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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 67
Page 7
... truth is there is no subject , save perhaps astronomy , that is quite so vast and quite so little known . Its outline , save in the sham history of text books , is entirely wanting . Its details , where really known to students , are ...
... truth is there is no subject , save perhaps astronomy , that is quite so vast and quite so little known . Its outline , save in the sham history of text books , is entirely wanting . Its details , where really known to students , are ...
Page 9
... truth , and the others . And from these wonderful , though imperfect , word ideas the vigorous and subtle Greek intellect rapidly raised a structure which found its supreme expression in Plato , Aristotle , and Zeno . But from the close ...
... truth , and the others . And from these wonderful , though imperfect , word ideas the vigorous and subtle Greek intellect rapidly raised a structure which found its supreme expression in Plato , Aristotle , and Zeno . But from the close ...
Page 16
... truth of the revelation of Mahomet . " On the wreck of the Arab hopes the descendants of Charles Martel founded a monarchy which blazed into ephemeral power and glory under Charlemagne . In the year 800 the greatest of Frankish rulers ...
... truth of the revelation of Mahomet . " On the wreck of the Arab hopes the descendants of Charles Martel founded a monarchy which blazed into ephemeral power and glory under Charlemagne . In the year 800 the greatest of Frankish rulers ...
Page 27
... truth is that Athenian democracy with all that it implies was impossible without the Athenian maritime em- pire . The subject allies were as indispensable to the Atheni- ans as the slaves , mechanics , and traders are to the citizens of ...
... truth is that Athenian democracy with all that it implies was impossible without the Athenian maritime em- pire . The subject allies were as indispensable to the Atheni- ans as the slaves , mechanics , and traders are to the citizens of ...
Page 32
... truth , the Renaissance was not a golden age , and the dramas of 1 For Machiavelli's political ideals , see his " Prince " in Harvard Classics , xxxvi , 5 , and Macaulay's essay " On Machiavelli " in Harvard Classics , xxvii , 381 . HCL ...
... truth , the Renaissance was not a golden age , and the dramas of 1 For Machiavelli's political ideals , see his " Prince " in Harvard Classics , xxxvi , 5 , and Macaulay's essay " On Machiavelli " in Harvard Classics , xxvii , 381 . HCL ...
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
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.