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  4. Henry David Thoreau
  5. In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told...

In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, "memoirs to serve for a history," which is but materials to serve for a mythology.

Henry David Thoreau
Hands, History, Greek
Henry David Thoreau (1975). “Early Essays and Miscellanies”, p.60, Princeton University Press
In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of