Part 9 (2/2)

The procession of drunkards on Pal of the shi+pwrecked crew, the oldcart while the drivers are still drinking, all these are Dutch genre pieces of the best sort

We like to speak of the realism of the Renaissance Eras an insatiable hunger for knowledge of the tangible world He wants to know things and their na, be it never so reames of the Romans Read carefully the description of the decorative painting on the garden-house of the _Conviviuraphic representation of the forms of reality

In its joy over the material universe and the supple, pliant word, the Renaissance revels in a profusion of i enuives, are not unknown to Erasmus, but he uses them for intellectual and useful purposes In _De copia verborum ac rerum_ one feat of varied power of expression succeeds another--he gives fifty ways of saying: 'Your letter has givento rain' The aesthetic impulse is here that of a theme and variations: to display all the wealth and e

Elsewhere, too, Eras the treasures of his genius; he and his conte all the instances instead of one: in _Ratio verae theologiae_, in _De pronuntiatione_, in _Lingua_, in _Ecclesiastes_ The collections of _Adagia_, _Parabolae_, and _Apophthegerness of the Renaissance (which, by the as an inheritance of the Middle Ages theible world, to revel in words and things

The senses are open for the nice observation of the curious Though Eras the secrets of nature, which inspired a Leonardo da Vinci, a Paracelsus, a Vesalius, he is also, by his keen observation, a child of his time For peculiarities in the habits and custoait of Swiss soldiers, how dandies sit, how Picards pronounce French He notices that in old pictures the sitters are always represented with half-closed eyes and tightly shut lips, as signs of modesty, and how some Spaniards still honour this expression in life, while Ger as for a kiss His lively sense of anecdote, to which he gives the rein in all his writings, belongs here

And, in spite of all his realisether that of the sixteenth century Everything is veiled by Latin Between the author's mind and reality intervenes his antique diction At bottoinary It is a subdued and liether with its coarseness he lacks all that is violent and direct in his times Compared with the artists, with Luther and Calvin, with the statesators, the soldiers and the scientists, Erasmus confronts the world as a recluse It is only the influence of Latin In spite of all his receptiveness and sensitiveness, Erash his work not a bird sings, not a wind rustles

But that reserve or fear of directness is not ative quality

It also results froround of all things, frouity of all that is If Erasmus so often hovers over the borderline between earnestness and ives an incisive conclusion, it is not only due to cautiousness, and fear to co of the er to hiold, or as stars in the firmament 'I like assertions so little that I would easily take sides with the sceptics whereever it is allowed by the inviolable authority of Holy Scripture and the decrees of the Church' 'What is exeical speculation arise froerous curiosity and lead to ireat controversies about the Trinity and the Virgin Mary profited? 'We have defined so ht have reion are peace and unanimity

These can hardly exist unless we make definitions about as few points as possible and leave ement Numerous problems are now postponed till the oecumenical Council It would be lass shall be removed and the darkness cleared away, and we shall see God face to face'

'There are sanctuaries in the sacred studies which God has not willed that we should probe, and if we try to penetrate there, we grope in ever deeper darkness the farther we proceed, so that we recognize, in this manner, too, the inscrutable majesty of divine wisdo'

CHAPTER XIV

ERASMUS'S CHARACTER

Erasmus's character: Need of purity and cleanliness-- Delicacy--Dislike of contention, need of concord and friendshi+p--Aversion to disturbance of any kind--Too much concerned about other men's opinions--Need of self- justification--Hi--Correlation between inclinations and convictions--Ideal ie of himself--Dissatisfaction with himself--Self-centredness--A solitary at heart--Fastidiousness--Suspiciousness--Morbid mistrust--Unhappiness--Restlessness--Unsolved contradictions of his being--Horror of lies--Reserve and insinuation

Erasreat response in the heart of his conte influence on the march of civilization

But one of the heroes of history he cannot be called Was not his failure to attain to still loftier heights partly due to the fact that his character was not on a level with the elevation of his mind?

