A tad, yes.
Your quote is almost too florid for me to decipher.
The natural result of a steady diet of Cicero. They didn’t appreciate the dangers then.
For further fascinating reading, I recommend a search on “cookery” with date:1800-1900. Pay particular attention to the books on cooking instruction, and cookbooks.
I think our astonishment and repulsion is due to the decay of the compliment.
Anyone care to take a guess on who wrote the following bit of florid groveling?
The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your lordship, to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with happiness.
No cheating, now.
David
It certainly is not. I see modern books with very sincere complements and thanks in the introductions all the time (critical editions being difficult work). The tone of your quote is servile and grovelling, as it is in the quote I gave above.
Did anyone else notice that “Google Print” has just changed to “Google Book Search” and that you now have to sign in to see pages? It also says they track what pages you look at.
Yes.
The Terminator will be a searchable killing machine.
I see modern books with very sincere complements and thanks in the introductions all the time (critical editions being difficult work).
Sincere compliments and thanks, no doubt! I simply meant that the compliment, as an art form, had decayed. It certainly has not disappeared, nor has gratitude.
The tone of your quote is servile and grovelling, as it is in the quote I gave above.
Indeed it is, at least from our perspective. It also happens to be Shakespeare’s dedication of The Rape of Lucrece. My point is simply that, whatever the reason for such hyperbolic dedications, it is not a lack of eloquence, talent, or taste.
Respectfully,
David