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14 - Erasmus and the Age of Reformation by Johan Huizinga · Erasmus and the Age of Reformation

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  Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen of Erasmus and the Age of Reformation. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: dot org. Recorded by Trenton. Erasmus and the Age of
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  Speaker 1: Reformation by Johann Hussinga, translated by Frederic Johan Hopmann, Chapter fourteen.
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  Speaker 1: Erasmus's character need of purity and cleanliness, delicacy, dislike of contention,
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  Speaker 1: need of concord and friendship, aversion to disturbance of any kind,
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  Speaker 1: too much concerned about other men's opinions, need of self
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  Speaker 1: justification himself never in the wrong correlation between inclinations and convictions,
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  Speaker 1: ideal image of himself, dissatisfaction with himself, self centeredness, solitary
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  Speaker 1: at heart, fastidiousness, suspiciousness, morbid mistrust, unhappiness, restlessness, unsolved contradictions
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  Speaker 1: of his being, horror of lies, reserve, and insinuation. Erasmus's
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  Speaker 1: powerful mind met with a great response in the heart
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  Speaker 1: of his contemporaries and had a lasting influence on the
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  Speaker 1: march of civilization. But one of the heroes of history
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  Speaker 1: he cannot be called, was not his failure to attain
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  Speaker 1: the still loftier heights, partly due to the fact that
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  Speaker 1: his character was not on a level with the elevation
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  Speaker 1: of his mind. And yet that character, a very complicated one,
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  Speaker 1: though he took himself to be the simplest man in
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  Speaker 1: the world, was determined by the same factors which determine
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  Speaker 1: the structure of his mind. Again and again we find
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  Speaker 1: in his inclinations the correlates of his convictions. At the
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  Speaker 1: root of his moral being, we find a key to
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  Speaker 1: the understanding of his character, that same profound need of
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  Speaker 1: purity which drove him to the sources of sacred science.
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  Speaker 1: Purity in the material and the moral sense, is what
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  Speaker 1: he desires for himself and others always, and in all things.
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  Speaker 1: Few things revolt him so much as the practices of
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  Speaker 1: vintner's who doctor wine, and dealers who adulterate food. If
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  Speaker 1: he continually chastens his language and style, or exculpates himself
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  Speaker 1: from mistakes, it is the same impulse which prompts his
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  Speaker 1: passionate desire for cleanliness and brightness of the home and
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  Speaker 1: of the body. He has a violent dislike of stuffy
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  Speaker 1: air and smelly substances. He regularly takes a roundabout way
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  Speaker 1: to avoid a maluterous lane. He loathes shambles and fishmongers, shops,
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  Speaker 1: fetters spread infection. He thinks Erasmus had earlier than most
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  Speaker 1: people antiseptic ideas about the danger in fact, in the
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  Speaker 1: foul air of crowded inns, in the breath of confessants,
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  Speaker 1: in baptismal water. Throw aside common cups. He pleaded, let
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  Speaker 1: everybody shave himself, Let us be cleanly as to bed sheets,
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  Speaker 1: let us not kiss each other by way of greeting.
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  Speaker 1: The fear of the horrible venereal disease imported into Europe
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  Speaker 1: during his lifetime, and of which Erasmus watched. The unbridled
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  Speaker 1: propagation with solicitude, increases his desire for purity. Too little
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  Speaker 1: is being done to stop it. He thinks. He cautions
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  Speaker 1: against suspected ends. He wants to have measures taken against
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  Speaker 1: the marriages of syphilitic persons. In his undignified attitude toward Hutton,
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  Speaker 1: his physical and moral aversion to the man's evil plays
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  Speaker 1: an unmistakable part. Erasmus is a delicate soul in all
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  Speaker 1: his fibers. His body forces him to be that he
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  Speaker 1: is highly sensitive, among other things, very susceptible to cold,
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  Speaker 1: the scholars disorder, as he calls it. Early in life,
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  Speaker 1: already the painful malady of the stone begins to torment him,
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  Speaker 1: which he resisted so bravily when his work was at stake.
