“It cannot be emphasized too much that this thing of classical reserve, this ne quid nimis, may be overdone. Many of the classics themselves lack classical reserve. The editors of Pindar have most of them ceased to vindicate Pindar’s style. In the matter of metaphor, says Schroeder, he is still ‘crude and unclarified.’ But what can be more ‘crude and unclarified’ than the following passage, which I take from Mark Pattison, the erudite biographer of Casaubon, a man steeped in every kind of lore, classical and other? ‘Even at this day a country squire or rector in landing with his cub under his wing in Oxford finds himself very much at sea.‘ Since reading this I have given myself very little concern about Pindar’s mixed metaphors or mine.”
-Basil L. Gildersleeve, The Channels of Life
