"Two thousand years ago, the Roman poet Horace gave the argument to mice,
at the end of one of his Satires. A mouse from the city visits a mouse
in the country and insists that life is too short to be spent in rustic
deprivation. The city awaits, with its endless easy pleasures. The country
mouse is persuaded and leaves home with his friend. The two crawl under
the city wall-pass, a decisive boundary between the old condition and
the new - and enter a great house, where they nibble like kings on
the remains of a fancy meal. It's all as promised, until barking dogs
interrupt the dinner and scare the mice off their seats and out of their
wits. `Who needs this?' cries the country mouse, in flight back to the fields."
--James M. Morris, Out of bounds (city vs. country life),
The Wilson Quarterly, Spring 1998.
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Washington delenda est
at the end of one of his Satires. A mouse from the city visits a mouse
in the country and insists that life is too short to be spent in rustic
deprivation. The city awaits, with its endless easy pleasures. The country
mouse is persuaded and leaves home with his friend. The two crawl under
the city wall-pass, a decisive boundary between the old condition and
the new - and enter a great house, where they nibble like kings on
the remains of a fancy meal. It's all as promised, until barking dogs
interrupt the dinner and scare the mice off their seats and out of their
wits. `Who needs this?' cries the country mouse, in flight back to the fields."
--James M. Morris, Out of bounds (city vs. country life),
The Wilson Quarterly, Spring 1998.
------------------
Washington delenda est