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  Speaker 1: He always speaks in a coddling tone about his little body,
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  Speaker 1: which cannot stand fasting, which must be kept fit by
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  Speaker 1: some exercise, namely writing, and for which he carefully tries
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  Speaker 1: to find a suitable climate. He is at time circumstantial
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  Speaker 1: in description of his ailments. He has to be very
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  Speaker 1: careful in the matter of his sleep, if once he
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  Speaker 1: wakes up he finds it difficult to go to sleep again,
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  Speaker 1: and because of that has often to lose the morning,
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  Speaker 1: the best time to work, and which is so dear
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  Speaker 1: to him. He cannot stand cold, wind and fog, but
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  Speaker 1: still less overheated rooms. How he has execrated the German stoves,
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  Speaker 1: which are burned nearly all the year through and made
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  Speaker 1: Germany almost unbearable to him. It is not only the
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  Speaker 1: plague which he flees for fear of catching cold. He
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  Speaker 1: gives up a journey from Levant to Antwerp, where his
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  Speaker 1: friend Peter Giles is in mourning, although he realizes quite
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  Speaker 1: well that quote often a great deal of the disease
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  Speaker 1: is in the imagination unquote. Yet his own imagination leaves
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  Speaker 1: him no peace. Nevertheless, when he is seriously ill, he
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  Speaker 1: does not fear death. His hygienics amount to temperance, cleanliness,
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  Speaker 1: and fresh air, this last item in moderation. He takes
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  Speaker 1: the vicinity of the sea to be unwholesome and is
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  Speaker 1: afraid of drafts. His friend Giles, who is ill, he advises,
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  Speaker 1: do not take too much medicine, keep quiet, and do
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  Speaker 1: not get angry. Though there is a quote praise of
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  Speaker 1: medicine unquote among his works. He does not think highly
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  Speaker 1: of physicians and satirizes them more than once in the colloquies.
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  Speaker 1: Also in his outward appearance, there are certain features betraying
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  Speaker 1: his delicacy. He was of medium height, well made, of
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  Speaker 1: a fair complexion, with blonde hair and blue eyes, a
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  Speaker 1: cheerful face, and a very articulate mode of speech, but
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  Speaker 1: a thin voice. In the moral sphere, Erasmus's delicacy is
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  Speaker 1: represented by his great need of friendship and concord, his
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  Speaker 1: dislike of contention. With him peace and harmony, who rank
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  Speaker 1: above all other considerations, and he confesses them to be
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  Speaker 1: the guiding principles of his actions. He would, if it
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  Speaker 1: might be, have all the world as a friend quote wittingly,
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  Speaker 1: I discharged no one for my friendship unquote, he says.
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  Speaker 1: And though he was sometimes capricious and exacting towards his friend,
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  Speaker 1: yet a truly great friend. He was witnessed the many
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  Speaker 1: who never forsook him, or whom he, after a temporary estrangement,
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  Speaker 1: always won back Moore, Peter, Giles, Fisher, Ammonius, Bhudadaeus, and
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  Speaker 1: others too numerous to mention. He was most constant in
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  Speaker 1: keeping up friendship, says Biatus Rhanus, whose own attachment to
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  Speaker 1: Erasmus's proof of the strong affection he could inspire. At
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  Speaker 1: the root of this desire of friendship lies a great
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  Speaker 1: and sincere need of affection. Remember the effusions of almost
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  Speaker 1: feminine affections towards Servatius during his monastic period. But that
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  Speaker 1: at the same time it is a sort of moral
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  Speaker 1: serenity that makes him so an aversion to disturbance, to
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  Speaker 1: whatever is harsh and inharmonious. He calls it a certain
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  Speaker 1: occult natural sense, which makes him a bore strife. He
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  Speaker 1: cannot abide being at logger heads with any one he
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  Speaker 1: always hoped and wanted, he says, to keep his pen unbloody,
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  Speaker 1: to attack no one, to provoke no one, even if
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  Speaker 1: he were attacked. But his enemies had not willed it,
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  Speaker 1: and in later years he became well accustomed to bitter
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  Speaker 1: polemics with le Fere de Tapte, with Lee, with Egomandanus,
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  Speaker 1: with Hutton, with Luther, with with the Spaniards and the Italians.
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  Speaker 1: At first it is still noticeable how he suffers by it,
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  Speaker 1: how contention wounds him so that he cannot bear the
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  Speaker 1: pain in silence. Quote, do let us be friends again? Unquote,
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  Speaker 1: he begs Lefevre, who does not reply. The time which
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  Speaker 1: he had to devote to his polemics he regards as lost.
