Notes to Literature

...then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

-- from The Windhover, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

They were showed our fashions, our pomp, and the form of a fair city. Afterward, some demanded their advice and would needs know of them what things of note and admirable they had observed amongst us. They answered three things, the last of which I have forgotten, and am very sorry for it; the other two I yet remember. They said, First, they found it very strange that so many tall men with long beards, strong and well armed, as it were about the King’s person (it is very likely they meant the Swizzers of his guard) would submit themselves to obey a beardless child and that we did not rather choose one amongst them to command the rest. Secondly (they have a manner of phrase whereby they call men but a moiety of men from others), they had perceived there were men amongst us full gorged with all sorts of commodities and others which, hunger-starven and bare with need and poverty, begged at their gates. And found it strange these moieties so needy could endure such an injustice and that they took not the others by the throat or set fire on their houses.

Michel de Montaigne, "Of The Cannibals," The Florio Translation (1603)

Sound advice for budding scholars?

Let us come now to references to authors, which other books contain and yours lacks. The remedy for that is very simple; for you have nothing else to do but look for a book which quotes them all from A to Z, as you say. Then you put this same alphabet into yours. For, granted that the very small need you have to employ them will make your deception transparent, it does not matter a bit; and perhaps there will even be someone silly enough to believe you have made use of them all in your simple and straightforward story. And if it serves for no other purpose, at least that long catalogue of authors will be useful to lend authority to your book at the outset. Besides, nobody will take the trouble to examine whether you follow your authorities or not, having nothing to gain by it.

— Intelligent Friend, Don Quixote (Part I),
(trans. J. M. Cohen)