The gift of God must be made
perfect by the use of the file, by long waiting, and by conscious
intellectual discipline.
3. HORACE THE INTERPRETER
OF HIS TIMES
HORACE THE DUALITY
Varied as were Horace's experiences, they were mainly of two kinds, and
there are two Horaces who reflect them. There is a more natural Horace,
simple and direct, of ordinary Italian manners and ideals, and a less
natural Horace, finished in the culture of Greece and the
artificialities of life in the capital. They might be called the
unconventional and the conventional Horace.
This duality is only the reflection of the two-fold experience of Horace
as the provincial village boy and as the successful literary man of the
city. The impressions received from Venusia and its simple population of
hard-working, plain-speaking folk, from the roaring Aufidus and the
landscape of Apulia, from the freedman father's common-sense instruction
as he walked about in affectionate companionship with his son, never
faded from Horace's mind. The ways of the city were superimposed upon
the ways of the country, but never displaced nor even covered them.
Pages:
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42