"The Path to Rome"

[fiefoe]

The book sports a tiny font, and I'm barely out of "Praise of This Book" - as Hilaire Belloc chose to call the preface - in which he graciously acknowledged his debt to a flock of muses, including Apollo.

His was certainly a more leisurely time, when a man would walk from the south of France to Rome just because he made this resolution, (yes, that's the whole plot,) and a writer could indulge in metaphors that span paragraphs:
    'Write as the wind blows and command all words like an army!
    First come the Neologisms, that are afraid of no man; fresh, young, hearty, and for the most part very long-limbed, though some few short and strong.  There also are the Misprints to confuse the enemy at his onrush. Then see upon the flank a company of picked Ambiguities covering what shall be a feint by the squadron of Anachronisms led by old Anachronos himself; a terrible chap with nigglers and a great murderer of fools.'

On the other hand, he was harsh on the Proverb-Makers. Good thing he had never heard of the term 'soundbite'.
    'But (the Proverb-Maker) had just that touch of slinking humour which the peasants have, and there is in all he said that exasperating quality for which we have no name, which certainly is not accuracy, and which is quite the opposite of judgement, yet which catches the mind as brambles do our clothes, causing us continually to pause and swear. For he mixes up unanswerable things with false conclusions, he is perpetually letting the cat out of the bag and exposing our tricks, putting a colour to our actions, disturbing us with our own memory, indecently revealing corners of the soul.' {Here's a value judgement for you - 'indecently'.}

Belloc needn't have offered justifications for incorporating his own pencil sketches in the book. In fact, I wish the practice were more in vogue nowadays.
    'Consider the alternative. Shall a man march through Europe dragging an artist on a cord? God forbid!
    Shall an artist write a book? Why no, the remedy is worse than the disease.'
    'Nor let us be too hard upon the just but anxious fellow that sat down dutifully to paint the soul of Switzerland upon a fan.' {No wonder Lin Yutang liked him, being a connoisseur of incongruity himself.}

Dithyramb:  A wildly enthusiastic speech or piece of writing.
Anacoluthon: An abrupt change within a sentence from one syntactic structure to another.