Note 11 — "AN OLD OFFENDER."
Reading edition
"Knowledge for the million,"11 is the "fin de siècle"12 cry of the hour. But "life is real, life is earnest,"13 and we have no time to study original thinkers such as Confucius and Tupper. "Altiora Peto"14 is a saying for the leisured class only. The mass must get its wisdom second-hand and concentrated. If "reading maketh a full man,"15 this kind of reading maketh a man to burst. Hence the "sad in sweet"16 of the book of quoted platitudes. Yet, of course, "there are great ways of borrowing. Genius borrows nobly."17 And it is well to have "the courage of" other people's "opinions."