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01 - Mrs G H Lewis - The Art of Worldly Wisdom - Baltasar Gracian · Logic Library

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  Section one to Missus G. H. Lewis. Dear Missus Lewis, this
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  little book were not worthy of being associated with your name? Did it not
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  offer an ideal of life? At once refined and practical, cultured yet wisely
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  energetic. Gracian points to noble aims and proposes on the whole no ignoble means
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  of attaining to them. The Spanish Jesuit seas clear, but he looks upward.
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  There is, however, one side of life to which he is entirely
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  blind, As was perhaps natural in an ecclesiastic writing before the Age of Salence,
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  he nowhere makes mention in his pages of the gracious influence of woman as
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  Inspirer and Consola in the battle of life. Permit me to repair this omission
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  by placing your name in the forefront of this English version of his maxims to
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  those honored with your friendship. This will by itself suffice to recall all the
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  ennobling associations connected with your sex. Believe me, dear Missus Lewis, your
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  most sincerely, Joseph Jacobs Kilburn, twenty sixth of October eighteen ninety two.
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  Preface. My attention was first drawn to the Oraculo Manuel by mister now Sir
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  Montstuart grand Duff's admirable article on Baltadra Gracian in the Fortnightly Review of March eighteen
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  seventy seven. I soon after obtained the copy of Schopenhauer's excellent version, and
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  during a journey in Spain, I procured with some difficulty a villainously printed edition
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  of Gathian's work Barcelona, seventeen thirty four Poor Joseph Giralt, which contains the
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  Oraculo Manuel. Towards the end of the first volume, pages four hundred thirty
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  one to four hundred ninety four. I have translated from this last, referring
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  in the many doubtful places of its text, to the first Madrid edition of
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  sixteen fifty three, the earliest in the British Museum. I have threw out
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  had Schopenhauer's version by my side, and have found it, as Sir Montstuart
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  grand Duff says, a most finished piece of work. Though I have pointed
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  out in the notes a few cases where he has failed, in my opinion,
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  to give Gracian's meaning completely or correctly, I have little doubt that I
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  am a fellow's sinner. In this regard, I know no prose style that
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  offers such difficulty to a translator as Gracian's laconic and artificial epigrams. It is
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  not without reason that he has been called the introducible. The two earlier English
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  versions miss his points time after time, and I found it useless to refer
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  to them. On the other hand, I have ventured to adopt some of
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  Sir Mountstuart grand Dove's often very happy renderings in the extracts contained in his Fortnightly
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  article. I have endeavored to reproduce Gracian's laconism and cultismo in my version,
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  and have even and try to retain his many paronomasias and jingles of similar sound.
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  I may have here and there introduced others of my own to redress the
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  balance for cases where I found it impossible to produce the same effect in English.
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  In such cases I generally give the original in the notes. Wherever possible,
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  I have replaced Spanish proverbs and proverbial phrases by English ones, and have
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  throughout try to preserve the characteristic rhythm and brevity of the proverb. In short,
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  if I may venture to say so, I have approached my task rather
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  in the spirit of Fitzgerald than of Bonn. The gem on the title,
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  representing a votive offering to Hermes, the god of worldly wisdom, is from
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  a fine paste in the British Museum of the best period of Greek glyptic art.
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  I have to thank mister Cecil Smith of that institution for kind advice in
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  the selection. Let me conclude these prefatory words with a piece of advice as
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  oracular as my original. When reading this little book for the first time,
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  read only fifteen maxims and then stop for the day. Joseph Jacobs testimonia ile
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  siqunci sir rompeu a si a trenemont coupe kill somble quille prid obscurity attache,
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  or see the lecteur abezouan do'n Dovini les sance a sauvan conti la conprix in
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  truf killed setetudier a ferrini enigmer Junuschou's four Commune f Van Allison's Voyage de Spine
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  sixteen sixty seven, page two hundred ninety four ilabucu de le vasion the sup
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  tilte the fourth a Meme de Bonsence messonseill le peu sauvant sequillouder an les se
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  papo, tetroi meme cakexandreses uvrages nensemble e trefe capour neetropin entendu bourus entretien artiste
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  du gene sixt Deen, seventy one, page two hundred and three. Louisa
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  de Padilla, a lady of great learning and Countess of Aranda, was in
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  like manner angry with the famous Gracian upon his publishing his Treatise of the Discreto,
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  wherein she fancied that he had laid open those maxims to common readers which
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  ought only to be reserved for the knowledge of the great. These objections are
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  thought by many of so much weight that they often defend the above mentioned authors
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  by affirming they have affected such an obscurity in their style and manner of writing,
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  that though every one may read their works, there will be but very
