to make the Picture more amiable. ... But thinges past, are paste callinge againe, it is to late 60 to shutte the stable doore when the steede is stolen: .... Shakespeare's Parody of Euphuistic Prose in 1 Henry IV: Falstaff: Peace, good pint pot; peach, good tickle-brain.-- Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied; for though the camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it 5 wears. That thou art my son I have partly thy mother's word, partly my own opinion, but chiefly a villainous trick of thine eye and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point: why, being son to me, art thou so 10 pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher and eat blackberries? A question not to be asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief and take purses? A question to be asked. there is a thing, Harry, Which though hast often heard of, and it is known 15 to many in our land by the name of pitch. This pitch, As ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company though keepest. For, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink but in tears, not in pleasure but in passion, not in words only but in woes also. And yet 20 there is a virtuous man whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name. ...If that man should be lwedly given, he deceiveth me; for Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff. from Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms Chapter 1 In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves. The plain was rich with crops; there were many orchards of fruit trees and beyond the plain the mountains were brown and bare. There was fighting in the mountains and at night we could see the flashes from the artillery. In the dark it was like summer lightning, but the nights were cool and there was not the feeling of a storm coming. Sometimes in the dark we heard the troops marching under the window and guns going past pulled by motor-tractors. There was much traffic at night and many mules on the roads with boxes of ammunition on each side of their pack-saddles and gray motor-trucks that carried men, and other trucks with loads covered with canvas that moved slower in the traffic. There were big guns too that passed in the day drawn by tractors, the long barrels of the guns covered with green branches and green leafy branches and vines laid over the tractors. To the north we could look across a valley and see a forest of chestnut trees and behind it another mountain on this side of the river. There was fighting for that mountain too, but it was not successful, and in the fall when the rains came the leaves all fell from the chestnut trees and the branches were bare and the trunks black with rain. the vine- yards were thin and bare-branched too and all the country wet and brown and dead with the autumn. There were mists over the river and clouds on the mountain and the trucks splashed mud on the road and the troops were muddy and wet in their capes; their rifles were wet and under their capes the two leather cartridge-boxes on the front of the belts, gray leather boxes heavy with the packs of clips of thin, long 6.5 mm. cartridges, bulged forward under the capes so that the men, passing on the road, marched as though they were six months gone with child. There were small gray motor-cars that passed going very fast; usually there was an officer on the seat with the driver and more officers in the back seat. They splashed more mud than the camions even and if one of the officers in the back was very small and sitting between two generals, he himself so small that you could not see his face but only the top of his cap and his narrow back and if the car went especially fast it was probably the King. He lived in Udine and came out in this way nearly every day to see how things wee going, and things went very badly. At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand died of it in the army.
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