In the times when a book the size of a three-volume
novel of to-day would mean a mule-load of bamboo splinters or wooden
tablets, it is absurd to suppose that generals in the field, or envoys on
the march, could carry their Odes bodily about with them: it is even
probable that the four "scriptural" books in question were
exclusively committed to memory by the general public, and that
not more than half a dozen varnish-written copies existed in any
state; possibly not more than one copy. In fact, the only
available literary exhilaration then open to cultured friends was
to check the memory on visiting strange lands by comparing the
texts of Odes, Changes, or Book. A knowledge of the Rites would
perhaps be confined to the ruling classes almost entirely, for
with them it lay to pronounce the religious, the ritual, the
social, or the administrative sanction applicable to each
contested set of circumstances. It is very much as though,--as was
indeed the case in Johnsonian times,--the French, English, and
German wits of the day, and occasionally distinguished literary
specimens of even more "barbarous" countries, should at a literary
conference indulge in quotations from Horace or Juvenal by way of
passing the time: they would not select the Twelve Tables or the
Laws of the Pr'tors as matter for the testing of learning.
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