Lectures on the Harvard ClassicsWilliam Allan Neilson Sixty introductory lectures, five each on history, poetry, natural science, philosophy, biography, prose fiction, criticism and the essay, education, political science, drama, voyages and travel, and religion. |
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Page 21
... problem of the over- topping of the European equilibrium by the inflated do- minions of the Hapsburgs . This accounted for much in the constantly shifting political adjustments of that age . It was not until the close of the reign of ...
... problem of the over- topping of the European equilibrium by the inflated do- minions of the Hapsburgs . This accounted for much in the constantly shifting political adjustments of that age . It was not until the close of the reign of ...
Page 22
... problems , that of the sea and England , that of the land and the three great military powers of northeast Europe - Austria , Russia , Prussia . Toward the end , after Napoleon had failed in Spain and got into a death grapple with ...
... problems , that of the sea and England , that of the land and the three great military powers of northeast Europe - Austria , Russia , Prussia . Toward the end , after Napoleon had failed in Spain and got into a death grapple with ...
Page 24
... problems of human life . When they then awoke to a realization of their position , they found themselves in the possession of cities which were at the same time states . Political connection between them there was none , and slender ...
... problems of human life . When they then awoke to a realization of their position , they found themselves in the possession of cities which were at the same time states . Political connection between them there was none , and slender ...
Page 25
... problems of religion were no longer satisfactorily settled by the Homeric revelation . They forced themselves directly upon the attention of every thinking individual . One man remained orthodox , another took refuge in the emo- tional ...
... problems of religion were no longer satisfactorily settled by the Homeric revelation . They forced themselves directly upon the attention of every thinking individual . One man remained orthodox , another took refuge in the emo- tional ...
Page 76
... problem of physical geography . But while his facts , ideas , and interests were those of his day , certain traits differentiate him from his fellows : with Petrarch he shares intensity of feeling and strong personality ; with Chaucer ...
... problem of physical geography . But while his facts , ideas , and interests were those of his day , certain traits differentiate him from his fellows : with Petrarch he shares intensity of feeling and strong personality ; with Chaucer ...
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ancient Aristotle artistic Autobiography beauty biography Cervantes character Christian Confucian Confucius critical Descartes desire doctrine Don Quixote drama economic eighteenth century Emerson emotion England English essay Europe fact Faust feel fiction France Galileo Greek Harvard Classics human ideal ideas Iliad imagination important individual influence intellectual interest Italian Julius Cæsar knowledge labor less literary literature living lyric Machiavelli matter means mediæval ment method Middle Ages mind modern moral narrative nature never novel novelist period philosophy play Plutarch poem poet poetic poetry political popular practical problems PROFESSOR prose purpose question reader religion religious Renaissance romance scientific social society Socrates Spain spirit story teaching theory things Thomas Malory thought tion to-day tradition tragedy treatise true truth wealth Wealth of Nations words writings xliii
Popular passages
Page 67 - BRIGHT STAR ! would I were steadfast as thou art :— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores...
Page 316 - Who could resist the charm of that spiritual apparition, gliding in the dim afternoon light through the aisles of St. Mary's, rising into the pulpit, and then, in the most entrancing of voices, breaking the silence with words and thoughts which were a religious music, — subtle, sweet, mournful?
Page 60 - The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.— That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures.
Page 60 - For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes The still sad music of humanity ; Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts : a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man...
Page 59 - Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
Page 312 - I call therefore a complete and generous education, that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war.
Page 129 - How charming is divine Philosophy ! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns.
Page 163 - Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet— Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. God is law, say the wise; O Soul, and let us rejoice, For if He thunder by law the thunder is yet His voice. Law is God, say some: no God at all, says the fool; For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool; And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see; But if we could see and hear, this Vision— were it not He?
Page 58 - Piper, sit thee down and write In a book that all may read.' So he vanish'd from my sight; And I pluck'da hollow reed, And I made a rural pen, And I stain'd the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every child may joy to hear.
Page 15 - A victorious, line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire ; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland: The Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian ileet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames.