"Historical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when all one's prospect, all one's landscapes, historical pieces, portraits, flowers, still life, are nothing but a single line, with no varieties except degrees ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... confined to his room, even as Johnson was when Malone found him roasting apples and reading a history of Birmingham, he cannot do better than surround himself with the publications of the Historical Manuscripts Commission; they will cost him next to nothing, tell him something new on every page, revive a host of old memories and scores of half-forgotten names, and perhaps tempt him to become ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... based on extensive researches into documentary and newspaper sources. The Loyalist point of view will be found admirably set forth in M. C. Tyler, The Literary History of the American Revolution (2 vols., 1897), and The Party of the Loyalists in the American Revolution (American Historical Review, I, 24). Of special studies in a limited field the most valuable and important is A. C. Flick, Loyalism in New York (1901); it is the result of exhaustive researches, and contains an excellent bibliography of printed and manuscript sources. Other studies ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson with historical introduction and additional notes by Edward ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... hemisphere; her youngest child—all four of our children were born within the first eight years of our marriage—her youngest child was then long past its infancy, and she had leisure to enjoy herself, in increasing the happiness of her offspring. She had improved her mind by reading; and her historical lore, in particular, was always ready to be produced for the common advantage. There was no ostentation in this; but everything was produced just as if each had a right to its use. Then it was, I felt the immense importance of having a companion, in an intellectual sense, in a wife. ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... is further urged that in historical retrospect, and in the light of evolution, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that in the course of man's development from a savage and barbaric condition all manner of ills—bloodshed, slavery, etc.—have been necessary stages; may not, then, sin be claimed as constituting part of the Divine ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... the renewed Yugoslavia, which though Communist, distanced itself from Moscow's rule. Dissatisfied with the exercise of power by the majority Serbs, the Slovenes succeeded in establishing their independence in 1991 after a short 10-day war. Historical ties to Western Europe, a strong economy, and a stable democracy have assisted in Slovenia's transformation to a modern state. Slovenia acceded to both NATO and the EU ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... or Assur-nasir-pal (i.e., "Assur preserves the son") we possess fuller historical records than of any other of the Assyrian monarchs, and among these the following inscription is the most important. From it, and from the inscription upon his statue discovered by Mr. Layard [Footnote: Now in the British Museum.] in the ruins of one of ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... of letters who appeared from time to time at the Hotel de Rambouillet would include the most noted names of the century, besides many which were famous in their day, but at present are little more than historical shadows. The conversations were often learned, doubtless sometimes pretentious. One is inclined to wonder if these noble cavaliers and high-born woman did not yawn occasionally over the scholarly discourse of Corneille and Balzac upon the Romans, the ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... immortal characters of Fiction must ask itself, Did the persons in contemporary novels never meet? In so little a world their paths must often have crossed, their orbits must have intersected, though we hear nothing about the adventure from the accredited narrators. In historical fiction authors make their people meet real men and women of history—Louis XI., Lazarus, Mary Queen of Scots, General Webbe, Moses, the Man in the Iron Mask, Marie Antoinette; the list is endless. But novelists, ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... historical authority for the events of the celebrated Ballad on which this Tragedy is founded, I have fixed upon the thirteenth century for the period of their occurrence. At that time the kingdom of Castille had ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... now a recognized principle of philosophy that no religious belief, however crude, nor any historical tradition, however absurd, can be held by the majority of a people for any considerable time as true, without having had in the beginning ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... could be spared.. He also received six pieces of artillery. Six cannon, which the lovers of harmony had baptized with the notes of the gamut, 'ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la', were placed at his disposal by the authorities, and have acquired historical celebrity. It was, however, ordained that when those musical pieces piped, the Spaniards were not to dance. On the 22d, followed by his whole force, consisting of Braccamonte's legion, his own four vanderas, and a troop of Germans, he came in sight of the enemy at Dam. Louis of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... commercial problems, the best opportunities of hearing them discussed at first hand by those who were practically most conversant with the subjects in all their details. Of course the society sometimes discussed questions of literature or art, or familiar old historical controversies, such as whether Brutus did well in killing Caesar? Indeed, no subject was expressly tabooed except such as might stir up the Deistic or Jacobite strife—in the words of the rules, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... here; and adjoining the church is a large stone, on which, according to tradition, they were placed during the ceremony. Many interesting relics have from time to time been discovered in illustration of these historical facts, and till the year 1730, the figures of some of the above kings and that of king John (who chartered the town) were preserved in a chapel adjoining the above spot. In that year, however, the chapel fell, and with it were demolished the royal effigies.[2] Mr. Lysons, with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... Scott, he wrote a historical romance in 1826, 'Cinq-Mars, ou une Conjuration sans Louis XIII'. It met with the most brilliant and decided success and was crowned by the Academy. Cinq-Mars will always be remembered as the earliest romantic novel in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... varieties of Loto, with pictures, flowers, letters, etc., instead of numbers, which are known as Picture Loto, Botanical Loto, Spelling Loto, Geographical Loto, Historical Loto, and ...
— Round Games with Cards • W. H. Peel
... has not, of course, been gained at a bound. Before indicating the present extent of our information, it may be well to give an historical sketch of ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... (Septembriseurs); a name of some note and lucency,—but lucency of the Nether-fire sort; very different from that of our Bastille Heroes, who shone, disputable by no Friend of Freedom, as in heavenly light-radiance: to such phasis of the business have we advanced since then! The numbers massacred are, in Historical fantasy, 'between two and three thousand;' or indeed they are 'upwards of six thousand,' for Peltier (in vision) saw them massacring the very patients of the Bicetre Madhouse 'with grape-shot;' nay finally ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... slept when I visited there, these wooden walls were of pale green; the tiles were of blue and white, and afforded me endless study and perplexity, being painted with a series of half-allegorical, half-historical, half-Scriptural representations which might well have puzzled an older head than mine. The parlors were white, with gold ornaments; the library was of oak, with mahogany wainscoting, and so were the two great central halls, upper and lower. The balustrade of the staircase was of apple-tree ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Nothing can demonstrate the suitability of the climate and the soil for its cultivation more than this one fact, namely, that at the very beginning of Australian settlement it was plain enough that the land was meant for the grape; and there is an interesting historical association, well worthy of note, attached to this circumstance. By order of the Emperor Napoleon, the Great Napoleon, a voyage of discovery to the Southern Hemisphere was performed by a fully equipped expedition during the ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... little city on the western coast of Puerto Rico,—a place of lattices, balconies, and walled-in gardens ablaze with blossoms. Behind it lies a semicircle of green hills, and before it is the laughing sea. Columbus touched here in one of his earlier voyages, and historical associations ...
— From Yauco to Las Marias • Karl Stephen Herrman
... a woman with a child-angel's face, and the mezzo-luna beneath her feet. That artist knew what he was about, sir. I'd give more for a picture with a good, deep idea, boldly launched forth, than for a thousand of your smiling, proper, natural 'studies,' and Bridal Scenes, and Dramatic or Historical Snatches. If artists, now, were all poets and scholars, as they should be, it would be the work and delirious rapture of a life to go through a gallery as large as our Dusseldorf. Men would go there to write novels and histories, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... it,—or Molossa's, as dear old smattering, chattering, would-be-College-President, Cotton Mather, has it in the "Magnalia"? Ponder thereon, ye small antiquaries, who make barn-door-fowl flights of learning in "Notes and Queries"!—ye Historical Societies, in one of whose venerable triremes I, too, ascend the stream of time, while other hands tug at the oars!—ye Amines of parasitical literature, who pick up your grains of native-grown food with a bodkin, having ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... This is an historical fact. The steamboat "Beaver" made its first exploration upon the Red River, some eighty miles above the French settlement of Nachitochy, just at the very time that the Comanches were attacking the last Caddoe village upon the banks of the Red. River. These poor ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... Sara gaily, "do not—do not fight. Be nice to each other and listen to me. The English never read history. Why not get up a kind of Historical Commission and examine the validity of the Anglican Orders? There you can work at the roots of things. After that, introduce a Bill for the admission of clergymen to Parliament. You have spiritual peers, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... an old mansion not far from the place of the same name, now become historical. It was a building of large size; the grounds were extensive, and had been elegant; the house had evidently been the home of a long line of gentlemen, whose portraits, flanked by those of their fair helpmates, adorned the walls of the great drawing-room, between the lofty windows. ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... speech 'in the fulness of time' embodies a truth too often forgotten. History knows nothing of spontaneous generation; the chain of cause and effect is unbroken, and however modest be the scale on which an historical work is cast, the reader has a right to ask that it should give him some idea, not only of what happened, but of why it happened. A catalogue of dates and names is as meaningless as the photograph of a crowd. In the following retrospect, I have attempted to trace the principal ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... narrative, whether historical or biographical, authenticity is of the utmost consequence[1]. Of this I have ever been so firmly persuaded, that I inscribed a former work[2] to that person who was the best judge of its truth. I need not tell you I mean General Paoli; who, after his great, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... clung greatly to families in the grocery and chandlering lines, though not incompatible with prosperous wholesale dealing. But with the Catholic Question had come a slight wind of controversy to break the calm: the elderly rector had become occasionally historical and argumentative; and Mr. Spray, the Independent minister, had begun to preach political sermons, in which he distinguished with much subtlety between his fervent belief in the right of the Catholics to the franchise and ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... [See Ernst Pauer's Musical Forms.] Naturally his sonatas are not all masterpieces. Of the thirty-five, some are old-fashioned and some are quite second-rate. But, like the symphonies, they are all of historical value as showing the development not only of the form but of the composer's powers. One of the number is peculiar in having four movements; another is equally peculiar—to Haydn at least—in having only two