dinner.’
4. ‘I will never follow physic either in eating or studying,’ said Toxophilus, ‘for if I did I am sure there would be less pleasure in the one, or profit in the other. But what news brings you here?’
5. ‘No news,’ replied Philologus, ‘just that as I was walking I saw several of our friends go to archery, there to shoot at the butts; but you were not with them.
6. ‘So I sought you, and found you looking on your book intently; and thought to come and talk with you, lest your book should run away with you.
7. ‘For by your wavering pace and earnest look I perceived that your book was leading you, not you it.’
8. ‘There you are right,’ said Toxophilus, ‘For truly my thoughts were going faster than my feet.
9. ‘I am reading a treatise of the mind, which says how well-feathered minds fly true and high, while those with moulted and drooping feathers sink always to base things.’
10. Said Philologus, ‘I remember the passage well; it is wonderfully expressed. And now I see it is no marvel that your feet failed you, for your well-feathered thought was flying so fast.’
11. ‘So it was. But perhaps I should go now and practise archery,’ said Toxophilus, ‘for you put me in mind of a different duty;
12. ‘It is a fair day for exercise, and it is as necessary to mingle pastimes with study for the mind’s health, as eating and sleeping are for the body’s health.
13. ‘Aristotle himself says that although it were a fond and childish thing to be always at play, yet play may be used for the sake of earnest matter too;
14. ‘And as rest is the antidote of labour, so play is the relief of study and business.’
15. ‘And I have heard it said,’ Philologus replied, ‘that study is like husbandry, in which we till the ground and sow with seed to reap thereafter;
16. ‘For I heard myself a good husbandman at his book once say, that to rest from study some time of the day and some time of the year, made as much for the increase of learning as to let the land lie fallow for a season.’
17. Thus persuaded, Toxophilus went with his friend to the butts to shoot arrows as well-feathered as Plato’s thoughts; and by that rest and diversion found refreshment for his mind.
Chapter 23
1. One evening, when the old woman’s grandchildren demanded a story, she asked them,
2. ‘Have you heard about the sisters who hunted deer in the clouds and caught the wind in a net?’ They shook their heads.
3. So she pointed at the space under a tree which served as the village school, and said,
4. ‘When I was a child there was no school here, and never had been.
5. ‘One day a foreigner was brought to the village by some of our men.
6. ‘They had found him lying injured in the forest, where he had fallen from a tree trying to catch butterflies.
7. ‘My uncle was our medicine man, and he mended his bones and brought him back to health.
8. ‘As he recovered he spent many hours talking to my uncle about the country he came from. And my mother’s youngest sister sat listening from the next room.
9. ‘There in that other country, the foreigner said, not only boys but girls go to school, and learn to read books, and thereby come to know many things,
10. ‘And as a result they do many things, and some of them travel the world to learn even more, as he himself had done.
11. ‘My mother’s sister grew thoughtful. When it was time for the foreigner to leave, she told her family,
12. ‘“I want to go to this man’s country to learn to read, if he will take me.”
13. ‘The family said that it would be easier to hunt deer among the clouds and catch the wind in a net than to leave the village and travel far and learn to read.
14. ‘But the foreigner said there were towns in the distant lowlands of our own country where she could do just such a thing.
15. ‘Oh what discussion and argument there was about it! But my mother’s
4. ‘I will never follow physic either in eating or studying,’ said Toxophilus, ‘for if I did I am sure there would be less pleasure in the one, or profit in the other. But what news brings you here?’
5. ‘No news,’ replied Philologus, ‘just that as I was walking I saw several of our friends go to archery, there to shoot at the butts; but you were not with them.
6. ‘So I sought you, and found you looking on your book intently; and thought to come and talk with you, lest your book should run away with you.
7. ‘For by your wavering pace and earnest look I perceived that your book was leading you, not you it.’
8. ‘There you are right,’ said Toxophilus, ‘For truly my thoughts were going faster than my feet.
9. ‘I am reading a treatise of the mind, which says how well-feathered minds fly true and high, while those with moulted and drooping feathers sink always to base things.’
10. Said Philologus, ‘I remember the passage well; it is wonderfully expressed. And now I see it is no marvel that your feet failed you, for your well-feathered thought was flying so fast.’
11. ‘So it was. But perhaps I should go now and practise archery,’ said Toxophilus, ‘for you put me in mind of a different duty;
12. ‘It is a fair day for exercise, and it is as necessary to mingle pastimes with study for the mind’s health, as eating and sleeping are for the body’s health.
13. ‘Aristotle himself says that although it were a fond and childish thing to be always at play, yet play may be used for the sake of earnest matter too;
14. ‘And as rest is the antidote of labour, so play is the relief of study and business.’
15. ‘And I have heard it said,’ Philologus replied, ‘that study is like husbandry, in which we till the ground and sow with seed to reap thereafter;
16. ‘For I heard myself a good husbandman at his book once say, that to rest from study some time of the day and some time of the year, made as much for the increase of learning as to let the land lie fallow for a season.’
17. Thus persuaded, Toxophilus went with his friend to the butts to shoot arrows as well-feathered as Plato’s thoughts; and by that rest and diversion found refreshment for his mind.
Chapter 23
1. One evening, when the old woman’s grandchildren demanded a story, she asked them,
2. ‘Have you heard about the sisters who hunted deer in the clouds and caught the wind in a net?’ They shook their heads.
3. So she pointed at the space under a tree which served as the village school, and said,
4. ‘When I was a child there was no school here, and never had been.
5. ‘One day a foreigner was brought to the village by some of our men.
6. ‘They had found him lying injured in the forest, where he had fallen from a tree trying to catch butterflies.
7. ‘My uncle was our medicine man, and he mended his bones and brought him back to health.
8. ‘As he recovered he spent many hours talking to my uncle about the country he came from. And my mother’s youngest sister sat listening from the next room.
9. ‘There in that other country, the foreigner said, not only boys but girls go to school, and learn to read books, and thereby come to know many things,
10. ‘And as a result they do many things, and some of them travel the world to learn even more, as he himself had done.
11. ‘My mother’s sister grew thoughtful. When it was time for the foreigner to leave, she told her family,
12. ‘“I want to go to this man’s country to learn to read, if he will take me.”
13. ‘The family said that it would be easier to hunt deer among the clouds and catch the wind in a net than to leave the village and travel far and learn to read.
14. ‘But the foreigner said there were towns in the distant lowlands of our own country where she could do just such a thing.
15. ‘Oh what discussion and argument there was about it! But my mother’s
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