Montesquieu (1689–1755). Persian Letters. 1901.
Letter LXXIIIRica to
I
Some time ago, in order to establish its authority, it issued a code of its decisions. This child of so many fathers may be said to have been old when it was born; and although it was legitimate, a bastard, born before it, nearly strangled it at its birth.
Those who compose this court have no other function than to jabber perpetually: eulogy suggests itself as the one subject of their incessant babble; and as soon as they are initiated into its mysteries, a frenzy of panegyric lays hold of them, and will not be shaken off.
This body had forty heads, all of them chokeful of tropes, of metaphors, and of antitheses; so that their lips scarcely ever open without an exclamation, and their ears are always waiting to be touched with rhythm and harmony. As for their eyes, they are out of the question; the Academy seems to be intended to talk and not to see. It is not firm on its legs; for time, which is its scourge, smites it incessantly and destroys all it does. It is said that at one time its hands were grasping; I have nothing to say on the subject, and will leave those to decide it who know more about it than I do.
Such eccentricities … are unknown in our Persia. We have no bent toward what is odd and extravagant; we endeavor to shape our simple customs and artless manners in the mold of nature.
P