"Historical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... This fascinating historical survey of tennis goes on to say that in the reign of Henri IV the game was so popular that it was said that "there were more tennis-players in Paris than drunkards in England." The drunkards of England were so upset by this boast that they immediately started a drive for membership ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... English friends since the knowledge of the ancient history and institutions of the country, which he displays both here and in other parts of his narrative, can scarcely have been acquired through the medium of a native education in Hindustan. The deductions which he draws, however, from this historical summary, are somewhat curious; since he assumes that the power of the crown, though limited in appearance by the concessions then made, and the legislative functions vested in parliament, was in truth only strengthened, and rendered more ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... manifests on the grand tour, conducting himself at three and twenty with complete success at the courts of German princes, conversing with plenipotentiaries and dignitaries of all sorts in French and Italian, for German had not yet risen into sufficient historical or diplomatic importance to add to the linguistic burdens of mankind. Lord Marischal as the governor of Neufchatel had acted as the protector of Rousseau, and so was able to furnish his companion with a letter ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... resume again the narrative of historical events, in order better to set forth the condition of the country through which ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... addressing the assembled Natives, said: To-day is an historical one in the history of the Barolongs as represented by Montsioa's people. I am sure it must be most satisfactory to you all who have so bravely assisted in the defence of Mafeking to have this honour conferred upon you, which is unprecedented ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... to the unfortunate social consequences of enclosure that we owe the abundance of historical material on this subject. Undoubtedly much land was converted to pasture in a piece-meal fashion, as small holders saw the possibility of making the change quietly, and without disturbing the rest of the community. If enclosure ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... assertion, such distortion of truth and gilding of gross falsehood, I never met with. I tried in vain to find an answer to things that I saw and felt to be antiscriptural and destructive; but this "End" was the beginning of my controversy, for I was wholly new to it, and ignorant of the historical and other facts necessary to disprove the reverend author's bold assumptions. At last I burst into tears, and kneeling down, exclaimed, "O Lord, I cannot unravel this web of iniquity: enable me to cut it in twain." I was answered; for after a little more thought, ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... [Stz. 30]. "A Tunne of Paris Tennis balls him sent." —This incident, so famous from the use made of it by Shakespeare, is in all probability historical, being mentioned by Thomas Otterbourne, a contemporary writer, and in an inedited MS. chronicle of the same date. These are quoted by Sir Harris Nicolas and in Mr. Julian Marshall's erudite "Annals of Tennis" (London, 1878). Its being omitted ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... the emperor in his royal court] [Theobald had tried to straighten out an historical error.] Mr. Theobald discovers not any great skill in history. Vienna is not the court of the emperor as emperor, nor has Milan been always without its princes since the days of Charlemaigne; but ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... much of clemencie," and Macbeth "too much of crueltie." Macbeth's actions correspond with his nature in Holinshed; but Shakespeare first made Macbeth in his own image—gentle, bookish and irresolute—and then found himself fettered by the historical fact that Macbeth murdered Banquo and the rest. He was therefore forced to explain in some way or other why his Macbeth strode from crime to crime. It must be noted as most characteristic of gentle ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... of going through the fair with a note-book and pencil, jotting down all the prominent objects, I doubt not that the result might have been a sketch of English life quite as characteristic and worthy of historical preservation as an account of the Roman Carnival. Having neglected to do so, I remember little more than a confusion of unwashed and shabbily dressed people, intermixed with some smarter figures, but, on the whole, presenting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... for the little library, which I was pleased to see occupied one corner of the room. Composed of a few well-chosen books, poetical, historical, and narrative, it was of itself sufficient to account for the evidences of latent culture observable in Mrs. Belden's conversation. Taking out a well-worn copy of Byron, I opened it. There were many passages marked, and replacing the book with a mental comment ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... case, was Theresa's opinion, she herself having figured conspicuously in the foreground. During the inspection of the Cathedral the Dean paid her quite marked attention; thanks, in part, to her historical and archaeological knowledge—of which she made the most, and to her connection with the Verity family—of which she made the most also. In precisely what that connection might consist, the learned and timid old gentleman, being very deaf and rather near-sighted, failed to gather. He determined, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... and never did torment and destroy the inhabitants thereof, and persecute forlorn maidens. They scoff at the records which have descended to our times, as fabulous legends, composed by idle monks; who were accustomed to write fictitious histories during the dark ages. They deny to historical ballads that authority which Mr. Macaulay attaches to them; and yet the principal fact in the biography of Andromeda (even before the times of the monks) may have been true; and the poor people of Wantley may really ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... met with by her sister, we have supplemented it by abridged accounts of the chief incidents in the tragedy which overwhelmed the royal house she so faithfully served, taken from contemporary records and the best historical authorities. ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... hypercritical eyes scrutinise, and with more or less scepticism as to its value, analyse whatever evidence on this point is submitted to them, but those others also who feel a profound and sympathetic interest in the historical study of the remarkable voyages which the Netherlanders undertook to the South-land, are almost invariably quite insufficiently informed concerning them. This fact is constantly brought home to the student who consults the more recent works published on the subject, and who fondly hopes to get light ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... through their intellectual example on the world at large, divide themselves into three classes, and are derived from three distinct branches of thought and study. They may be distinguished as physical, moral, and historical. Few of these arguments, taken separately, can be called altogether new. Their new power has been caused by the simultaneous filling up and completion of all of them; by their transmutation from filmy visions ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... according to the Alexandrian standard, for they are simple and obvious. In the mass of material from which he had to choose the difficulty was to know what to omit, and much skill is shewn in fusing into a tolerably harmonious whole conflicting mythological and historical details. He interweaves with his narrative local legends and the founding of cities, accounts of strange customs, descriptions of works of art, such as that of Ganymede and Eros playing with knucklebones,[1] but prosaically calls himself back to the point ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... knew there must be Something wrong with his Talk. He had been trying to Expound in a clear and straightforward Manner, omitting Foreign Quotations, setting up for illustration of his Points such Historical Characters as were familiar to his Hearers, putting the stubby Old English words ahead of the Latin, and rather flying low along the Intellectual Plane of the Aggregation that chipped ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... chief desire is to be beautiful, it is a historical fact that nearly every woman whose beauty has been renowned has either led an unhappy life or met a tragic fate. Strangely, too, the most famous attachments of which we have record have been inspired by women who were not only not beautiful, but who had some noticeable defect. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... from the 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 ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... had accomplished and finished divers histories, as well of contemplation as of other historical and worldly acts of great conquerors and princes, and also certain books of ensamples and doctrine, many noble and divers gentlemen of this realm of England came and demanded me many and oft times wherefore that I have not done made and printed the noble history of the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... As there is no 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 recently obtained that supremacy in Spain which led, in a subsequent age, to ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... Wise Men,' said the fairy. 'I remember that. Has not England got a Witenagemot now, then?' she inquired. Her historical notions, during her long residence in Polynesia, had got ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... organisation has never developed any responsibility for the maintenance of social order and the protection of life and property. It has never exercised the function of government, because in the historical Hindu period India was divided into large military states, while since then it has been subject to foreign domination. The social organisation has thus maintained its pristine form, neither influenced by the government nor affording to it any co-operation or support. And ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... the occupational condition of Negro wage-earners: The large majority of Negroes are employed to-day in occupations of domestic and personal service. This is partly the result of the historical conditions of servitude, of a prejudice on the part of white workmen and employers, which restricts them to this lower field, and of the inefficiency of Negro wage-earners for competition in occupations requiring a higher order of training and skill. The ...
— The Negro at Work in New York City - A Study in Economic Progress • George Edmund Haynes
... Brian took Anthony a long walk as soon as dinner was over, across the moors towards the north side of Skiddaw. Anthony found the old man a delightful and garrulous companion, full of tales of the countryside, historical, religious, naturalistic, and supernatural. As they stood on a little eminence and looked back to where the church-tower pricked out of the deep crack in the moors where it stood, he told him the tale of ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... to this. We assure you we will extract nothing that will conflict with the inspired and infallible Word of God. Where the Word of truth is silent and we can gain information from authentic history it must certainly be proper and right. Historical facts only verify and explain the truthfulness ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... by the excitement of curiosity, and in which the curiosity is excited by terrible and extraordinary incident, will not have perused without some 25 portion of disappointment the Dramas, which it has been my employment to translate. They should, however, reflect that these are Historical Dramas, taken from a popular German History; that we must therefore judge of them in some measure with the feelings of Germans; or by analogy, with the interest 30 excited in us by similar Dramas in our own language. Few, I trust, would be rash or ignorant enough to compare ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the Hall of Kings in the Palace, where Perino was to paint them and the stucco-work was already in progress. This arrival caused much vexation to Perino, and he complained of it to many of his friends, not because he believed that Tiziano was likely to surpass him at painting historical scenes in fresco, but because he desired to occupy himself with that work peacefully and honourably until his death, and, if he was to do it, he wished to do it without competition, the wall and the vaulting by Michelagnolo ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... be confounded with the event, since the event is not occurring now but the believing is. What a man is believing at a given moment is wholly determinate if we know the contents of his mind at that moment; but Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon was an historical physical event, which is distinct from the present contents of every present mind. What is believed, however true it may be, is not the actual fact that makes the belief true, but a present event related to the fact. This present event, ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... this brief but glorious campaign will be found at the close of this work. We introduce it as historical information, from a most unerring source. The subject, it will be perceived, is treated in the most impartial and unimpassioned manner; dealing simply in dry details, and in that curt, soldier-like matter of fact ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... terrace, and immediately the party disembarked. From the portico they passed a noble hall to a stair-case of marble, which led to a saloon, fitted up in a style of magnificence that surprised Emily. The walls and ceilings were adorned with historical and allegorical paintings, in fresco; silver tripods, depending from chains of the same metal, illumined the apartment, the floor of which was covered with Indian mats painted in a variety of colours and devices; the couches and drapery of the lattices were ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... belongs to the government he is no longer master of himself." He compiled books of questions and answers on various studies for the use of young ladies in boarding-schools. These little "solid treatises," as he called them, were sold at the University library under the name of "Historical and Geographic Catechisms." Feeling himself in duty bound to offer a copy of each volume, bound in red morocco, to Monsieur Rabourdin, he always came in full dress to present them,—breeches and silk stockings, and shoes with gold buckles. Monsieur Phellion received his ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... well confess that my fourteen days of consecutive study of the Acropolis, beginning at the recently uncovered entrance gate and ending in the Museum behind the Parthenon, added nothing to my previous historical or other knowledge—meagre as it ...
— The Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... solely the historical aspect and worth of the two tracts herewith presented that appealed to their edition and first suggested to him their preparation and publication. Had preparation in question depended for its motive merely on considerations ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... collection of insects for at least $10,000! Peruvians have not been accustomed to see any one do scientific work except as he was paid by the government or employed by a railroad or mining company. We have frequently found our work misunderstood and regarded with suspicion, even by the Cuzco Historical Society. ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... two remarks about the subject-matter of the lectures. First, the idea running through them is that the primitive religious (or magico-religious) instinct, which was the germ of the religion of the historical Romans, was gradually atrophied by over-elaboration of ritual, but showed itself again in strange forms from the period of the Punic wars onwards. For this religious instinct I have used the Latin word religio, ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... Another Englishman, Captain Paddon, to whom I had sold many a cargo of sandal-wood, on learning the fate of his compatriots, fled on board a little boat with one Kanacka and a few provisions, got out to sea, and, as I have been told, actually gained the port of Sydney." This, it seems, is a historical fact. It was a boat without a deck, and the distance is three hundred and sixty ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... of such revolutions, that portion of the upper world inhabited by the ancestors of this race had been subjected to inundations, not rapid, but gradual and uncontrollable, in which all, save a scanty remnant, were submerged and perished. Whether this be a record of our historical and sacred Deluge, or of some earlier one contended for by geologists, I do not pretend to conjecture; though, according to the chronology of this people as compared with that of Newton, it must have been many thousands ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... A measure of historical continuity can be traced in the occurrence of these variations. The towns of the earlier Greeks were stately enough in their public buildings and principal thoroughfares, but they revealed a half-barbaric spirit in their mean side-streets and unlovely dwellings. In ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... meant," said Fellowes, "that you do not retain any vestige of your early 'historical' and 'dogmatical' Christianity, why, I retain just as little of it. Indeed, I doubt," he continued, with perhaps superfluous candor, "whether I ever was a Christian"; and he seemed rather anxious to show that his ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... her abroad on exhibition, much like a hen cackling over its last performance, with the result that we had not long to congratulate ourselves on the newest and best thing. It is this place in a long series of development which gives them their historical interest. ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... where a battalion keeps its records—that precious historical document which will be safeguarded in fireproof vaults one of these days—you may read in cold, official language what happened in one section of the British line on the 8th of ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... cause of our ancient architecture, he has already loudly denounced many profanations, many demolitions, many impieties. He will not grow weary. He has promised himself to recur frequently to this subject. He will return to it. He will be as indefatigable in defending our historical edifices as our iconoclasts of the schools and academies are eager in attacking them; for it is a grievous thing to see into what hands the architecture of the Middle Ages has fallen, and in what a manner the botchers of plaster of the present day treat the ruin of this ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... with the least amount of intellectual sophistication derived the greatest pleasure from it, though to them its artistic deficiencies must also have been most obvious. Against these deficiencies, however, it presented itself, first of all, as a historical play shot through and through with a large theme, which, since it belongs to tragedy, is universal and unhampered by time or place or people. To them it had something of the sweep, dignity, and solemnity and also something of the dramatic ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... an offence against Christian charity to say that such sufferers are the objects of God's anger; that it is an offence against good manners to introduce the name of God, or the theory of a Divine Providence, in speaking of historical events. They must be ascribed to certain brute forces of nature; to certain inevitable laws of history; to the passions of men, to chance, to fate, to anything and everything: rather than to ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... and Halleck was some twenty years after the recognition of Irving; but thereafter the stars thicken in our literary sky, and when in 1832 Irving returned from his long sojourn in Europe, he found an immense advance in fiction, poetry, and historical composition. American literature was not only born,—it was able to go alone. We are not likely to overestimate the stimulus to this movement given by Irving's example, and by his success abroad. His leadership is recognized in the respectful attitude towards him of all his contemporaries ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the history of the departement of Seine et Marne, constructed, in 1790, from the province of Brie, also from the Ile de France, and the so called Gatinois Francais, I will say a few words. Although it only boasts of two important historical monuments, namely, the Cathedral of Meaux and the Chateau of Fontainebleau; scattered about the country are noteworthy remains of different epochs, Celtic, Roman, Merovingian, mediaeval; none, perhaps, of paramount importance, ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... and in the process assembling more and more details. These texts are still revered by Indians and although they are the product of widely separated eras, all of them have still an air of contemporary authority. By considering them in historical sequence, we can understand not only the subject-matter of romantic Indian painting but realize why Krishna, the adored lover, should ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... background of grand accessories. The idea of the Primate of England which I had in some confused manner in my mind included a vision of the venerable towers of Lambeth,—of a long array of solemn predecessors, from Thomas a Becket downwards,—of great historical occasions on which the Archbishop of Canterbury had been a prominent figure; and in some way I fancied, vaguely, that you would see the primate surrounded by all these things. You remember the Highlander in "Waverley," who was much mortified when his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... could, with Turkey, as the valiant man of the party, farthest from the centre of safety, namely Kirsty, who was at the same time to be the source of all the delightful horror. I may as well say that I do not believe Kirsty's tale had the remotest historical connection with Sir Worm Wymble, if that was anything like the name of the dead knight. It was an old Highland legend, which she adorned with the flowers of her own Celtic fancy, and swathed around the form so familiar to ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... Slovenia became a republic of 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 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... conduct of the governing class in its continuous development during the last twenty years,[949] of pointing out the miserable consequences of uncontrolled power, irresponsibility and impunity. For the purpose of investing an address with the dignity and authority which spring from distant historical allusion, of brightening the prosaic present with something of the glamour of the half-mythical past, even of flattering his auditors with the suggestion that they were the descendants and heirs of the men who had seceded to the Aventine, it was necessary for a popular orator to touch on the great ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... were spoken by Christ, after he rose from the dead, and they are here rehearsed after an historical manner, but do contain in them a formal commission, with a special clause therein. The commission is, as you see, for the preaching of the gospel, and is very distinctly inserted in the holy record by Matthew and Mark. "Go teach all nations," &c. "Go ye into all ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... doing is precluded by the fact that Mr. Williamson in justice to himself and the cause of freedom, with great pains and singular ability, gathered the most important facts bearing on his memorable trial and imprisonment, and published them in a neat volume for historical reference. ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... complete growth out of the sometimes apparently unimportant germs. [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 in the case of ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... institutions had been to produce the greatest ill to the greatest number, that object had been as nearly attained at last in Spain as human imperfection permits; the efforts of government and of custom coming powerfully to the aid of the historical evils ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... The Rhode Island-Historical Society have also passed votes of thanks and resolutions in favor of your project which you ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... This famous historical city must be eminently offensive to Irish Nationalists. It is so clean and sweet and neat and tidy that you can at once see the hopelessness of expecting Home Rule patriotism from the place. There are no dunghills for it to grow in, and my somewhat ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... at the Board School had powerfully impressed her, but in a confused and unpleasant way. Certain portions of the historical narrative affected her with their picturesque grandeur, and fragments remained in her memory; the Bible and religion generally came to be associated in her mind with dire wrath, and war, and the shedding of blood, with ruin of cities and ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... or three more incidents, but the one I have given is the best, and should have been allowed to stand alone. It has been called blasphemous; it is not intentionally blasphemous; as I have said, Oscar always put himself quite naively in the place of any historical character. ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... pleasant to wander in. This first romantic aspect of the Castle of Edinburgh is, however, merely traditional, and the first real and authentic appearance of the old fortress and city in history is in the record, at once a sacred legend and a valuable historical chronicle, of the life of Margaret the Atheling, the first of several Queen Margarets, the woman saint and blessed patroness of Scotland, who has bequeathed not only many benefits and foundations of after good to her adopted country, but her name—perhaps among Scotswomen ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... of Washington" treats most fully of things around New York during the British occupation, and these things are interestingly dealt with in local histories, such as the "History of Queens County," Stiles's "History of Brooklyn," Barber and Howe's "New Jersey Historical Collections," etc., as well as in such special works as ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... are better or happier for having found out this or that novelty in transcendental mathematics, biology, or astronomy; and this is very well as against the discoverer of small marvels who shall give himself out for the benefactor of the human race. But both historical experience and observation of the terms on which the human intelligence works, show us that we can only make sure of intellectual activity on condition of leaving it free to work all round, in every department and in ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... beautiful carvings all the way up to the top. To me this pagoda seemed to be of Chinese origin, but, though much speculation has been exercised in Seoul as to how so strange a monument came to be placed in the Corean capital, no reliable data, or facts that might be considered of historical value, have as yet been forthcoming to explain satisfactorily its presence there. Beyond wondering at its antiquity, therefore, and admiring the skilful bas-relief upon it, there is little more for us to do; so, moving out of the courtyard in which this ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... Washington and Franklin, by every leader of the American Revolution, by resolutions of Congress, and by every contemporary historian of the events amid which they were written. The first "Crisis" is of especial historical interest. It was written during the retreat of Washington across the Delaware, and by order of the Commander was read to groups of his dispirited and suffering soldiers. Its opening sentence was adopted as the watchword of the movement ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... whites found the Marquesans in the sixteenth century, they were building at Vaitahu great war-canoes to "attack the black people who used bows and arrows." No living Marquesan had ever seen them nor could they have attained Fiji in any strength, yet the historical ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... will and that of his wife that they had no children, which perhaps makes the more natural the affectionate terms upon which he remained all through his life with his brother. Their artistic sympathies must have differed widely. Gentile's love for historical research, for costume and for pageants, found no echo in the deeper idealism of Giovanni—indeed, his offer of the famous sketch-book, as an inducement to the latter to finish his last great work, seems to ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... recite numberless passages which they had learnt at school. Blanche, the elder girl, would give her sister and myself lessons in elocution; and I should like to say a word to teachers and children on the enormous utility of committing something to memory—whether poems, songs, or passages from historical or classical works. It is, of course, very unlikely that any one who reads these lines will be cast away as we were, but still one never knows what the future has in store; and I have known pioneers and prospectors who have ventured into the remoter wilds, and emerged therefrom years after, to give ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... to know why one should read; and what, and how, and when. Especially does this problem of general reading confront the student, the lover of books, and those of the professions. Essays are to be read, the historical, the philosophical, and the scientific; novels, the historical and the religious; books of devotion, books of biography, of travel, of criticism, and of art. What principles are to guide one in his choice of reading, that he may select only the wisest, purest, and helpfulest ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... must be a member of the Church Catholic," said the cardinal. "The basis on which God has willed that His revelation should rest in the world is the testimony of the Catholic Church, which, if considered only as a human and historical witness, affords the highest and most certain evidence for the fact and the contents of the Christian religion. If this be denied, there is no such thing as history. But the Catholic Church is not only a human ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... seen the hero of this story emerge. He had met with more than one loss during the night. Besides having emptied his pockets at cards; the only picture he had ever finished, one that the connoisseurs had pronounced excellent, had just been destroyed in a fire in the Dolfino palace. It was an historical subject, treated with a spirit and a sureness of touch almost worthy of Titian himself. Sold to a rich Senator, this canvas had met with the same fate as a great number of other previous works of art; the carelessness of a valet had ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... editing Queen Victoria's letters, and had resigned my Eton mastership. Hugh was then engaged in writing his book By What Authority with inconceivable energy and the keenest possible enjoyment. His absorption in the work was extraordinary. He was reading historical books and any books bearing on the history of the period, taking notes, transcribing. I have before me a large folio sheet of paper on which he has written very minutely hundreds of picturesque words and ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... day. But these ancient legends are given, not as evidence, but for three reasons: first, because of their merit as mere stories; next, because several of them are now perhaps for the first time offered with a critical discussion of their historical sources; lastly, because the old legends seem to show how the fancy of periods less critical than ours dealt with such facts as are now reported in a dull undramatic manner. Thus (1) the Icelandic ghost stories have peculiar literary ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... merely a handsome city; it was a homogeneous city, an architectural and historical product of the Middle Ages, a chronicle in stone. It was a city formed of two layers only; the Romanesque layer and the Gothic layer; for the Roman layer had disappeared long before, with the exception of the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... over the Employment of the Psychical Method of Treatment for Mental Disturbances." See Critical Historical Review by W.A. White, Journ. Nerv. and Ment. ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... Nepal before the Newars, and as at this time occupying the lower parts of Bhotan, (Kachar,) on which subject I have already given my opinion. The resemblance to be traced between the Newar and Murmi languages, induces me to suppose that these two tribes are originally the same, and the historical hints given by Colonel Kirkpatrick induce me to draw the conclusion, that the Newars are Khat Bhotiyas, who have adopted some new customs in consequence of a greater connection with the Hindus. I never, indeed, ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... for the farther reputation of the nunns there, shall observe that they spent a great part of their time in reading good books. There was a common library for their use well furnished with books, many of which were English, and divers of them historical. The lives of the holy men and women, especially of the latter, were curiously written ON VELLUM, and many ILLUMINATIONS appeared throughout, so as to draw the nunns the more easily to follow their examples." Hearne's edit. Guil. Neubrig., vol. ii., p. 768. Again he says, "It is probable ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... of the people! No Czar's writ ran in Kimberley then. Amid the plaudits of the democracy the Hall had been duly declared "open." The Mayor, in the blazing dignity of his Magisterial robes, surrounded by the wealth and intelligence of the city, had delivered an historical address. The Councillors had followed, and the several ex-Mayors since the year of one had expatiated felicitously on the architecture of the "Ornament," the merits of the architect, and the enterprise of ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... begin,—it is an historical fact that for many centuries the English nation believed that the Founder of its religion, spiritually, by the mouth of the King who spake of all herbs, had likened himself to two flowers,—the Rose of Sharon, and Lily of the Valley. The fact of this belief is one of the ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... and poetic allusion, that she felt almost oppressed by this distant whiff of its air. The very words he used fascinated and bewildered her. He seemed to have been born into all sorts of connections, political, historical, official, that made the Ransom situation at Wentworth as featureless as the top shelf of a dark closet. Some one in the family had "asked for the Chiltern Hundreds"—one uncle was an Elder Brother of the Trinity House—some one else was the Master of a College—some one was in ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... interval, Severne had been engaged in building a hasty but interesting mental pose. He had recalled to mind numerous historical and fictitious instances in which the man has been tempted by the woman to depart from his heaven-born principles. In some of these instances, when the woman had tempted successfully, the man had dwelt thenceforth in misery and died in torment, amid the execrations ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... fascination—on the one hand as a mine of gossip about numberless persons and events still familiar to many a living memory, and, on the other, as a detailed and brilliant record of a state of society which had already ceased to be actual and become historical. The letters were hardly more than thirty years old; but the world which they depicted in all its intensity and all its singularity—the world of the old regime—had vanished for ever into limbo. Between it and the eager readers of the First Empire a gulf was fixed—a narrow ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... dates and statements in this precious document, and for the occasional flights of a pious imagination in the biographer or his subject, we arrive at the following historical basis: Rahere was a man of humble origin, who had found his way to the Court of Henry I, where he won favour by his agreeable manners and witty conversation, rendered piquant, as it appears, by a certain flavouring of licentiousness, and took a prominent part in arranging the music, plays, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... confidence that these birds were produced by "processes he knows not what!" To what miserable inconsistencies and rubbish this truckling to opposite opinions leads the great generaliser! (119/4. In the "Historical Sketch," which forms part of the later editions of the "Origin," Mr. Darwin made use of Owen's Leeds Address in the manner sketched above. See "Origin," Edition VI., ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... of biography as a branch of historical literature is indisputable, and long before reaching this portion of our work the reader must have realized the truth, that in the life of the individual can be seen mirrored not only his individual struggles, "but all mankind's epitome." The trouble, trials and labors of the one are ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... the profound antiquarian knowledge which is rightly demanded in a professor of the present day; and, indeed, I think it is not a little remarkable that, in the midst of his absorbing work, he had acquired so much historical reading as they display. But, if I am not mistaken, the lectures have this peculiar merit—that they are obviously written by a man who had had vast practical experience of actual administrative work. They show, therefore, an unusual appreciation of the constitutional side of French ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... In approaching "The Historical Nights' Entertainment" I set myself the task of reconstructing, in the fullest possible detail and with all the colour available from surviving records, a group of more or less famous events. I would ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... time—unflinching valour being opposed to desperate courage; and while a burning sense of injury, with a resolve to conquer or die, was the motive power, no doubt, on one side, on the other there was the high sense of duty to Queen and country, and the pride of historical renown. ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... his periodical fits of comedy, stuck to his piano, and dominated the evening. He played grotesquely inappropriate melodies, he commanded singing, once he stopped the show and with the assistance of a dozen recruits put on the burlesque of an amateur night at a music-hall. He made the occasion a historical event, and when at last it was over, and the guests were filing out to the lobby, he came to Henry ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... trials, not to ask himself—as had been his boyish custom—what Marion, Putnam, Jackson, or any of the "great battle-ax heroes" would have done in a similar crisis; but what Christ, the Prince of Peace, would have done; for Ishmael knew that all these great historical warriors held the "bloody code of honor" that would oblige them to answer insult with death; but that the Saviour of the world "when reviled, reviled not again"; and that he commended all his followers to do ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... would be unnecessarily spoiling a good thing, and I shall not therefore ask myself whether prisons were so easily got out of or great statesmen so easily cajoled as Mr. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE for present purposes assumes. I shall not examine the historical accuracy of the portraits of the Duc de Choiseul or of the Comtesse Dubarry, nor shall I question the human probability of villains so inept as Camus or martinets so infallible and ruthless as de Sartines. The most exacting connoisseur of vintage ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... blow.' Here he touches new associations, and reveals the realm of poetry which it remains for later times to traverse. Milton felt the true sentiment of Northern Christmas when he opened his poem with the 'winter wild,' in defiance of historical probability and what the French call local colouring. Nothing shows how wholly we people of the North have appropriated Christmas, and made it a creature of our own imagination, more than this dwelling on winds and snows and bitter ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Eggleston's 'Beginners' is unique. No similar historical study has, to our knowledge, ever been done in the same way. Mr. Eggleston is a reliable reporter of facts; but he is also an exceedingly keen critic. He writes history without the effort to merge the critic in the historian. His sense of humor is never dormant. He renders ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... touch upon it in passing. There are sufficiently many righteous pens in South Africa and England to pillory these deeds and bring them to the knowledge of the world, to remain on record for the future. For what nation exists, or has existed, which has not a historical record whether to its advantage or to its disadvantage? I cannot do it here as it should be done. And too much cannot be said about ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... William III., who was the first royal tenant of the palace, Kensington has been a place of considerable interest, as the residence and resort of many celebrated men. The palace, however, possesses little historical attraction; but, among the mansions of the parish, Holland ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... the receipt of the news of Mr. Kenyon's death. Mrs. Kinney, to whom it is addressed, was the wife of the Hon. William Burnett Kinney, who was United States Minister at the Court of Sardinia in 1851. After his term of office he removed to Florence, for the purpose of producing an historical work, but he did not live to accomplish it. Mrs. Kinney, who was herself a poet, was also the mother of the well-known American poet ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... hardly have put Gainsborough. The landscape of the great figure painters is often majestic in the highest degree, and Tintoret's especially shows exactly the same power and feeling as Turner's. If with Turner I were to rank the historical painters as landscapists, estimating rather the power they show, than the actual value of the landscape they produced, I should class those, whose landscapes I have studied, in some such order as this ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... know of Thomas Carlyle's great work, 'The French Revolution.' Of this wonderful production it has been said that 'It is a history of the French Revolution and the poetry of it, both in one; and, on the whole, no work of greater genius, either historical or poetical, has been produced in England.' I wonder if we have all heard of the tragedy of this great book and the sorrow which came ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... tribes to marry, and Doutte (Notes sur l'Islam maghrebien, les Marabouts, Extr. Rev. hist. des relig., XL-XLI, Paris, 1900), has connected these usages with the old Semitic prostitution, but his thesis has been attacked and the historical circumstances of the arrival of the Ouled-Nail in Algeria in the eleventh century render it very doubtful (Note by Basset).—It seems certain (I do not know whether this explanation has ever been offered) ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... last of the historical plays we shall have to speak of; and we are not sorry that it is. If we are to indulge our imaginations, we had rather do it upon an imaginary theme; if we are to find subjects for the exercise of our pity and terror, we prefer seeking them in fictitious ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... an eclipse of the sun is described in connection with some remote historical event, and the hour is mentioned, to fix the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... interesting from an historical point of view, as indicating the line of thought which early designers of air-compressing machinery followed. As the necessity for compressed air power grew, inventors turned their attention to the construction of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... (human rights group; Movement Against Illegal Migration; Pamjat (preservation of historical monuments and recording of history); Russian Orthodox Church; Russian-Chechen Friendship Society other: ecology groups; human rights groups; nationalist pragmatists (no foreign influence over Central Eurasia); neo-Eurasianists ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... arrangement, where perfect symmetry reigns;—whether we consider the glowing canvas—or the inspired marble,—or the rich mosaics;—whether with the enthusiasm of the devotee, we bend before those gorgeous shrines; or with the comparative apathy of a cosmopolite, reflect on the historical recollections with which that edifice—the focus of the rays of Catholicism—teems and must teem forever;—we must in truth acknowledge, that there alone is the one matchless temple, in strict and perfect ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... life as one of the subjects which has been comparatively little explored, and is, therefore replete with freshness and delight. This little book can not by any means more than lift the curtain to view the fields of historical and literary interest and the wondrous life lived in the deep fiords of Viking land. But its brief pages will have, at least, the merit of giving information on a subject about which only too little ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... abler forger saw the light of day. Jose Marchena, a Spaniard of Jewish extraction, was destined for an ecclesiastical career. He received an excellent education which served to fortify a natural bent toward languages and historical criticism. In his early youth he showed a marked preference for uncanonical pursuits and heretical doctrines and before he had reached his thirtieth year prudence counseled him to prevent the consequences of his heresy and avoid the too pressing Inquisition ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... of a lecture will not permit the discussion of the subject upon an extended scope, nor will it allow a more than cursory review of the general doings, adventures, and methods of pirates in general, leaving the historical treatment for another occasion. ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann
... of the most delightful of Shakespeare's historical plays. It may be considered as a dramatic romance, in which the most striking parts of the story are thrown into the form of a dialogue, and the intermediate circumstances are explained by the different speakers, as occasion renders it necessary. The action is less concentrated in consequence; but ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... most historical, if not the greatest feat in the life of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, was for him a triumph indeed; with a vastly inferior force he had driven from the field of battle his "rival in glory," as he himself had denominated Andrea Doria, and he had accomplished this feat notwithstanding ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... infected; truth lurks in the patent-medicine advertisements, and sometimes creeps stealthily into the very editorials. We must all learn the true facts of history, whether we will or no; eventually, the writers of historical romance will ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... regarded Rome, in common with the other territories of the Empire, as his rightful spoil. For the first time the issue was raised between secular statesmanship scheming for Italian unity and a Roman bishop claiming sovereign power as the historical and indispensable adjunct of his office. Pope Stephen II visited the Frankish court to urge, not in vain, the claims of religion and of gratitude. By two raids across the Alps Pepin forced the Lombard to withdraw the claim on Rome, and furthermore to restore what had been conquered ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... intelligent and authoritative literature has been drawn upon. In cases in which the material selected belongs distinctively to the best literature, no changes have been made, although narratives have been abbreviated; in cases in which the material has a historical rather than a distinctively literary quality, the text has been treated for "substance of doctrine," and omissions have been freely made, and connecting words, phrases and even sentences have been introduced to give the narrative clear connection and completeness. ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Confederate currency was presumably becoming a curiosity, Comstock printed facsimiles of $20 Confederate bills,[9] with testimonials and advertisements upon the reverse side; it can be assumed that these had enough historical interest to circulate widely and attract attention, although each possessor must have felt a twinge of disappointment upon realizing that his bill was not genuine but merely an ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... $100,000 was also left by the late Professor Richard Hudson, '71, to establish a professorship in history, at present held by Professor Arthur Lyon Cross, Harvard, '95. Professor Hudson also left his library to the University, which has benefited by many similar gifts from alumni, notably the historical books given by Clarence M. Burton, '73, the library of Thomas S. Jerome, '84, of Capri, Italy, and the musical library presented by Frederick and Frederick K. Stearns, '73-'76, as well as the libraries of several members of the Faculties given the University upon their death. These ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... at the corner of the Groote Market and the Hang, is one of the oldest houses in Rotterdam, besides being one of the most interesting from a historical point of view. There is a tradition which states that when the city was invaded and pillaged by the Spaniards, who in accordance with their usual custom, proceeded to put the inhabitants to the sword, without regard to age or sex, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... the first great development of the nineteenth-century novel was in the historical department, though many others made notable fresh starts: and we said something about the second development of the "ordinary" one which followed. It is this latter, of course, which has supplied the main material of the last third of the present volume, though ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... giant basking in the sunshine, "I dare say you are correct in your suppositions, but I do not profess to be an antiquary, so that I won't dispute the subject with you. At the same time, I may observe that it does seem to me as if there were a screw loose somewhere in the historical part of your narrative, for methinks I have read, heard, or dreamt, that King Arthur was Mordred's uncle, not his cousin, and that Mordred was slain, and that the king was the victor, at the fatal field of Camelford, although ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... white men was in Doctor Wilson' drug store one day w'en I went to buy something. They commence' to ax me questions concernin' some historical happenin's an' I answer them all. So Dr. Wilson bet 'me that I couldn't tell who fired the firs' shot on Fort Sumter. I tell him I did know an' he offer's dollar if I was right. I tell him I wasn't ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... girls of twenty could boast at that time, and for three reasons. First, because she had a brilliant mind and great powers of concentration; next, because John III was not a little vain, in a quiet way, of all his Greek and Latin and historical research; and had plenty of leisure for imparting them; last, because his son—and only other child—had been a disappointment to him in that line, not only failing to repeat his father's brilliant college record, but proving actually slow at his books ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... the modern remnant of the Iroquois concerning the war with the Eries. They agree in little beyond the fact of the existence and destruction of that people. Indeed, Indian traditions are very rarely of any value as historical evidence. One of these stories, told me some years ago by a very intelligent Iroquois of the Cayuga Nation, is a striking illustration of Iroquois ferocity. It represents, that, the night after the great battle, the forest was lighted up with more than ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... not beautiful, and they knew it well, yet the fascination of it never failed. On the walls were hung large framed historical and scriptural scenes, worked in cross-stitch with wool's of the brightest hues, varied by a coloured print of a bird's-eye view of the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, an almanac for the current year, and a large oleograph of a young lady und a dog wreathed in roses that put every flower in ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... attracted public attention to him, and he was soon drawn into politics. During the next twelve years he held several government positions, among them Secretary of the Navy and Minister to England, which gave him access to great masses of historical documents. It was not until 1852 that his fourth volume appeared, then five more followed at comparatively frequent intervals. Again politics interrupted. He was sent as Minister to Prussia and later to the German Empire, again largely increasing his store of original ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... Sheridan, in different conversations, encouraged Dr. T. to go on with the expectation of a like sum yearly, or 50l. half yearly. Dr. T. with this encouragement engaged in different publications for the purpose of this agreement. He is charged for the most part with the Political and Historical articles in the Analytic Review, and he also occasionally writes the Political Appendix to the English Review, of which particularly he wrote that for April last, and that for June last. He also every week writes an abridgment of Politics ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... more like a poet than a seaman. If only one-half the sovereigns who deserve to be execrated had their names erased, the list of even our English kings would be rather short; and some countries would be without historical kings at all. However much Richard III. may deserve cashiering in this summary manner, his peers and laws are just as good as any other prince's peers and laws. Witness the ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... placed this famous Religious-Historical Romance on a height of pre-eminence which no other novel of its time has reached. The clashing of rivalry and the deepest human passions, the perfect reproduction of brilliant Roman life, and the tense, fierce atmosphere of the arena have ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... exquisite married woman. I wouldn't admit it to myself. I giggle with the most revolting salaciousness over La Vie Parisienne, when I get hold of one in Chicago, yet I shouldn't even try to hold your hand. I'm broken. It's the historical Anglo-Saxon way of making life miserable. . . . Oh, my dear, I haven't talked to anybody about myself and all ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... 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 ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... way too soon. I cannot keep my interest in a German or an Italian because he is such; and why should not it be the same with an Englishman in regard to Americans? If he thinks about our nationality at all, in its historical character, it is rather a pill, which he may be supposed to take unwillingly, whether he believes we were historically right or not. He may say just things about it, but he will say them more for the profit of Englishmen ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... opinion is that, in all editorial work, the notes should be illustrative rather than critical; and that they should only bring out those points, which the ordinary reader of the text would not readily understand, if the poems were not annotated. For this reason, topographical, historical, and antiquarian notes are almost essential. The Notes which Wordsworth himself wrote to his Poems, are of unequal length and merit. It was perhaps necessary for him to write—at all events it is easy to understand, and to sympathise with, his writing—the long note on the revered parson ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... and repair. In the scorching sun of a July day they waited, utterly helpless, hopeless, forlorn, confused; and a thousand miles from "anywhere." Such a grouping would not have made a cheerful picture, but would have assisted immensely in recording a historical fact. ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... 