movements. Probably ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... "The Socratic Doctrine of the Soul,"[70] Professor John Burnet has expounded the meaning of early Greek conceptions of the soul with rare insight and lucidity. Originally, the word [Greek: psyche] meant "breath," but, by historical times, it had already been specialized in two distinct ways. It had come to mean courage in the first place, and secondly the breath of life, the presence or absence of which is the most obvious distinction between the animate and the inanimate, the "ghost" ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... fifth power to these four—that of the Venetian masters, who are the poets of carnal beauty, the rhetoricians of mundane pomp, the impassioned interpreters of all things great and splendid in the pageant of the outer world. As Venice herself, by type of constitution and historical development, remained sequestered from the rest of Italy, so her painters demand separate treatment.[235] It is enough, therefore, for the present to remember that without the note they utter the chord of the Renaissance lacks ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... hostile than borderland, resource, and territorial disputes; undemarcated, indefinite, porous, and unmanaged boundaries, however, encourage illegal cross-border activities, uncontrolled migration, and confrontation; territorial disputes may evolve from historical and/or cultural claims, or they may be brought on by resource competition; ethnic clashes continue to be responsible for much of the territorial fragmentation around the world; disputes over islands at sea or in rivers frequently form ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... editor and publishers declared that such an interpretation would not be unwelcome to Americans and pressed upon the author a task for which he doubted his own qualifications. To the editor he owes thanks for wise criticism. He is also indebted to Mr. Worthington Chauncey Ford, of the Massachusetts Historical Society, a great authority on Washington, who has kindly read the proofs and given helpful comments. Needless to say the author alone is responsible for opinions in ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... a kind of uneducated thought. The fact that some of them looked so thoroughly alive, and yet had lived centuries ago, seemed to set him reflecting oddly. His curiosity, however, seemed to connect itself with them more as human creatures than as historical figures. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... build their own house—we should feel it unjust to the government not to acknowledge the good taste which, as we learn, has directed that an estimate be taken of the disposable space on the walls of the new buildings, to be devoted to the exalted work of the historical painter. Records of the greatness of England are to endure in undying hues on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various
... enthusiastic antiquaries, to need a detailed notice in this place. Every one is aware that the ecclesiastical customs and architecture of the early Church can be studied in greater perfection here than elsewhere. Not even the basilicas and mosaics of Rome, nor those of Palermo and Monreale, are equal for historical interest to those of Ravenna. Yet there is not one single church which remains entirely unaltered and unspoiled. The imagination has to supply the atrium or outer portico from one building, the vaulted baptistery with its marble font from another, the pulpits and ambones from a third the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... first eminent historical personage was Mago, B.C. 500, who greatly extended the dominions of Carthage. Of his two sons, Hamilcar was defeated and slain by Gelon of Syracuse. The other son, Hasdrubal, perished in Sardinia. His sons remained the most powerful citizens of ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... tribes before the eyes, there is a thrilling illustration of the sacred record; the past becomes the present; the veil of three thousand years is raised, and the living picture is a witness to the exactness of the historical description. At the same time, there is a light thrown upon many obscure passages in the Old Testament by the experience of the present customs and figures of speech of the Arabs which are precisely those that were practised at the periods ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... he recognised a heap of ruins, to which he drew Barbicane's attention. It was situated in about the 80th parallel and 30 deg. longitude. This heap of stones, pretty regularly made, was in the shape of a vast fortress, overlooking one of those long furrows which served as river-beds in ante-historical times. Not far off rose to a height of 5,646 metres the circular mountain called Short, equal to the Asiatic Caucasus. Michel Ardan, with his habitual ardour, maintained "the evidences" of his fortress. Below he perceived the dismantled ramparts of a town; here the arch ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... like the "Pathfinder Tales" of J. Fenimore Cooper, combine historical information relating to early pioneer days in America with interesting adventures in the backwoods. Although the same characters are continued throughout the series, each book is complete in itself, and, while based strictly on historical facts, is an ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... became evident that we were foreordained to Richard; so we resolved to embrace the modern historical view of this subject, which will before long turn him out a saint, and not be afraid of the muster roll of ghosts which Shakspeare represented as ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... words of Benevenuta, the Improvisatrice of Florence, "that it was difficult to say whether Pierre Bon-Bon was indeed a bird of Paradise, or rather a very Paradise of perfection." I might, I say, expatiate upon all these points if I pleased,—but I forbear, merely personal details may be left to historical novelists,—they are beneath the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... different fan, and then took her way to the shaded apartments in which, at this hour, the Principino would be enjoying his nap. She passed through the first empty room, the day nursery, and paused at an open door. The inner room, large, dim and cool, was equally calm; her boy's ample, antique, historical, royal crib, consecrated, reputedly, by the guarded rest of heirs-apparent, and a gift, early in his career, from his grandfather, ruled the scene from the centre, in the stillness of which she could almost hear ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... on important historical events, scenes wherein boys are prominent characters being selected. They are the romance of history, vigorously told, with careful fidelity to picturing the home life, and accurate in ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... of supposititious ones, are sometimes used for illustration. When thus used they serve as allegories, without affecting their original historical significance. Example.