| 词汇 | sweetness and light |
| 词源 | sweetness and light. Jonathan Swift invented this peren- nial phrase in his preface to The Battle of the Books (1697). Swift took the figure from the beehive when comparing the merits of the bee (the ancients) with the spider (the mod- erns): “The difference is that instead of dirt and poison, we have chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus fur- nishing mankind with the two noblest things, which are sweetness and light.” Later, Matthew Arnold, in Culture and Anarchy (1869), regarded these as the basic contribution of the artist and the basis of culture itself: “He who works for sweetness and light united, works to make reason and the will of God prevail.” |
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