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  Speaker 1: I feel myself getting more heavy every day, he writes
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  Speaker 1: in fifteen twenty, not so much on the account of
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  Speaker 1: my age, but because of the restless labor of my studies,
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  Speaker 1: nay more even by the weariness of disputes, than by
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  Speaker 1: the work, which in itself is agreeable. And how much
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  Speaker 1: strife was still in store for him. Then, if only
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  Speaker 1: Erasmus had been less concerned about public opinion, but that
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  Speaker 1: seemed impossible. He had a fear of men, or may
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  Speaker 1: we call it a fervent need of justification. He would
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  Speaker 1: always see beforehand, and usually in exaggerated colors, the effect
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  Speaker 1: his word or deed would have upon men. Of himself.
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  Speaker 1: It certainly was true, as he once wrote that the
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  Speaker 1: craving for fame has less sharp spurs than the fear
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  Speaker 1: of ignominy. Erasmuss with Rousseau, among those who cannot bear
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  Speaker 1: the consciousness of guilt out of a sort of mental cleanliness.
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  Speaker 1: Not to be able to repay a benefit with interest
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  Speaker 1: makes him ashamed and sad. He cannot appide dunning creditors,
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  Speaker 1: unperformed duty, neglect of the need of a friend. If
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  Speaker 1: he cannot discharge the obligation, he explains it away. The
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  Speaker 1: Dutch history in frun has correctly observed. Quote whatever Erasmus
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  Speaker 1: did contrary to his duty and his rightly understood interest
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  Speaker 1: was the fault of circumstances or wrong advice. He is
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  Speaker 1: never to blame himself unquote, and what he has thus
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  Speaker 1: justified for himself becomes with him universal law. Quote. God
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  Speaker 1: relieves people of pernicious vows if only they repent of them,
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  Speaker 1: unquote says the man who himself had broken a vow.
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  Speaker 1: There is an Erasmus, a dangerous fusion between inclination and conviction.
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  Speaker 1: The correlations between his idiosyncrasies and his precepts are undeniable.
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  Speaker 1: This especial reference to his point of view in the
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  Speaker 1: matter of fasting and abstinence from meat. He too frequently
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  Speaker 1: vents his own aversion to fish, or talks of his
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  Speaker 1: inability to postpone meals not to make this connection clear
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  Speaker 1: to everybody. In the same way, his personal experience in
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  Speaker 1: the monastery passes into his disapproval on principle of monastic life.
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  Speaker 1: The distortion of the image of his youth in his
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  Speaker 1: memory to which we have referred is based on that
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  Speaker 1: need of self justification. It is all unconscious interpretation of
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  Speaker 1: the undeniable facts to suit the idea which Erasmus has
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  Speaker 1: made of himself, and to which he honestly thinks he answers.
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  Speaker 1: The chief features of that self conceived picture are remarkable
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  Speaker 1: simple sincerity and frankness, which make it impossible to him
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  Speaker 1: to dissemble. Inexperience and carelessness in the ordinary concerns of life,
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  Speaker 1: and a total lack of ambition. All this is true.
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  Speaker 1: In the first instance, there is a superficial Erasmus who
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  Speaker 1: answers to that image, but is not the whole Erasmus.
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  Speaker 1: There is a deeper one who is almost the opposite,
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  Speaker 1: on whom he himself does not know, because he will
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  Speaker 1: not know him. Possibly behind this there is still a
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  Speaker 1: deeper being which is truly good. Does he not ascribe
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  Speaker 1: weaknesses to himself? Certainly he is, in spite of his
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  Speaker 1: self coddling, ever, dissatisfied with himself in his work putidulus,
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  Speaker 1: he calls himself meaning the quality of never being content
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  Speaker 1: with himself. It is that peculiarity which makes him dissatisfied
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  Speaker 1: with any work of his directly after it has appeared,
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  Speaker 1: so that he always keeps revising and supplementing. Pusillanimous, he
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  Speaker 1: calls himself in writing to Collet, But again he cannot
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  Speaker 1: help giving himself credit for acknowledging that quality, nay, converting
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  Speaker 1: that quality itself into a virtue. It is modesty, the
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  Speaker 1: opposite of boasting in self love. This bashfulness about himself
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  Speaker 1: is the reason that he does not love his own physiognomy,
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  Speaker 1: and is only persuaded with difficulty by his friends to
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  Speaker 1: set for a portrait. His own appearance is not heroic
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  Speaker 1: or dignified enough for him, and he is not duped
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  Speaker 1: by an artist who flatters him. High ho, he exclaims
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  Speaker 1: on seeing Holbein's thumb nail sketch illustrating the Moorior quote.