—Gal. 4: 22-31. See also Rom. 9:7, 8; 1 Cor. 9:9, ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... been obliged to limit the number of her interviews with a lady whose costume and manner recalled to her imagination—Mrs. Acton's imagination was a marvel—all that she had ever read of the most stirring historical periods. But she had sent the Baroness a great many quaintly-worded messages and a great many nosegays from her garden and baskets of beautiful fruit. Felix had eaten the fruit, and the Baroness had arranged the flowers and returned the baskets and the messages. On the day that followed that ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... side with another quaintly-named plant, bishop-weed or gout-weed, whose very titles in themselves bear curious witness to its original uses in this isle of Britain. I don't know why, but it is an historical fact that the early prelates of the English Church, saintly or otherwise, were peculiarly liable to that very episcopal disease, the gout. Whether their frequent fasting produced this effect; whether, as they themselves piously alleged, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... clever. But there goes the bell, and the Curtain will be up directly. Rather clever, I am told. The Rose of Rouen—it is founded on the life of Joan of Arc. I am rather fond of these historical studies. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various
... historical characters, seen as it were through mists of love and wonder, whom men could not forget, but for centuries continued to celebrate in countless songs and stories. They were not literary phantoms, but actual existences; imaginary and ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... presence. They are the personifications of kindness and knowledge. Though manifold in shape, they have little to do with mythology, and are analogous to the archangels of Christian and Jewish tradition and to the Amesha Spentas of Zoroastrianism. With these latter they may have some historical connection, for Persian ideas may well have influenced Buddhism about the time of the Christian era. However difficult it may be to prove the foreign origin of Bodhisattvas, few of them have a clear origin in India and all of them are much better known in Central Asia and China. But they are ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... discussion of the historical progress of socialism and the stages whereby it changed from the creed of a few theorists and revolutionists to being the accepted platform of great political parties, counting its adherents by the million. All of this belongs elsewhere. It suffices here to note ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... skillful abandon of a cowboy, galloped his horse to a position directly before the general. The two unnoticed foot soldiers made a little show of going on, but they lingered near in the desire to overhear the conversation. Perhaps, they thought, some great inner historical things ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... back of the Little Trianon, this beginning had led them naturally enough away from the frivolities of historical conversation to serious considerations, namely themselves. The start had been a reminiscence of Sylvia's, induced by the slow fall of golden leaves from the last of the birches into the still water ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... a measure as agreeable to him as essential to the strength and welfare of the kingdom. [330] [See note 2 S, at the end of this Vol.]—The interior economy of Great Britain produced, within the circle of this year, nothing else worthy of historical regard, except a series of enormous crimes, arising from the profligacy of individuals, which reflected disgrace upon the morals and the polity of the nation. Rapine and robbery had domineered without intermission ever since the return of peace, which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... five or six generations ago. But the written records of more cultured peoples of the Far East contain references to Borneo which throw some small rays of light upon the past history and present condition of its population. It has seemed to us worth while to bring together in these pages these few historical notes. The later history of Borneo, which is in the main the story of its occupation by and division between the Dutch and English, and especially the romantic history of the acquisition of the raj of Sarawak by its first English rajah, Sir James Brooke, has often ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... more exactly, the Allies contend, because Germany was equally indefinite in proclaiming all the waters surrounding Great Britain and Ireland a "war zone." The measures adopted are those of a blockade against all trade to and from Germany—not the historical kind of blockade recognized in international law, but a new ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Vardhamana, were only 250 years, and the age of the latter is given as only seventy-two years. He appeared, according to some, in the last half of the sixth century, according to others in the first half of the fifth century B.C. He is of course the true, historical prophet of the Jainas and it is in his doctrine, that the Jainas should believe. The dating back of the origin of the Jaina religion again, agrees with the pretensions of the Buddhists, who recognise twenty-five Buddhas who taught the same system one after the other. Even with Brahmanism, it seems ...