And yet that character, a very coh he took himself to be the simplest man in the world, was determined by the saain and again we find in his inclinations the correlates of his convictions

At the root of hisof his character--that same profound need of purity which drove him to the sources of sacred science Purity in the material and the moral sense is what he desires for his revolt him so much as the practices of vintners who doctor wine and dealers who adulterate food If he continually chastens his language and style, or exculpates himself from mistakes, it is the same impulse which prohtness, of the home and of the body He has a violent dislike of stuffy air and sularly takes a roundabout way to avoid a ers' shops Fetors spread infection, he thinks Erasmus had, earlier than er of infection in the foul air of crowded inns, in the breath of confessants, in baptismal water Throw aside common cups, he pleaded; let everybody shave himself, let us be cleanly as to bed-sheets, let us not kiss each other by way of greeting

The fear of the horrible venereal disease, i his lifetiation with solicitude, increases his desire for purity Too little is being done to stop it, he thinks He cautions against suspected inns; he wants to have es of syphilitic persons In his undignified attitude towards Hutten his physical and moral aversion to the man's evil plays an unmistakable part

Erasmus is a delicate soul in all his fibres His body forces his very susceptible to cold, 'the scholars' disorder', as he calls it Early in life already the painful ins to torment him, which he resisted so bravely when his as at stake He always speaks in a coddling tone about his little body, which cannot stand fasting, which , and for which he carefully tries to select a suitable climate He is at times circumstantial in the description of his ailments[15] He has to be very careful in the matter of his sleep; if once he wakes up, he finds it difficult to go to sleep again, and because of that has often to lose the , the best time to work and which is so dear to hi, but still less overheated rooms How he has execrated the Gerh and made Germany almost unbearable to him! Of his fear of illness we have spoken above It is not only the plague which he flees--for fear of catching cold he gives up a journey from Louvain to Antwerp, where his friend Peter Gilles is in reat deal of the disease is in the iination leaves him no peace Nevertheless, when he is seriously ill he does not fear death

His hygienics amount to temperance, cleanliness and fresh air, this last item in moderation: he takes the vicinity of the sea to be unwholesohts His friend Gilles, who is ill, he advises: 'Do not take too h there is a 'Praise of Medicine' ahly of physicians and satirizes them more than once in the _Colloquies_

Also in his outward appearance there were certain features betraying his delicacy He was of ht, well-made, of a fair complexion with blond hair and blue eyes, a cheerful face, a very articulate mode of speech, but a thin voice

In the reat need of friendshi+p and concord, his dislike of contention With him peace and harmony rank above all other considerations, and he confesses the principles of his actions He would, if it ly I discharge no one froh he was so towards his friends, yet a truly great friend he itness the many who never forsook hiement, alon back--More, Peter Gilles, Fisher, Ammonius, Budaeus, and others too nu up friendshi+ps,' says Beatus Rhenanus, whose own attach affection he could inspire

At the root of this desire of friendshi+p lies a great and sincere need of affection Remember the effusions of al his monastic period But at the same time it is a sort of moral serenity that makes him so: an aversion to disturbance, to whatever is harsh and inharmonious He calls it 'a certain occult natural sense' which erheads with anyone He always hoped and wanted, he says, to keep his pen unbloody, to attack no one, to provoke no one, even if he were attacked But his enemies had not willed it, and in later years he became well accustomed to bitter polemondanus, with Hutten, with Luther, with Beda, with the Spaniards, and the Italians At first it is still noticeable how he suffers by it, how contention wounds him, so that he cannot bear the pain in silence 'Do let us be friends again,' he begs Lefevre, who does not reply The tiards as lost 'I feelmore heavy every day,' he writes in 1520, 'not so e as because of the restless labour of my studies, nay more even by the weariness of disputes than by the work, which, in itself, is agreeable' And how much strife was still in store for him then!