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  Speaker 1: If Erasmus still look like that, he would take a
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  Speaker 1: wife at once. It is that deep trait of dissatisfaction
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  Speaker 1: that suggests the inscription on his portrait. His writings will
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  Speaker 1: show you a better image. Erasmus's modesty and the contempt
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  Speaker 1: which he displays of the fame that fell to his
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  Speaker 1: lot are of a somewhat rhetorical character. But in this
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  Speaker 1: we should not so much see a personal trait of
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  Speaker 1: Erasmus as a general form common to all humanists. On
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  Speaker 1: the other hand, this mood cannot be called altogether artificial.
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  Speaker 1: His books, which he calls his children, have not turned
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  Speaker 1: out well. He does not think they will live. He
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  Speaker 1: does not set store by his letters. He publishes them
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  Speaker 1: because his friends insist upon it. He writes his poems
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  Speaker 1: to try a new pen. He hopes that geniuses will
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  Speaker 1: soon appear who will eclipse in so that Erasmus will
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  Speaker 1: pass for a stammerer. What is fame a pagan's survival?
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  Speaker 1: He is fed up with it to repletion, and would
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  Speaker 1: do nothing more gladly than to cast it off. Sometimes
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  Speaker 1: another note escapes him. If lee would have help him
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  Speaker 1: in his endeavors, Erasmus would make him immortal, he has
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  Speaker 1: told the former in their first conversation, and he threatens
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  Speaker 1: an unknown adversary. If you go on so imprudently to
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  Speaker 1: assail my good name, then take care that my gentleness
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  Speaker 1: does not give way, and I cause you to be
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  Speaker 1: ranked after a thousand years among the venomous psychophants, among
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  Speaker 1: the idle boasters, among the incompetent physicians. The self centered
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  Speaker 1: element in Erasmus must needs increase accordingly as he, in
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  Speaker 1: truth became a center an objective point of ideas and culture.
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  Speaker 1: There really was a time when it must seem to
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  Speaker 1: him that the world hinged upon him, and that it
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  Speaker 1: awaited the redeeming word from him. What over wide spread
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  Speaker 1: enthusiastic following he had, how many warm friends and venerators.
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  Speaker 1: There is something naive in the way in which he
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  Speaker 1: thinks it requisite to treat all his friends in an
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  Speaker 1: open letter to a de tilled rather repellent account of
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  Speaker 1: an illness that attacked him on the way back from
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  Speaker 1: Basel to Louvain. His part, his position, his name. This
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  Speaker 1: more and more becomes the aspect under which he sees
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  Speaker 1: world events. Years will come in which his whole, enormous
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  Speaker 1: correspondence is little more than one protracted self defense. Yet
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  Speaker 1: this man, who has so many friends is nevertheless solitary
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  Speaker 1: at heart, and in the depth of that heart he
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  Speaker 1: desires to be alone. He is of a most retiring disposition.
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  Speaker 1: He is a recluse. Quote. I have always wished to
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  Speaker 1: be alone, and there is nothing I hate so much
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  Speaker 1: as sworn partisans Unquote. Erasmus is one of those whom
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  Speaker 1: contact with others weakens. The less he has to address
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  Speaker 1: and to consider others friends or enemies, the more truly
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  Speaker 1: he utters his deepest soul. Intercourse with particular people always
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  Speaker 1: causes little scruples in him, intentional amenities, coquetry, reticences, reserves,
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  Speaker 1: spiteful hits, evasions. Therefore, it should not be thought that
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  Speaker 1: we get to know him to the core from his letters.
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  Speaker 1: Natures like his, which all contact with men on settles
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  Speaker 1: give their best and deepest when they speak impersonally and
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  Speaker 1: to all. After the yearly effusions of sentiment affections, he
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  Speaker 1: no longer opens his heart unreservedly to others. At bottom,
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  Speaker 1: he feels separated from all, and on the alert towards all.