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  few who can comprehend their meaning. The Spectator number three hundred seventy nine,
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  seventeen twelve. Moncherjean to jour lenergi ire is sublim ildo villenou trees is per
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  don li moud Gracian eu bu Noralist Sir Don Quixote etouvre eru il jen la
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  illutre and feu er de grandeur quion enposussu Ekiferiri lesage Abbe de Fontaine, seventeen
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  forty five, k de elios no s deben Alaoto del Criticon and Medio Rella's
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  antithesis Parano Masias eTOD a, lamitria, culta es una de las obras mast
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  recommend doubles, the Nuestraliteratura Paula Felicidad de la invencion, la inagotable Riqueza,
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  The Imaginacion ide Sales Paula Viveda de Supinturas, Ippola, Gracia, Sultura in
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  Naturalidad, Tellestillo, Don Manuel Silvera Biblioteca Selecta de Literatura Espaniola eighteen nineteen,
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  Siubies Gracian Procedido conmas, soubridad and el Uzo de estus uegos, econceptos,
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  chules e escreto de su tiempo, The Tantos Daughters icaodal nativo, parace re
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  mas frecono ire gante sabiendo commolo manifesto and Don de estavano Las di dicatellas ILOs
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  donaires, Estuez, loa Margo, Lodulce, Lopigante, Losalado de la la
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  Gua, Castellana, donal Donio, Camani, Tatro de la l Cuenia,
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  Espanola, Tommuzinko. The Oraculo Manual has been more use than any other of
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  the author's works. It is intended to be a collection of maxims of general
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  utility, but it exhibits good and bad precepts, sound judgments, and refined
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  sophisms, all confounded together. In this work, Gracian has not forgotten to
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  inculcate his practical principles of Jesuitism to be all things to all men hathersee a
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  tordos, nor to recommend his favorite maxim to be common in nothing and nada
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  vulgar, which in order to be valid, would require totally different interpretation from
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  that which he has given it Boutak. The person, however, who settled
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  the character of Curtismo, and in some respects gave it an air of philosophical
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  pretension, was Baltazar Gracian, a Jesuit of Aragon who lived between sixteen o
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  one and sixteen fifty eight, exactly the period when the cultivated style took possession
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  of Spanish prose and rose to its greatest consideration. G Tigno History of Spanish
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  Literature, three, two hundred and twenty two. Dabai istez does ein segezana
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  art on nie and andros ubertin zelbeen giginstant dishrieben worden the nua an individum o
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  ste finsten aller natziunen the spanishen comtes fezuren daseelbelieti kunst dera ale jishbe flisigen udsta
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  he fu jidaman bzuonda's aba is the ska eignet das han pur alla de radzuviden
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  di inde grussenleben gunsford zugliche aba juma loiter die gluptarin sumaran bu mutzind untin nesmid
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  einemal un on four hours debil erung gibt disiz ound airs to islanga afa harrlton
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  Alschoppenhauer. Later Rational Notices for the Eubazet Song eighteen thirty one, published eighteen
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  sixty one. A VEG book would have spread instruction with a facility in arien
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  proudui kipis o geordie sut near lexamand la critique, la plus and parcial puibusque
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  istua comparede Literatorio Espanol Francais, eighteen forty three, one page five hundred and
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  fifty nine. Glassian reputed ran excellent equiva, snavepa ulu dovnir rniqliva extraordinaire duade
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  in vast eruditionion venees prifa, tantalon, profon topseracion elate, nepo cleresan ciecle
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  melvanite de devenier novata corum pi songou on leportin and roduer don la prose selon
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  gage precieux ces expression a lambique ke gongora ave and trodide den vere at tobacca
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  BiblioTech diziquivant la Compagnidzu eighteen sixty nine, s V carscian a si comolas maximas
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  de antonio perez ferron mui popolares and cortesanos or doctors or eostrados asi espanoles como
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  estranieros, poe quella delicatella espercial de estiro las del pare barta dargacian alcantaron la
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  mismai stima poet attil damiento and eldesier attil damiento, kitana and si on inexplicably
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  attractivo, iquian ca algo, partisipaba, tel general cuteranismo, telaaliteratura Espaniola and
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  aquel sigro and sera baciato, buen gusto de zlombrador, elison, hero para
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  lector, cause profond disimos, contraptos, pressI abaconnafuersa tesuin regno, aquellos,
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  Donaldolfo de castro, obras escorchidas de Philosophia, eighteen seventy three, page one
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  hundred eight. Taking the book as a guide, especially for those who intend
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  to enter public life, I have never chanced to meet with anything which seemed
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  to me even distantly to approach it. It would possibly be rather difficult to
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  disprove the thesis that the Spanish nation has produced the best maxims of practical wisdom,
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  the best proverb, the best epitaph, and the best motto in the
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  world. If I had to sustain it, I would point, with reference
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  to the first head to the oraquolo Manuel Sir m E Grand duff On Baltazar
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  Grascian in Fortnightly Review, March eighteen seventy seven. Some have found light in
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  the sayings of Baltazar Gracian, a Spaniard who flourished at the end of the
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  seventeenth century. I do not myself Frank Garcian much of a companion, though
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  some of his avorisms give a knee turn to a commonplace. J. Morley
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  on Aphorism Studies, eighteen ninety one, page eighty six, end of section one