'Historical. Oh, I should have written something without Grey; I have always had a turn for it since I was a child. But he was clear that history was especially valuable—especially necessary to a clergyman. I felt he was right, entirely right. So I took my Final Schools' history for a basis, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Shows the historical reasons for the present method, and its effect on the senate and senators, and on state and local government, with a detailed review of the arguments for ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... romances containing several of the old favorites in the field of historical fiction, replete with powerful romances of love and diplomacy that excel ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... of the war he married Miss Mary Farley, sister of General Hugh L. Farley, formerly Adjutant and Inspector General of South Carolina, and of Captain William Farley, one of the riders of General Stuart, and a famous character in John Estin Cook's historical romances. ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... its details allowed, Simon Bradstreet, like Governor Winthrop, believing strongly in that "inward sight" which made women often clearer judges than men of perplexed and knotty points. Two bits of family life are given in a document still in existence and copied by the New England Historical and Genalogical Register for 1859. To it is appended the full signature of Anne Bradstreet, in a clear, upright hand, of singular distinctness and beauty when compared with much of the penmanship of that period. But one other autograph is in existence. It is evident from ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... tutelage of the good Sisters at Nonnenwerth Convent, Hildegunde, the Abbess frequently spoke of your proficiency in historical studies. Did you ever turn your attention to the ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... incomparable catalogue; but to make intelligible that remarkable series of events in which he bore such a conspicuous part, we must first invite our readers to accompany us in a historical retrospect in which we shall point out the opening and growth of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... iconoclastic and low-lived, was about to make a peevish retort, when Erskine forestalled him by asking Trefusis what idea he had formed of the future of the arts. He replied promptly. "Photography perfected in its recently discovered power of reproducing color as well as form! Historical pictures replaced by photographs of tableaux vivants formed and arranged by trained actors and artists, and used chiefly for the instruction of children. Nine-tenths of painting as we understand it at present extinguished by the competition of these photographs, and the remaining ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... Peerage, and everybody's relations. "My dear boy," he would say, with a mournful earnestness and veracity, "you cannot begin your genealogical studies too early; I wish to Heavens you would read in Debrett every day. Not so much the historical part (for the pedigrees, between ourselves, are many of them very fabulous, and there are few families that can show such a clear descent as our own) as the account of family alliances, and who is related to whom. I have known a man's career in life blasted by ignorance on this important, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of Erewhon. A paper read before the Historical Society of St. John's College, Cambridge, in the Combination-room of the college, by Henry Festing Jones. The Master (Mr. R. F. Scott), who was also Vice-Chancellor of the University, was in the chair and a Vote of Thanks was proposed by ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... is herein made to present in an informal manner such facts of historical, topographical, and literary moment as surrounded the localities especially identified with the life and work of Charles Dickens in the city of London, with naturally a not infrequent reference to such scenes and incidents as he was wont to incorporate in the results of his literary labours; ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... literature you will find harder to understand; nay impossible, I believe, unless you accept the explanation I gave you. Yet there it is, an historical fact. 'What hath it profited posterity—quid posteritas emolumenti tulit,' wrote Sulpicius Severus, about 400 A.D., 'to read of Hector's fighting or Socrates' philosophising?' Pope Gregory the Great—St ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... man, nineteen year Ah've tooled St. Asaph's Eleven to Ecclesthorpe June Fixture. Four-in-'and's historical, like goose to Michaelmas. But to-day, Old Grudgers—ye know Grudger's Bait, far end o' Mill Street? To-day, old Grudge, 'e says, 'You hitch Fancy Blood near-lead,' and I says 'im back, 'If 'ee puts 'er 'long o' Tod Sloan, Fancy'll go dead lame afore "T'Goat in Boots."' And dead lame ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... fiction; you got at their subject-matter too easily, and that could not be right. They were made up, too! He needed real stuff, facts. There were great spaces in his brain that longed to be filled with a tangible knowledge of things. His favorite reading was historical works, especially social history; and at present he read everything that came in his way, raw and unsweetened; it would have to sort itself out. It was a longing that had never been satisfied, and ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the Mediaeval Encyclopaedia, and the insight which such works give us into the thought of the past and its desire for knowledge, make a book at once agreeable and useful; and I repeat that it is a hopeful sign of the times when students of science find themselves drawn towards the historical aspect of the world of men, and show that their minds have been enlarged, and not narrowed, by their special studies—a defect which was too apt to mar the qualities of the seekers into natural facts in what must now, I would hope, be called the just-passed epoch of intelligence dominated ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... interested 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 exclamation ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... before the Grotto during her vision, she had heedlessly left her hand on the flame of the candle without burning it. The whole of the old primitive landscape of the Grotto was shown, the whole scene was set out with all its historical personages: the doctor verifying the miracle watch in hand, the Mayor, the Commissary of Police, and the Public Prosecutor, whose names the showman gave out, amidst the amazement ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... however, from being the last word of historical criticism. And I am not speaking here of the changes in detail that may result from the discovery of new documents. We have plenty of material at hand to enable us to form an accurate notion of the institution itself. Lea's judgment, ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... Indeed the anecdote is so plainly susceptible of this meaning and no other, that it would be hardly worth recording in its original state, were it not a proof of what may be (and very often is) affected not only in historical prose but in imaginative poetry, by the exercise of a little ingenious labour on the ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... better characterized than by the adoption of the following language from the pen of a brilliant American historian: "The annexation of Louisiana was an event so portentious as to defy measurement. It gave a new face to politics and ranked in historical importance next to the Declaration of Independence and the adoption of the Constitution, events of which it was the logical outcome. But as a matter of diplomacy it was unparalleled because it ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... "Ay, sir," continued the veteran; "all our old ballads had the merit of being useful, as well as amusing. There was 'Chevy Chase, and 'King John and his Barons,' and 'Merry Sherwood,' all of them exquisite chants; conveying information to the mind, and relating some grand historical fact, while they charmed the ear. But 262your modern kickshaws are all about 'No, my love, no,' or 'Sigh no more, lady,' or some such silly stuff that nobody cares to learn the words of, or can understand if they did. ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle |
