| Author Quoted | Herodotus |
| Title Quoted | Histories |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1939/05/30 |
| Imprint | |
| Quotation | Herodotus [Note 10: Merton was reading Herodotus's Histories, the first great prose work in European literature. Herodotus (died 425 B.C.E.) was known as "the Father of History" by Cicero, among others.] used figures when he was the only fellow who knew those numbers: e.g. how far it is from Susa to the Mediterranean. He was one of the few people who had been able to find out. And here was a case where (a) it was important to have the world measured, (b) the numbers were so big they meant something over against the error he was correcting (e.g. the Lacedemonian King may have thought he could go to Susa in three days instead of three months). |
| Quotation Source | Run to the mountain: The Story of a Vocation. The journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 1, 1939-1941.; Edited by Patrick Hart, O.C.S.O. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1995, p. 11 |
| Letter to | |
| Notes | |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
(If there is a link above showing up as a number, click it to open another window with a full text version.) |