Turning A Page in the U-Bahn Reading

Earlier in the week I finally finished reading the last pages of Andromaque, as well as the endnotes, and then — reading more of Aristotle's Politics in between, where he tries to define the oligarchy and the polity — began reading a collection of extracts from Madame de Staël's De la littérature and De l'Allemagne that Larousse published in a purple paperback edition in 1935.

My grandmother must have picked it up in Canada, because her name is recorded on the first page in her writing, and there is a price stamp '$0.50' on the same page.

Biased as I am, perhaps, by the editor's notes — Mme. de Staël's sweeping assertions in De la littérature about ancient Greek playwrights and philosophers (e.g. 'the Roman philosophers were better') make me cringe.

Perhaps they make me cringe all the more because they hold up a mirror: I too have made plenty of "sweeping assertions" about many subjects throughout my life!