Latest / The Philosophy Insights Collection / 01 - Mrs G H Lewis - The Art of Worldly Wisdom - Baltasar Gracian
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- Section one to Missus G. H. Lewis. Dear Missus Lewis, this little book were not worthy of being associated with your name? Did it not offer an ideal of life? At once refined and practical, cultured yet wisely energetic. Gracian points to noble aims and proposes on the whole no ignoble means of attaining to them. The Spanish Jesuit seas clear, but he looks upward. There is, however, one side of life to which he is entirely blind, As was perhaps natural in an ecclesiastic writing before the Age of Salence, he nowhere makes mention in his pages of the gracious influence of woman as Inspirer and Consola in the battle of life. Permit me to repair this omission by placing your name in the forefront of this English version of his maxims to those honored with your friendship. This will by itself suffice to recall all the ennobling associations connected with your sex. Believe me, dear Missus Lewis, your most sincerely, Joseph Jacobs Kilburn, twenty sixth of October eighteen ninety two. Preface. My attention was first drawn to the Oraculo Manuel by mister now Sir Montstuart grand Duff's admirable article on Baltadra Gracian in the Fortnightly Review of March eighteen seventy seven. I soon after obtained the copy of Schopenhauer's excellent version, and during a journey in Spain, I procured with some difficulty a villainously printed edition of Gathian's work Barcelona, seventeen thirty four Poor Joseph Giralt, which contains the Oraculo Manuel. Towards the end of the first volume, pages four hundred thirty one to four hundred ninety four. I have translated from this last, referring in the many doubtful places of its text, to the first Madrid edition of sixteen fifty three, the earliest in the British Museum. I have threw out had Schopenhauer's version by my side, and have found it, as Sir Montstuart grand Duff says, a most finished piece of work. Though I have pointed out in the notes a few cases where he has failed, in my opinion, to give Gracian's meaning completely or correctly, I have little doubt that I am a fellow's sinner. In this regard, I know no prose style that offers such difficulty to a translator as Gracian's laconic and artificial epigrams. It is not without reason that he has been called the introducible. The two earlier English versions miss his points time after time, and I found it useless to refer to them. On the other hand, I have ventured to adopt some of Sir Mountstuart grand Dove's often very happy renderings in the extracts contained in his Fortnightly article. I have endeavored to reproduce Gracian's laconism and cultismo in my version, and have even and try to retain his many paronomasias and jingles of similar sound. I may have here and there introduced others of my own to redress the balance for cases where I found it impossible to produce the same effect in English. In such cases I generally give the original in the notes. Wherever possible, I have replaced Spanish proverbs and proverbial phrases by English ones, and have throughout try to preserve the characteristic rhythm and brevity of the proverb. In short, if I may venture to say so, I have approached my task rather in the spirit of Fitzgerald than of Bonn. The gem on the title, representing a votive offering to Hermes, the god of worldly wisdom, is from a fine paste in the British Museum of the best period of Greek glyptic art. I have to thank mister Cecil Smith of that institution for kind advice in the selection. Let me conclude these prefatory words with a piece of advice as oracular as my original. When reading this little book for the first time, read only fifteen maxims and then stop for the day. Joseph Jacobs testimonia ile siqunci sir rompeu a si a trenemont coupe kill somble quille prid obscurity attache, or see the lecteur abezouan do'n Dovini les sance a sauvan conti la conprix in truf killed setetudier a ferrini enigmer Junuschou's four Commune f Van Allison's Voyage de Spine sixteen sixty seven, page two hundred ninety four ilabucu de le vasion the sup tilte the fourth a Meme de Bonsence messonseill le peu sauvant sequillouder an les se papo, tetroi meme cakexandreses uvrages nensemble e trefe capour neetropin entendu bourus entretien artiste du gene sixt Deen, seventy one, page two hundred and three. Louisa de Padilla, a lady of great learning and Countess of Aranda, was in like manner angry with the famous Gracian upon his publishing his Treatise of the Discreto, wherein she fancied that he had laid open those maxims to common readers which ought only to be reserved for the knowledge of the great. These objections are thought by many of so much weight that they often defend the above mentioned authors by affirming they have affected such an obscurity in their style and manner of writing, that though every one may read their works, there will be but very few who can comprehend their meaning. The Spectator number three hundred seventy nine, seventeen twelve. Moncherjean to jour lenergi ire is sublim ildo villenou trees is per don li moud Gracian eu bu Noralist Sir Don Quixote etouvre eru il jen la illutre and feu er de grandeur quion enposussu Ekiferiri lesage Abbe de Fontaine, seventeen forty five, k de elios no s deben Alaoto del Criticon and Medio Rella's antithesis Parano Masias eTOD a, lamitria, culta es una de las obras mast recommend doubles, the Nuestraliteratura Paula Felicidad de la invencion, la inagotable Riqueza, The Imaginacion ide Sales Paula Viveda de Supinturas, Ippola, Gracia, Sultura in Naturalidad, Tellestillo, Don Manuel Silvera Biblioteca Selecta de Literatura Espaniola eighteen nineteen, Siubies Gracian Procedido conmas, soubridad and el Uzo de estus uegos, econceptos, chules e escreto de su tiempo, The Tantos Daughters icaodal nativo, parace re mas frecono ire gante sabiendo commolo manifesto and Don de estavano Las di dicatellas ILOs donaires, Estuez, loa Margo, Lodulce, Lopigante, Losalado de la la Gua, Castellana, donal Donio, Camani, Tatro de la l Cuenia, Espanola, Tommuzinko. The Oraculo Manual has been more use than any other of the author's works. It is intended to be a collection of maxims of general utility, but it exhibits good and bad precepts, sound judgments, and refined sophisms, all confounded together. In this work, Gracian has not forgotten to inculcate his practical principles of Jesuitism to be all things to all men hathersee a tordos, nor to recommend his favorite maxim to be common in nothing and nada vulgar, which in order to be valid, would require totally different interpretation from that which he has given it Boutak. The person, however, who settled the character of Curtismo, and in some respects gave it an air of philosophical pretension, was Baltazar Gracian, a Jesuit of Aragon who lived between sixteen o one and sixteen fifty eight, exactly the period when the cultivated style took possession of Spanish prose and rose to its greatest consideration. G Tigno History of Spanish Literature, three, two hundred and twenty two. Dabai istez does ein segezana art on nie and andros ubertin zelbeen giginstant dishrieben worden the nua an individum o ste finsten aller natziunen the spanishen comtes fezuren daseelbelieti kunst dera ale jishbe flisigen udsta he fu jidaman bzuonda's aba is the ska eignet das han pur alla de radzuviden di inde grussenleben gunsford zugliche aba juma loiter die gluptarin sumaran bu mutzind untin nesmid einemal un on four hours debil erung gibt disiz ound airs to islanga afa harrlton Alschoppenhauer. Later Rational Notices for the Eubazet Song eighteen thirty one, published eighteen sixty one. A VEG book would have spread instruction with a facility in arien proudui kipis o geordie sut near lexamand la critique, la plus and parcial puibusque istua comparede Literatorio Espanol Francais, eighteen forty three, one page five hundred and fifty nine. Glassian reputed ran excellent equiva, snavepa ulu dovnir rniqliva extraordinaire duade in vast eruditionion venees prifa, tantalon, profon topseracion elate, nepo cleresan ciecle melvanite de devenier novata corum pi songou on leportin and roduer don la prose selon gage precieux ces expression a lambique ke gongora ave and trodide den vere at tobacca BiblioTech diziquivant la Compagnidzu eighteen sixty nine, s V carscian a si comolas maximas de antonio perez ferron mui popolares and cortesanos or doctors or eostrados asi espanoles como estranieros, poe quella delicatella espercial de estiro las del pare barta dargacian alcantaron la mismai stima poet attil damiento and eldesier attil damiento, kitana and si on inexplicably attractivo, iquian ca algo, partisipaba, tel general cuteranismo, telaaliteratura Espaniola and aquel sigro and sera baciato, buen gusto de zlombrador, elison, hero para lector, cause profond disimos, contraptos, pressI abaconnafuersa tesuin regno, aquellos, Donaldolfo de castro, obras escorchidas de Philosophia, eighteen seventy three, page one hundred eight. Taking the book as a guide, especially for those who intend to enter public life, I have never chanced to meet with anything which seemed to me even distantly to approach it. It would possibly be rather difficult to disprove the thesis that the Spanish nation has produced the best maxims of practical wisdom, the best proverb, the best epitaph, and the best motto in the world. If I had to sustain it, I would point, with reference to the first head to the oraquolo Manuel Sir m E Grand duff On Baltazar Grascian in Fortnightly Review, March eighteen seventy seven. Some have found light in the sayings of Baltazar Gracian, a Spaniard who flourished at the end of the seventeenth century. I do not myself Frank Garcian much of a companion, though some of his avorisms give a knee turn to a commonplace. J. Morley on Aphorism Studies, eighteen ninety one, page eighty six, end of section one