If the study of history is the study of language in one form or another, and if we really fabricate our past, not merely-weakly-live it; then we can begin to see how the world was Greek once, or was Roman, since every page of consciousness was written in these tongues then. All the central documents-laws, plays, poems, reports, abiding wisdoms, letters, scientific learning, news-were couched in Greek or Latin phrases, and the chief historians consulted them, composed their chronicles from the same speech, in the same words. Don't you see that when a man writes the history of your country in another mother-language, he is bent on conquest? (William H. Gass)

If the study of history is the study of language in one form or another, and if we really fabricate our past, not merely-weakly-live it; then we can begin to see how the world was Greek once, or was Roman, since every page of consciousness was written in these tongues then. All the central documents-laws, plays, poems, reports, abiding wisdoms, letters, scientific learning, news-were couched in Greek or Latin phrases, and the chief historians consulted them, composed their chronicles from the same speech, in the same words. Don't you see that when a man writes the history of your country in another mother-language, he is bent on conquest?

William H. Gass

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abiding begin bent central chief conquest consciousness country form greek history language latin learning man once page past roman see speech study world write letters words

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