O Fons Bandusae
July 5, 2023Refining Fuller, Make Me Clean
July 5, 2023A Pleasant Invective Against Printing
The Press is too much with us, small and great:
We are undone of chatter and on dit,
Report, retort, rejoinder, repartee,
Mole-hill and mare’s nest, fiction up-to-date,
Babble of booklets, bicker of debate,
Aspect of A., and attitude of B.–
A waste of words that drive us like a sea,
Mere derelict of Ourselves, and helpless freight!
“O for a lodge in some vast wilderness!”
Some region unapproachable of Print,
Where never cablegram could gain access,
And telephones were not, nor any hint
Of tidings new or old, but Man might pipe
His soul to Nature,– careless of the Type!
Austin Dobson
Austin Dobson (1840-1921) was an English poet and biographer. He is known for his works such as "The Songs of a Savoyard" (1884), "Proverbs in Porcelain" (1887), "Eighteenth Century Vignettes" (1890), and "Echoes" (1894). He was also a prolific biographer, writing about the lives of figures such as Horace Walpole, William Hogarth, and Samuel Johnson. His works are known for their wit and humor, as well as their insight into the lives of the people he wrote about.