"'The world's great age begins anew...'
"...it is enough that we are on our way."
-see here.
"...Falkayn thought, This was a grand era in its way. I too will miss it."
-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 1-291 AT XX, p. 266.
Falkayn again:
"'The wound to the old order of things is too deep...'"
-op. cit., XXI, p. 282.
How should Falkayn and his contemporaries respond? They might take advice from Tennyson's Arthur:
Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere: | |||||
“Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? | 35 | ||||
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? | |||||
For now I see the true old times are dead, | |||||
When every morning brought a noble chance, | |||||
And every chance brought out a noble knight. | |||||
Such times have been not since the light that led | 40 | ||||
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. | |||||
But now the whole Round Table is dissolv’d | |||||
Which was an image of the mighty world, | |||||
And I, the last, go forth companionless, | |||||
And the days darken round me, and the years, | 45 | ||||
Among new men, strange faces, other minds.” | |||||
And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge: | |||||
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new, | |||||
And God fulfils himself in many ways, | |||||
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. |
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The line: "Lest one good custom should corrupt the world" puzzles me. If a custom is good how can it corrupt anything? Or am I being too literal minded?
Sean
Sean,
Feudalism was good in its time but would not fit industrial society.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That makes sense. And I like some of the IDEAS behind feudalism, such as decentralization of power.
Sean
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