Gibbon

I find myself insensibly adopting the written affectations–indeed the very manners–of that very assiduous and unaffectedly zealous scholar, who filled his volumes with the most erudite, unprepossessing, and noble sentiments, such that the unconcerned reader cannot but find his mind bent towards an eager and even enthusiastic pursuit of, uh, the purple.

I needed to work specious in there somewhere.

Sorry.  I really do find myself listening to phrases from his book running through my head as I go to sleep.  I think on balance it is a good thing.  He is a master of snark.  One phrase I remembered was “if we are to believe the accounts of antiquity, chastity was far from being her most conspicuous virtue”, on Severus Septimius’s wife.

I am getting a lot more of his subtle humor because the reader is quite astute at turning phrases.

I started a post on Athanasius, and the persecution of the Christians by the Christians, but I think I am going to defer until tomorrow.  Long day.

I do feel, though, that the influence of this book on my own prose will be permanent.  That was the entire reason I started it, although I am unexpectedly learning a LOT about Christianity that I had not known.

And I will say again that there really is a qualitative difference between reading a book and listening to it.  You process them differently.