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  Speaker 1: There is a great fear in him that others will
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  Speaker 1: touch his soul or disturb the image he has made
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  Speaker 1: of himself. The attitude of Vordigov reveals itself as fastidiousness
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  Speaker 1: and as bashfulness. Puddaeus hit the mark when he exclaimed jocularly,
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  Speaker 1: fastidio sule, you, little fastidious person. Erasmus himself interprets the
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  Speaker 1: dominating trait of his being as maidenly coyness. The excessive
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  Speaker 1: sensitiveness to the stain attaching to his birth results from it.
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  Speaker 1: But his friend Ammonius speaks of his sabrustika verecundia, his
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  Speaker 1: somewhat rustic gunchery. There is indeed something of the small
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  Speaker 1: man about Erasmus, who is hampered by greatness and therefore
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  Speaker 1: shuns the great because at bottom they obsess him, and
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  Speaker 1: he feels them to be inimical to his being. It
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  Speaker 1: seems a hard thing to say that genuine loyalty and
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  Speaker 1: fervent gratefulness were strange to Erasmus, and yet such was
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  Speaker 1: his nature. In characters like his, a kind of mental
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  Speaker 1: cramp keeps back the effusions of the heart. He subscribes
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  Speaker 1: to the adage quote love so as if you may
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  Speaker 1: hate one day, and hates so as if you may
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  Speaker 1: love one day. He cannot bear benefits in his most
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  Speaker 1: inmost soul. He continually retires before everybody. He who considers
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  Speaker 1: himself the pattern of simple unsuspicion, is indeed in the
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  Speaker 1: highest degree suspicious toward all his friends. The Dedemonius, who
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  Speaker 1: had helped him so zealously in the most delicate concerns,
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  Speaker 1: is not secure from it. You are always so unfairly
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  Speaker 1: distrustful to me, Poudaeus complains what exclaims Erasmus. You will
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  Speaker 1: find few people who are so little distrustful in friendship
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  Speaker 1: as myself. When at the height of his fame the
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  Speaker 1: attention of the world was indeed fixed on all he
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  Speaker 1: spoke or did, there was some ground for a certain
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  Speaker 1: feeling on his part of being always watched and threatened.
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  Speaker 1: But when he was as yet an unknown man of
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  Speaker 1: letters in his Parisian years, we continually find traces in
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  Speaker 1: him of a mistrust of the people about him that
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  Speaker 1: can only be regarded as a morbid feeling. During the
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  Speaker 1: last period of his life, this feeling attaches especially to
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  Speaker 1: two enemies, Ependorf and Aleander. Ependorf employs spies everywhere who
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  Speaker 1: watch Erasmus's correspondence with his friend. Aleander continuously sets people
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  Speaker 1: to combat him, and lies and wait for him wherever
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  Speaker 1: he can. His interpretation of the intentions of his assailants
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  Speaker 1: has the ingenious self centered element which passes the border
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  Speaker 1: line of sanity. He sees the whole world full of
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  Speaker 1: calumny and ampuscades, threatening his peace. Nearly all those who
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  Speaker 1: once where his best friends have become his bitterest enemies.