— On the Indian Sect of the Jainas • Johann George Buehler
... the immediate and entire disbanding of the army had an easy task. If they were embarrassed, it was only by the abundance of the matter from which they had to make their selection. On their side were claptraps and historical commonplaces without number, the authority of a crowd of illustrious names, all the prejudices, all the traditions, of both the parties in the state. These writers laid it down as a fundamental principle of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... as they have been more properly called, biographical romances, of which I have been the author, it has been considered desirable to make certain additions to each work, in the form of a few introductory pages and scattered notes, illustrative of the origin of the tale, of the historical events referred to in it, and of the actually living characters who constitute its personages, with some account, also, of the really local scenery described; thus giving, it is thought, a double zest to the ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... same. And once they were thought of as dead kings, any notable tumuli would be pointed out as theirs, since it is a law in folk-belief to associate tumuli or other structures not with the dead or with their builders, but with supernatural or mythical or even historical personages. If side ever meant "ghosts," it would be easy to call the dead gods by this name, and to connect them with ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... The well-known historical incident which was thus announced shall receive but brief comment here. There is no question at all as to the fact that Sharp was unlawfully killed, that he was cruelly slain, without trial and without judicial condemnation, by a party ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... his hand to that of the king of England, "My brother," said he, "I am ashamed to say so, but the cardinal scarcely ever speaks of political affairs before me. Still more, formerly I used to get Laporte, my valet de chambre, to read historical subjects to me, but he put a stop to these readings, and took away Laporte from me. So that I beg my brother Charles to tell me all those matters as to a ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... left it. For the truth of this I refer your Lordships to a letter of the Company sent to the Board of Control. This letter is not in evidence before your Lordships, and what I am stating is merely historical. But I state the facts, and with the power of referring for their proof to documents as authentic as if they were absolutely in evidence before you. Assuming, therefore, that all these facts may be verified by the records of the Company, I have now to state that this man, by some ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... a great historical painter use the model? No, sir; he draws on his imagination for his figures. He scorns to copy from a model. I convey the impression of mystery that Naychure gives me; I am no servile copyist. And I claim to leave an impression on the minds of the beholders of my works. Why, even Caper, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of many men, who, although distinguished in their time, had not of late been very much known. Each member was introduced by his surname, but in nine cases out of ten, Mr. Lincoln would promptly recall their entire name, no matter how many initials it contained. In several instances he recited the historical reminiscences of families. When the tall General Doniphan, of Missouri, was introduced, Mr. Lincoln had to look up to catch Doniphan's eye. He ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... we pictured to ourselves the country as covered in historical times with an unbroken forest of oaks. Theophrastus has left us a description of the woods of Latium as they were in the fourth century before Christ. He says: "The land of the Latins is all moist. The plains produce laurels, myrtles, and wonderful beeches; for they fell trees of such a size that ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... this instance or in that, sinned against the truth, which can alone exalt and purify men. I do not say that they have constantly done so, or even commonly done so; but that they have done so at all marks them as of the past, to be read with the due historical allowance for their epoch and their conditions. For I believe that, while inferior writers will and must continue to imitate them in their foibles and their errors, no one here after will be able to achieve greatness who is false to humanity, either in its facts or its duties. The light of civilization ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... outfit. I should wish to see this reading lesson a daily hour for all younger boys, so as to form a real basis of education. Three of these hours could be given to English, and three to French, for in French there is a wide range both of simple narrative stories and historical romances. The aim to be kept in view would be the very simple one of proving that interest, amusement and emotion can be derived from books which, unassisted, only boys of tougher intellectual fibre could be expected to attack. The personalities of ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... unimportant characters as colour, size, and in a slight degree proportional dimensions and mental disposition, there is no reason whatever to doubt that the domestic duck is descended from the common wild species, for the one differs from the other in no important character. We have some historical evidence with respect to the period and progress of the domestication of the duck. It was unknown (8/6. Crawfurd on the 'Relation of Domesticated Animals to Civilisation' read before the Brit. Assoc. at Oxford ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... empire has been heightened by two other formidable forces. One is the historical force of nationalism—and the yearning of all men to be free. The other is the gross inefficiency of their economies. For a closed society is not open to ideas of progress—and a police state finds that it cannot ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... would have been happy to invade the only country on earth rich enough to pay her war debt. And you were astonishingly open to invasion. It is one of the historical facts that a student of history of this twenty-first century finds difficult ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... that his Latin would challenge and hold the attention of any audience that was not stone-deaf. But it is because Tacitus is never a mere stylist that some of us continue in the failure to translate him. His historical deductions and his revelations of character have their value for every age. 'This form of history,' says Montaigne, 'is by much the most useful ... there are in it more precepts than stories: it is not a book to read, 'tis ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... something not quite satisfactory in describing, expatiating on, and energising in, regions which one has never seen. For one thing, it was needful to be always carefully on the watch to avoid falling into mistakes geographical, topographical, natural-historical, and otherwise. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... May, 1494, while prosecuting his second voyage. On his fourth and last voyage he was shipwrecked on its northern coast, and, through the cruel jealousy of the governor of Hispaniola, was detained there nearly a year before relief was sent. In the dearth of historical associations, I have sometimes pleased myself with gazing at the high summit of Cape Clear Hill, which is far and wide conspicuous along the northern shore, and reflecting that the eye of the great discoverer may have often rested upon it during his weary detention, endeavoring ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... in these historical associations; they looked at all with that credulous admiration which leaves no room for examination or discussion. Madeleine read the name written under every piece of workmanship, and her sister answered with an ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... there is opened up not only the possibility of having boldness before Him in the day of judgment, but there is opened up this likewise—the certainty that He 'shall receive of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.' Oh, remember that as certain as the historical fact—He died on Calvary; so certain is the prophetic fact—He shall reign, and you and I will stand there! I durst not touch that subject. Take it into your own hearts; and think about it—a kingdom, a judgment-seat, a crown, a gathered universe; separation, decision, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... sea nearly three years since, between San Francisco and San Juan." I may remark that this uncertainty as to the place of her loss rather adds to the probability of her turning up after three years in Lat. 2 deg. 11' S., Long. 131 deg. W. A writer in the New Orleans Picayune, in a careful historical paper, explained at length that I had been mistaken all through; that Philip Nolan never went to sea, but to Texas; that there he was shot in battle, March 21, 1801, and by orders from Spain every ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... very primitive way. A glass tube served for the cylinder; a poker hung up by silk threads, as in the very oldest forms of electric machine, was the prime conductor; and for a Leyden jar he went back to the old historical jar of Cunaeus, and used a bottle half filled with water, standing in an outer vessel, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... experience that she would accept his teaching only as he presented every apparent fact, every object, every event, as a reflection in some degree of her immanent God, and subject to rigid demonstration. Where historical events externalized only the evil motives of the carnal mind, he must contrive to omit them entirely, or else present them as unreality, the result of "bad thoughts" and forgetfulness of God. In other words, only as he assumed to be the channel ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... could hardly match the occasion—not all his kraft sprachen would be too much. For the rest it was at least a roomy and lofty apartment, with space for many books, and for an irritable man to wander to and fro. Prints there were of many historical notables, and slips of letters and of memoranda ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... am your slave; no doubt this tax of five hundredths was paid by the master on the assumed value of his slave.—We have, however, no historical data ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... a vice to the individual for in religious and theological matters, he probably absorbs his narrowness from his generation. Moreover, we must not confound the essentials of saintliness with its accidents, which are the special determination of these passions at any historical moment. In these determinations the saints will usually be loyal to the ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... as big as Mr. Van Torp's at Oxley Paddox. It had its hall, its long drawing-room for dancing, its library, its breakfast-room and its morning-room, its billiard-room, sitting-room, and smoking-room, like many another big English country house; but it had also a picture gallery, the library was an historical collection that filled three good-sized rooms, and it was completed by one which had always been called the study, beyond which there were two little dwelling-rooms, at the end of the wing, where the librarian had lived when there had been one. For the old lord had been a bachelor and a book lover, ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... have the most liquids and vowels, glide the most softly." Or: "Where liquids and vowels most abound, the utterance is softest."—Id. "The simplest points, such as are most easily apprehended."—Id. "Too historical to be accounted a perfectly regular epic poem."—Id. "Putting after them the oblique case, agreeably to the French construction."—Priestley cor. "Where the train proceeds with an extremely slow ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Study of International Law; designed as an Aid in Teaching and in Historical Studies. By Theodore D. Woolsey, President of Yale College. New York. Charles Scribner. 8vo. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... in Sword and Queue brought forth many a contemptuous grimace from the higher-priced seats in the Court Theatres. But it needs only a perusal of the Memoirs of the Markgravine of Baireuth, Princess of Prussia, to give the grotesque picture a certificate of historical veracity. Not only the character-drawing, but the very plot, is founded on those Memoirs, written in a less sophisticated age than our own, and the authenticity of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... been in the historical opinions thus expressed, we cannot question the sincerity of his beliefs or fail to recognize that he had the keenest interest in whatever gave indication of the growth of a rational spirit in religion. These opinions he shared with many of the leading men of his time; but he ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... ([Greek: ton Zaena], the living God) we must assume his personality: otherwise what were it but an ether, a gravitation? —but to assume his personality, we must begin with his humanity, and this is impossible but in history; for man is an historical—not an eternal being. 