The Value of Greek and Latin in English Literature by Arthur Quiller-Couch

Wednesday, February 6, 1918.

I have promised you, Gentlemen, for today some observations on The Value of Greek and Latin in English Literature: a mild, academic title, a camouflage title, so to say; calculated to shelter us for a while from the vigilance of those hot-eyed reformers who, had I advertised The Value of Greek and Latin in English Life might even now be swooping from all quarters of the sky on a suggestion that these dry bones yet were flesh: for the eyes I dread are not only red and angry, but naturally microscopic -- and that indeed, if they only knew it, is their malady. Yet "surely" groaned patient Job, "there is a path which the vulture's eye hath not seen!"