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  Speaker 1: They wag their venomous tongues at banquets, in conversation, in
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  Speaker 1: the confessional, in sermons, in lectures at court, in vehicles
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  Speaker 1: and ships. The minder enemies, like troublesome vermin, drive him
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  Speaker 1: to weariness of life or to death by insomnia. He
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  Speaker 1: compares his tortures to the modyrdom of Saint Sebastian pierced
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  Speaker 1: by arrows, but it is worse because there is no
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  Speaker 1: end to it. For years, he has daily been dying
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  Speaker 1: a thousand deaths and that alone for his friends. If
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  Speaker 1: such there are are deterred by envy, he mercilessly pillories
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  Speaker 1: his patrons in a row for their stinginess. Now and
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  Speaker 1: again there suddenly comes to light an undercurrent of aversion hatred,
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  Speaker 1: which we did not suspect. But where had more good
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  Speaker 1: things fallen to his lot than in England? Which country
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  Speaker 1: had he always praised more? But suddenly a bitter and
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  Speaker 1: unfounded reproach escapes him. England is responsible for his having
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  Speaker 1: become faithless to his monastic vows. For no other reason
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  Speaker 1: do I hate Britain more than for this, Though it
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: has always been pestilent for me. He seldom allows himself
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  Speaker 1: to go so far. His expressions of hatred or spite are,
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  Speaker 1: as a rule, restricted to the feline. They are aimed
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  Speaker 1: at friends and enemies Bidaeus, Lipius, as well as Hutton
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  Speaker 1: and Beta. Occasionally we are struck by the expression of
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  Speaker 1: coarse pleasure at another's misfortune. But in all this, as
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  Speaker 1: regards malice, we should not measure Erasmus by our ideas
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  Speaker 1: of delicacy and gentleness. Compared with most of its contemporaries,
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  Speaker 1: he remains moderate and refined. Erasmus never felt happy, was
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  Speaker 1: never content. This may perhaps surprise us for a moment
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  Speaker 1: when we think of his cheerful and never failing energy,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: of his gay jests, and his humor. But upon reflection,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: this unhappy feeling tallies very well with his character. It
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: also proceeds from his general attitude of warding off even
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: when in high spirits. He considers himself, in all respects,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: an unhappy man, the most miserable of all men, the
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: thrice wretched Erasmus, he calls himself in fine Greek terms.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: His life is quote an iliad of calamities, a chain
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: of misfortunes? How can anyone envy me? To No one
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: has fortune been so constantly hostile as to him. She
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: has sworn his destruction. Thus he sang in his youth
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: in a poetical complaint address to Gagin from earliest infancy,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the same sad and hard fate has been constantly pursuing him.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Pandora's whole box seems to have been poured out over him.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: This unhappy feeling takes a special form of his having
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: been charged by unlucky stars with herculean labor without profit
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: or pleasure to himself, troubles and vexations without end. His
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: life might have been so much easier if he had
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: taken his chances. He should have never left Italy, or
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: he ought to have stayed in England. But an immoderate
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: love of liberty caused me to wrestle long with faithless
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: friends and invenerate poverty elsewhere, he says more resignedly, but
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: we are driven by fate. That immoderate love of liberty
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: had indeed been as fate to him. He had always
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: been the great seeker of quiet and liberty, who found
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: liberty late and quiet, never by no means ever to
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: bind himself to incur no obligations which might become fetters
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: again that fear of the entanglements of life. Thus he
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: remained the great restless one. He was never truly satisfied
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: with anything, least of all with what he produced himself. Quote,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Why then do you overwhelm us with so many books? Unquote?
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Someone at Louvin objected, if you do not really approve
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: of any of them? And Erasmus answers with Horace's words
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: in the first place, because I cannot sleep a sleepless
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: energy it was that, indeed, he cannot rest still half
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: seasick and occupied with his trunks, he is already thinking
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: about an answer to Dorp's letter just received, censuring the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: moria we should fully realize what it means that time
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: after time. Erasmus, who by nature loved quiet and was
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: fearful and fond of comfort, cleanliness and good fair undertakes
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: troublesome and dangerous journeys, even voyages which he detests, for
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the sake of his work and of that alone. He
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: is not only restless but also precipitate. Helped by an
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: incomparably retentive and capacious memory, He writes at haphazard. He
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: never becomes anacoluthic. His talent is far too refined and
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: sure for that. But he does repeat himself and is
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: unnecessarily circumstantial. Quote I'd rather pour out than write everything unquote,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: he says. He compares his publications with partruiicians nay to abortions.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: He does not select his subjects, he tumbles into them, and,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: having once taken up a subject, he finishes without intermission.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: For years he has read only tumbultare up and down
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: all literature. He no longer finds time really to refresh
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: his mind by reading and to work, so so as
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: to please himself. On that account, he envied Pedaeus. Quote,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: do not publish too hastily, more warns him, quote you
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: are watched to be caught in inexactitudes unquote. Erasmus knows it.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: He will correct all later. He will ever have to
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: revise and to polish everything. He hates the labor of
