“The people of bygone ages seem infinitely remote
from us. We do not feel justified in ascribing to them any underlying
intentions beyond those they formally express; we are amazed when we come upon
a sentiment more or less akin to what we feel today in a Homeric hero, or a
skillful tactical feint by Hannibal during the battle of Cannae, where he let
his flank be driven back in order to take the enemy by surprise and encircle
him; it is as though we imagined the epic poet and the Carthaginian general to
be as remote from ourselves as an animal seen in a zoo.”—French novelist
Marcel
Proust (1871-1922), The Guermantes Way (1913),
Vol. III of In Search of Lost Time, translated
by Mark Treharne
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