'Ergo'. Christianity is of necessity historical ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... should turn up a large surface of life, rather than dig mines into geological strata. Masses of experience, anecdote, incident, cross-lights, quotation, historical instances, the whole flotsam and jetsam of two minds forced in and in upon the matter in hand from every point of the compass, and from every degree of mental elevation and abasement—these are the material with which talk ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of comparatively little weight, after we shall have seen how great are the differences between the several races of various domesticated animals which certainly have descended from a single parent-form. Secondly, the more important fact that, at the most anciently known historical periods, several breeds of the dog existed, very unlike each other, and closely resembling or identical with breeds ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... unmistakable mark, not merely of historical accuracy and research, but of historical genius; and the genius is not that of Thierry or Guizot, of Gibbon or Macaulay, but has a palpable individuality of its own. They evince throughout a patient, persistent industry in investigating original documents, from the mere labor of which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... "Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners, in a faithful Account of the Life and Death of John Bunyan, &c." Is it not, however, an historical error to call the Puritans dissenters? Before St. Bartholomew's day, they were essentially a part of the church, and had as determined opinions in favour of a church ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... solemnity of these historical meditations to the commonplace transactions of the journey, we had to carry on a considerable amount of wrangling with the muleteers, who were continually allowing their animals to stumble, and the ropes of the luggage to come loose, so that ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... that separates love from hate; in 'Opinions de M. l'Abbe Jerome Coignard' he has given us the most radical breviary of scepticism that has appeared since Montaigne. 'Le Livre de mon Ami' is mostly autobiographical; 'Clio' (1900) contains historical sketches. ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... newspapers "go rabid and foam personalities," are "ablaze with victories" and "bristling with bulletins,"—the public is in a "delirium,"—the politicians are "maddened,"—letters are written in "hot haste," and proclamations "sent flying." He appears to be on terms of intimacy with historical personages such as few writers are fortunate enough to be admitted to. He approves a remark of George II. and patronizingly exclaims, "Sensible King!" He has occasion to mention John Adams, and salutes him thus: "Glorious, delightful, honest John Adams! An American John Bull! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... Majesty's royal Encouragement of the Sea Service. To which is prefixed an Ode to the King; and A Discourse on Ode A Paraphrase on Part of the Book of Job. On Michael Angelo's Famous Piece of the Crucifixion; To Mr. Addison, on the Tragedy of Cato Historical Epilogue to the Brothers. A Tragedy Epitaph on Lord Aubrey Beauclerk, in Westminster Abbey, 1740 Epitaph at Welwyn, Hertfordshire. A Letter to Mr. Tickell, occasioned by the Death of the Right Hon. Joseph Addison Reflections on the ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... straggling tea-houses or small inns, and half a dozen native dwellings. Here is the famous and deeply interesting Shinto temple of Hachiman, one of the deified heroes of Japan. Some of the trees which cluster about it are a thousand years old; while within the structure are historical emblems, rich, rare, and equally old, composed of warlike implements, sovereign's gifts, ecclesiastical relics, bronzes of priceless value, and the like. Time consecrates; and what is gray with age becomes religious, says Schiller. The temple is built upon a lofty plateau, reached by climbing many ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... our story. In much shorter time than we have spent in reminding the reader of these historical particulars, Joliffe had made his mystic communication; and being duly answered as by one of the initiated, he undid the door, and there entered our old friend Roger Wildrake, round-head in dress, as his safety and dependence ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... have been lavished on that sort of research, little knowledge has been gained; and the most diligent inquirers have been compelled either to confess that they were baffled, or rather than own their disappointment, to substitute fable for fact, and pass the fictions of imagination for historical truths. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... religion of the twentieth century from being mystical in type. The strongest wish of a vast number of earnest men and women to-day is for a basis of religious belief which shall rest, not upon tradition or external authority or historical evidence, but upon the ascertainable facts of human experience. The craving for immediacy, which we have seen to be characteristic of all mysticism, now takes the form of a desire to establish the validity of the God-consciousness ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... been his friend and comrade from childhood, and lived quietly as a gentleman farmer with his wife, daughter and son-in-law, Monsieur de Darnetot, who did nothing, under the pretext of being devoted to historical studies. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... congenital fitness to the task, is doubly to be regretted. For as Mr. Bernard McEnvoy well says in his preface to her "Vancouver Legends," she "has linked the vivid present with the immemorial past.... In the imaginative power that she has brought to these semi-historical Sagas, and in the liquid flow of her rhythmical prose she has shown herself to be a literary worker of whom we ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... with literature at a date when every crossing-sweeper can read, when free libraries are multiplied, when a new novel is published every day all the year round, and when thousands and tens of thousands of books—scientific, historical, critical—are poured out from the presses. We have several weekly journals devoted almost entirely to the work of criticising the new volumes which appear, and the literary caste in society is both numerous and powerful. ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... those, strangers and others, who, in the most friendly dispositions, oppress me with their concerns, their pursuits, their projects, inventions, and speculations, political, moral, religious, mechanical, mathematical, historical, &c. &c. &c. I hope the appeal will bring me relief, and that I shall be left to, exercise and enjoy correspondence with the friends I love, and on subjects which they, or my own inclinations, present. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... that it is only an occasion like the present, and the necessities of a historical costume, that make me consent to paint ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... historical evidence and opinions have come to my attention, and I record them for what interest they may have. Past experience is often discarded as too old, but many a time an experimenter was ahead of his time, and his work remained unrecognized, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... THE Historical Museum of Hesse Cassel, in Germany, says the Carpenter and Builder, contains a most remarkable collection of curiosities. It is in the form of a wooden library, composed of five hundred and forty volumes of folio and quarto sizes. The books are made of the different ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... in holding particular opinions on the functions and nature of his Master, and only the second in obeying his Master's commands, then always, with a uniformity more remarkable than is obtained in any other historical phenomena, there have followed dissension, animosity, and in later ages bloodshed. Christianity, as a principle of life, has been the most powerful check upon the passions of mankind. Christianity as a speculative system of opinion has converted ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... now that they are fallen, to inspire others with the same courage. The interest of the novel centres about revolutionary France: just as the plot is an abstract judicial difficulty, the hero is an abstract historical force. And this has been done, not, as it would have been before, by the cold and cumbersome machinery of allegory, but with bold, straightforward realism, dealing only with the objective materials ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Baroda in India allowed the women of his dominions a vote in municipal elections, and Bosnia bestowed the parliamentary suffrage on women who owned a certain amount of real estate; Norway in 1913 and Iceland in 1914 were won to full suffrage. The following table presents a convenient historical summary of the progress in ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... Perhaps Lydia's presence and delight in it all has something to do with his contented frame of mind. However that may be, he has listened with polite attention to M. La Tour's long disquisitions, architectural as well as historical, and in return has asked him many questions about the products and industries of this prosperous town. It seems that the extensive slate quarries have not only roofed and housed a great part of Angers, but have added considerably to its revenue. Archie is in a merry ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... sooner had I fallen to work on this new conception than I found everywhere how old it was. It appeared even to have Scriptural warrant, for from a brief report of a historical-theological lecture by a Protestant German Professor I gleaned that many of the passages in the Prophets which had been interpreted as pointing to a coming Messiah, really applied to Israel, the people. Israel it was whom ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... book are as follow:—Whilst talking over early days with Mr. Courtenay-Luck, the popular Secretary of the Commercial Travellers' Club, that gentleman suggested that I should write a paper, to be read at a meeting of the Historical ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... "Confound historical facts that make her cry!" he murmured to himself, in a fury at the Roman fables. "It's no use comforting her with Niebuhr now. She's got a live Camillus in her brain, and there he'll stick." Tracy began to mutter ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... their desire for speedy results. [Sidenote: Efficiency] Every one has noticed the immense versatility of the Jesuits and their superficiality. They produced excellent scholars of a certain rank, men who could decipher Latin inscriptions, observe the planets, publish libraries of historical sources, of casuistry and apologetic, or write catechisms or epigrams. They turned with equal facility to preaching to naked savages and to the production of art for the most cultivated peoples in the world. And yet they have rarely, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... In dealing with minor orators, the selections made are considerable enough to show the style, method, and spirit. Where it has been necessary to choose between two orations of equal merit, the one having the greater historical significance has been selected. Of course it would not be possible, keeping within reasonable limits, to give every speech of every one worthy to be called an orator. Indeed, the greatest of orators sometimes failed. So we have carefully selected only those speeches which manifest the ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... know how little acceptable that compromise was to the God of Israel; and no illustration can be more apt than this narrative, which we may well, as we would fain, believe to be rather typical than historical. Typical of that indiscriminate and radical sacrifice, or "vastation," of our lower nature, which is insisted upon as the one thing needful by all, or nearly all,* the great religions of the world. No language could seem more purposely chosen to indicate that it is the individual nature ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... pioneers in the State of California. It includes also a record of present-day Negroes in that State. The book is illustrated with portraits exhibiting the life of the people past and present. The work is divided into three parts, the first being historical, the second biographical, and the third an account of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... progress, nor has it diminished their value as expressions of the loftiest and most enduring religious sentiments of mankind; but in the eyes of a great section of the educated world it has deprived them of the authoritative and infallible character that was once attributed to them. At the same time historical criticism has brought with it severer standards of proof, more efficient means of distinguishing the historical from the fabulous. It has traced the phases and variations of religions, and the influences ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... the Queen's attention was drawn to a publication which it was impossible for her to ignore. "The Greville Memoirs," filled with a mass of historical information of extraordinary importance, but filled also with descriptions, which were by no means flattering, of George IV, William IV, and other royal persons, was brought out by Mr. Reeve. Victoria ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... there was a book of prophecy current among the priesthood which declared that after the nations of the Greeks the God Harsefi would create the "chief who is to come." It will therefore be seen that, although it lacks historical confirmation, the story of the great plot formed to stamp out the dynasty of the Macedonian Lagidae and place Harmachis on the throne is not in itself improbable. Indeed, it is possible that many such plots were entered into by Egyptian patriots during the long ages of their country's bondage. ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... sometimes of the tax which particular burghers paid, each of them, either to the king, or to some other great lord, for this sort of protection, and sometimes of the general amount only of all those taxes. {see Brady's Historical Treatise of Cities and Boroughs, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... historian, and join him in denouncing that pernicious heretic Bush, who is wise beyond what is written. Result—Bush gets only one small piece of pie, and I get two, which of course is highly gratifying to my feelings, as well as advantageous to the dispersion of sound historical learning! ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... A celebrated historical personage has related the commonplaces which, when on the eve of executing a remarkable resolution, were showered in nearly the same words by every one around successively for a period of six months. ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... base-ball instead, many of its principal members resigned, so great was the enmity to the latter game. Never, until recently, was the assertion made that base-ball was a development of town-ball, and it could not have been done had the writers looked up at all the historical facts. ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward |
