"The world has taken an immense stride in the direction of prose during your and my lifetime, and a purely utilitarian world is much less entertaining at least than one in which there was more demand on courage and more possibility of adventure. The terra incognita of our maps seventy years ago stimulated the imagination far more than the excellent maps of our United States surveyors and our geographical magazines. The terra incognita left room at least in which imagination might roam at will, keeping us in touch with Sir John Mandeville."
-- Letter of 28 July, 1908 of Charles Eliot Norton to H. H. Furness, in Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, vol. II, 1913, p. 414.
No comments:
Post a Comment