Exploring The Waste Land
A miscellaneous page linked from The Waste Land, Part III, line 308

Fire Sermon
Line 308

While browsing a website called The On-Line Books Page I noticed a book by William Greenleaf Eliot, T.S. Eliot's grandfather. The book was entitled Lectures to Young Men (Seventh edition, 1858). The epigraph for the first chapter, mentioned the lust of the eyes as did the Buddha's Fire Sermon.

The epigraph:

"I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." --
1 John, ii. 14-17.

It isn't surprising that the Bible has something similar to Buddha's teachings but I thought that the prominence of the quote on a book that Eliot must have been raised with was worth pointing out.

By-the-way, while on the topic of Eliot's ancestors, one of his early New England Puritan ancestors has had a famous statue erected in his honor.

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Links:

L 1 - The On-Line Books Page
Links to locations of books put on the web.
L 2 - Lectures to Young Men
Scanned images from a book written by William Greenleaf Eliot, T.S. Eliot's grandfather
L 3 - Lectures to Young Women
Scanned images from a book written by William Greenleaf Eliot, T.S. Eliot's grandfather

Exploring The Waste Land
File name: mq308.html
File date: Sunday, September 29, 2002
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