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: revising and correcting, but he submits to it and works passionately.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Quote in the treadment of the Basle, and he says,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: finishes the works of six years in eight months. In
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: that reckless and precipitation with which Erasmus labors, there is
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: again one of the unsolved contradictions of his being. He
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: is precipitate and careless. He wants to be careful and cautious.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: His mind drives him to be the first. His nature
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: restrains him, but usually only after the word has been
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: written and published. The result is a continual intermingling of
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: explosion and reserve. The way in which Erasmus always tries
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: to shirk definite statements irritates us. How carefully he always
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: tries to represent the colloquies in which he had spontaneously
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: revealed so much of his inner convictions as mere trifling
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: committed to paper to please his friends. They are only
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: meant to teach correct Latin. And if anything is said
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: in them touching matters of faith, it is not I
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: who say it? Is it? As often as he censures
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: classes or offices in Theodagia Princes above all, he warns
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the readers not to regard his words as aimed at
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: particular persons. Erasmus was a master of reserve. He knew,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: even when he held definite views, how to avoid direct decisions,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: not only from caution, but also because he saw the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: eternal ambiguity of human issues. Erasmus ascribes to himself an
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: unusual horror of lies. On seeing a liar, he says
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: he was corporally affected. As a boy, he already violently
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: disliked mendacious boys, such as the little Braggart, of whom
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: he tells in the Colloquies. That this reaction of aversion
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: is genuine is not contradicted by the fact that we
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: catch Erasmus himself in untruths, inconsistencies, flattery, pieces of cunning
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: white lies, serious oppression of facts, simulated sentiments of respect
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: or sorrow. They may all be pointed out in his letters.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: He once disavowed as deep as conviction for a gratuity
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: from Anne of Borsilain by flattering her bigotry. He requested
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: his best friend Bot to tell lies in his behalf.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: He most sedulously denied his authorship of the Julius Dialog
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: for fear of the consequences, even to Moore, and always
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: in such a way as to avoid saying outright quote,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: I did not write it unquote. Those who know other
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: humanists and know how frequently and imprudently they lied, will
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: perhaps think more lightly of Erasmus's sins for the rest.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Even during his lifetime, he did not escape punishment for
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: his eternal reserve, his proficiency and semi conclusions, and veiled truths, insinuations,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and slanderous allusions. The accusation of perfidity was often cast
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: in his teeth, sometimes in serious indignation. You are always
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: engaged in bringing suspicion upon others, Edward Lee exclaims, how
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: dare you usurp the office of a general censor and
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: condemn what you hardly have ever tasted? How dare you
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: despise all but yourself? Falsely and insultingly? Do you expose
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: your antagonist. In the colloquia, Lee quotes the spiteful passage
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: referring to himself, and then exclaims, now, from these words,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the world may come to know its divine, its censor,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: its modest and sincere author, that Erasmian diffidence, earnest, decency
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: and honesty. Erasmian modesty has long been proverbial. You are
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: always using the words false accusations. You say, if I
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: was consciously guilty of the smallest of his Lee's false accusations,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: I shall not dare to approach the lord's table. O man,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: who are you to judge another a servant who stands
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: or falls before his lord. This was the first violent
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: attack from the conservative side in the beginning of fifteen twenty,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: when the mighty struggle which Luther's actions had unchained, kept
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: the world in ever greater suspense. Six months later followed
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: the first serious reproaches on the part of radical reformers.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Ulrich von Hutton, the impetuous, somewhat foggy headed knight, who
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: wanted to see Luther's cause triumph as the national cause
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: of Germany, turns to Erasmus, whom at one time he
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: had enthusiastically acclaimed as the man of the new weeal
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: with the urgent appeal not to forsake the cause of
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the Reformation or to compromise it. Quote. You have shown
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: you so fearful in the affair of Ruklin, Now in
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: that of Aloofer, you do your utmost convince his adversaries
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: that you are altogether averse from it. Though we know better,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: do not disowness you know how triumphantly certain letters of
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: yours are circulated in which to protect yourself from suspicion,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: you rather meanly fasten it on others. If you are
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: now afraid to incur a little hostility for my sake,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: concede me at least that you will not allow yourself,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: out of fear for another, to be tempted to renounce me,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: rather be silent about me. Those were bitter reproaches, and
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: the man who had to swallow them. There was a
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: puny Erasmus who deserved those reproaches, who took offense at
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: them but did not take them to heart, who continued
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: to act with prudent reserve till Hutton's friendship was turned
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: to hatred in him. Was also a great Erasmus, who
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: knew how, under the passion and infatuation with which the
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: parties combat each other, the truth he sought and the
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: love he had hoped would subdue the world were obscured.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Who knew the God whom he professed too high to
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: take sides? Let us try, ever to see of that
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: great Erasmus as much as the petty one permits. End
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: of Chapter fourteen, recording by Trenchon