"Racine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... six thousand francs were taken at the doors, an equal amount being received in November, when, for the sixth time, she appeared as Camille. Paris was now at her feet. In 1839, called upon to play two or three times per week, she essayed but one new part, Esther, in Racine's tragedy of that name. The public was quite content that she should assume again and again the characters in which she had already triumphed. In 1840 she added to her list of impersonations Laodie and Pauline in Corneille's ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... until at last the actors at the Francais, who had long complained of the preference accorded by the public to Brunet's performances, addressed repeated remonstrances to government, and declared that the taste of the nation was becoming corrupted, and the classic drama of Corneille and Racine despised. They were supported by Fouche and a section of the press, until at last Napoleon, who meddled greatly in theatrical matters, and one of whose sayings was, that if Corneille had lived in his time, he would have made him a prince, thought proper to interfere. Brunet's company was ejected ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... mingled throughout his fifteen columns of discursive criticism that a suspicion arises as to the writer's nationality. It is doubtful whether anyone born on the English side of the Irish Sea could possibly have suggested the establishment of a Saint's Day in honor of the late respected Warden of Racine College, or seriously have proposed that Messrs. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Russell Lowell, Henry James, and W. D. Howells be appointed a jury of "literary arbitrament" to sit in judgment on the liturgical language of The Book Annexed; and this out of respect to our proper national pride. ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... fifteenth of August the birch bark canoes, with the exception of the one used by the Captain himself, were abandoned, their places being taken by a Rushton canoe, named "Alice," after his daughter, and a Racine canoe of the Rob Roy pattern. Their departure from this thriving little city was the signal for an enthusiastic demonstration on the part of its inhabitants, who congregated on the shore to see them off. Captain Glazier acknowledged the compliment in a short speech, and then, ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... astronomer of young England, idem. Mrs Trollope played the Chesterfield and the deuce with the Yankees. Miss Martineau turned the head of the mighty Brougham. Mademoiselle d'Angeville ascended Mont Blanc, and Mademoiselle Rachel has replaced Corneille and Racine on their crumbling pedestals. I might waste hours of your precious time, sir, in perusing a list of the eminent women now competing with the rougher sex for the laurels of renown. But you know it all better than I can tell you. You have done honour due, in your time, to Joanna Baillie and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... rid you of my presence directly, only do you know what, Valentina Mihailovna? They say that in Racine's 'Bajazet' even Rachel's sortez! was not effective, and you don't come anywhere near her! Then, what was it you said... Je suis une honnete femme, je l'ai et le serai toujours? But I am convinced that I am far more honest than ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... his statesmen. The lustre of the exploits of these illustrious men, in itself great, was much enhanced by the still greater blaze of fame which encircled his throne, from the genius of the literary men who have given such immortal celebrity to his reign. Corneille and Racine were his tragedians; Moliere wrote his comedies; Bossuet, Fenelon, and Bourdaloue were his theologians; Massillon his preacher, Boileau his critic; Le Notre laid out his gardens; Le Brun painted his halls. Greatness had come upon France, as, in truth, it does to most other states, in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... France. Albovine, as we have seen, has every mark of the heroic drama, except the couplet; and Albovine was written seven years before the first masterpiece of Corneille, one year before his first attempt at tragedy. A superficial likeness to the drama of Corneille and, subsequently, of Racine may doubtless have given wings to the popularity of the new style both with Davenant and his admirers. But the heroic drama is, in truth, a native growth: for good or for evil, to England alone must be given the credit of its birth. Dryden, no doubt, more ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... however, who made the verse popular, and gave it vogue in France. From his time it became the recognized vehicle for all great poetry, and the regulation of its pauses became more and more strict. The following is an example of the verse as used by Racine— Ou suis-je? qu'ai-je fait? || que dois-je faire encore? Quel transport me saisit? || quel chagrin me devore? Two inexorable laws came to be established with regard to the pauses. The first is, that each line should be divided into two equal parts, the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the plot of his "Malade Imaginaire," and assured us that hypochondriacs themselves would find something to laugh at when it was played. He spoke very little about himself, but at great length, and with evident admiration, about the young poet Racine. ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... found, as in poetry, the distinguishing qualities of ancient and modern literature. The pictures of Michael Angelo, the painter of the Bible, and of Raphael, the painter of the Gospel, suppose as much profound thought, as much sensibility as are to be found in Shakespeare and Racine: sculpture can only present a simple, energetic existence, whilst painting indicates the mysteries of reflection and resignation, and makes the immortal soul speak through transient colours. Corinne maintained also that historical or poetical facts were rarely picturesque. In order to comprehend ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... never supposed himself an actor; took a part, when he took any, merely for convenience, as one takes a hand at whist; and found his true service and pleasure in the more congenial business of the manager. Augier, Racine, Shakespeare, Aristophanes in Hookham Frere's translation, Sophocles and AEschylus in Lewis Campbell's, such were some of the authors whom he introduced to his public. In putting these upon the stage, he found a thousand exercises for his ingenuity and taste, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my old place, close to the space devoted to Royalty. Yes, I shall be there. In the meantime, I propose to treat of the horses as only I can treat of them. I have nothing to say against Pioneer, except that the name promises very well for one who means to lead the way. Nous verrons, as RACINE said, on a celebrated occasion. As for The Imp, I cannot too strongly lay it down that only blue devils are bad for the digestion, and Galloping Queen may gallop farther than or not so far as Miss Ethel. A miss must be better than a mile to win. If Theophilus ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various
... fine effect. In the great hall of this building the members of the Academy hold their sittings; the vestibules are adorned by marble statues of men whose intellectual powers have rendered their names renowned throughout the world, as Montesquieu, Moliere, Corneille, Racine, Sully, etc., etc. The Mazarine library is attached to this institution and contains 120,000 printed volumes besides 4,500 manuscripts. There is also under the same establishment the library of the Institute, which includes 115,000 volumes; in the gallery in which they are contained is a marble statue ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... with music, science and art as side-lines. She read Montaigne, Rochefoucald, Racine and Moliere, and a modern by the name of Alfred de Musset, and quoted her authors at inconvenient times. She flashed quotations and epigrams upon the doughty dragoon in a way he could neither fend nor parry. At other times she was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... you for a minute." The train was slowing up for Racine. His telegram was all ready except for the address. He rushed into the ticket office, added the address and had it sent collect, and had plenty of time to ...
— Ted Marsh on an Important Mission • Elmer Sherwood
... genius. Scudery was the first who introduced the twenty-four hours from Aristotle; and Mairet studied the construction of the fable, and the rules of the drama. They yet groped in the dark, and their beauties were yet only occasional; Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Crebillon, and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... up the cause of an innocent, injured friend, if the popular cry happens to be against him, is the most disgraceful weakness. This was the case of Madame de Maintenon. She loved the character and admired the talents of Racine; she caressed him while he had no enemies, but wanted the greatness of mind, or rather the common justice, to protect him against their resentment when he had; and her favourite was abandoned to the suspicious jealousy of the king, when a prudent remonstrance might have preserved him.—But ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... conceded to be the first in the world. In France the player is not only born—he must be made. Before the embryo performer achieves the honors of a public debut he has been trained in the classes of the Conservatoire to declaim the verse of Racine and to lend due point and piquancy to the prose of Moliere. He is taught to tread in the well-beaten path of French dramatic art, fenced in and hedged around with sacred traditions. If he attempts to embody any ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... the opinion of other people. Belles- lettres deals considerably with this question, for it can itself determine the popular attitude to the unmarried state. So Brandes discovers that the heroines of classical novelists, of Racine, Shakespeare, Moliere, Voltaire, Ariosto, Byron, Lesage, Scott, are almost always sixteen years of age. In modern times, women in novels have their great love-adventure in the thirties. How this advance in years took place we need not bother to find out, but that it has occurred, we ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... judgment than cleverness (ESPRIT), looked out more for the former quality than for the latter. It was men of genius that he wanted, and found. It could not be said that Corneille, Bossuet, Racine and Conde were people of the clever sort (DES ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Paulovna, and for her reception he wrote The Homage of the Arts—a slight affair which served its purpose well. The reaction from these Russophil festivities left him in a weakened condition, and, feeling unequal to creative effort, he translated Racine's Phedre into German verse, finishing it in February, 1805. Then he returned with great zest to his Russian play Demetrius, of which enough was written to indicate that it might have become his masterpiece. But the flame had burnt itself out. Toward the end of April he took a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... of newspaper reading subsided rapidly; Corinne and Racine gathered the dust in peace upon their shelves; Mrs. Sharpe made no more fancy jellies, and found no time to inquire after ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... in her unmarried girlhood had been inconceivable to her except as a dim tragedy in by-gone costumes—that women, even after marriage, might make conquests and enslave men. At that time young ladies in the country, even when educated at Mrs. Lemon's, read little French literature later than Racine, and public prints had not cast their present magnificent illumination over the scandals of life. Still, vanity, with a woman's whole mind and day to work in, can construct abundantly on slight hints, especially on such a hint ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... man, claimed as the slave of B.S. Garland, of St. Louis County, Missouri, was arrested near Racine, Wisconsin, about the 10th of March, 1854. Arrest made by five men, who burst suddenly into his shanty, put a pistol to his head, felled him to the ground, handcuffed him, and took him in a wagon to Milwaukee jail, a distance of twenty-five miles. ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society
... lower, of those great Ancients who are the most accessible to us in English—AEschylus, Aristophanes, Virgil, and Horace. What I have said of Shakespeare I would say of Calderon, of Moliere, of Corneille, of Racine, of Voltaire, of Alfieri, of Goethe, of those dramatists, in many forms, and with genius the most diverse, who have so steadily set themselves to idealize the great types of public life and of the phases of human ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... possible to continue such interpretation I do not know, but if it be so possible, I know still less what next may be put into my hands: Racine, perhaps, may call me, or those forgotten men who urged the Revolution with phrases ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... Chaucer and Shakespeare lived happy lives and sang in the very key of their own times. Puritanism waited for its hour of triumph to produce its great poet, who lived unmolested when the hour of triumph passed and that of reprisals succeeded. Racine was a royal pensioner; Goethe a chamberlain and the most admired figure of his time. Of course, if you hold that these poets one and all pale their ineffectual fires before the radiant Shelley, our argument must go a few steps farther back. ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and Laguerre, the architects Blondel and Le Notre, and sculptors Girardon, Puget, Desjardins, and Coysevox, whose works had done so much to beautify the new palace of the king. Close to the door, Racine, with his handsome face wreathed in smiles, was chatting with the poet Boileau and the architect Mansard, the three laughing and jesting with the freedom which was natural to the favourite servants of the king, the only subjects who might walk unannounced and without ceremony into ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Tauris, as treated by Euripides and other Grecian dramatists; and, if we are to believe a Schlegel, it is in beauty and effect a mere echo or reverberation from the finest strains of the old Grecian music. That it is somewhat nearer to the Greek model than a play after the fashion of Racine, we grant. Setting aside such faithful transcripts from the antique as the Samson Agonistes, we might consent to view Goethe as that one amongst the moderns who had made the closest approximation to the Greek stage. Proximus, we might say, with Quintilian, but with him we must ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... New York City, 1893. Traveled much until he was eight years old, then lived in Racine, Wisconsin, and was educated in the Racine high school. Went to Chicago, intending to join the Thomas Orchestra as violinist, but instead, joined the staff of the Chicago Journal and later that of the Daily News. War ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert
... whispers to one another, which at other times would have been overheard. In the evening the queen and the Princess Elizabeth read aloud, the books chosen being chiefly works of history, or the masterpieces of Corneille and Racine, as being most suitable to form the minds and tastes of the children; and sometimes Louis himself would seek to divert them from their sorrows by asking the children riddles, and finding some amusement in their attempts to solve them. At bed-time ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... exemplary patience of those female captives, who gave their charms, and even their hearts, to the murderers of their fathers, brothers, &c. Such a passion (of Eriphile for Achilles) is touched with admirable delicacy by Racine.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... monseigneur, you are improving; but you take useless precautions, as Racine says. At this moment, probably, they ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... said D'Argenson, "can you find another verse from Racine which will serve as an answer ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... animated protest they contain against the literary taste of the present day in France; a taste for the perverted, the horrible, the monstrous; a taste that welcomes Victor Hugo with outstretched arms, and retains but a frigid recollection of Racine. With this literary taste is intimately connected an unhealthy and feverish condition of the moral sentiments, against which the lecturer directs his most eloquent attacks; so that his book may be commended for its sound ethical ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... that's the new hell they have got up in the revised edition of the Bible for bad boys. When Pa's pants were out his coat-tail blazed up and a Roman candle was firing blue and red balls at his legs, and a rocket got into his white vest. The scene beggared description, like the Racine fire. A nigger chaser got after Ma and treed her on top of the sofa, and another one took after a girl that Ma invited to dinner, and burnt one of her stockings so she had to wear one of Ma's stockings, a good deal too big for her, home. After ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... Racine; Voltaire, has been wrong in accusing me of having criticized that tragedy, and in attributing to me an epigram, the author of which has never been known, and which ends with two very ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Tyrol. Of much greater interest and importance than any of the above are the two volumes of Sicilian tales, collected and translated into German by Laura Gonzenbach, afterwards the wife of the Italian general, La Racine. There are but two other collections of Italian stories by foreigners: Miss Busk's Folk-Lore of Rome, and the anonymous ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... romantique depuis Victor Hugo jusqu'a Balzac et depuis Alfred de Vigny jusqu'a Merimee, lui doivent tous et se sont tous glorifies de lui devoir quelque chose. . . . Il doit nous suffire pour l'instant d'affirmer que l'influence de Walter Scott est a la racine meme des grandes oeuvres qui ont donne au nouveau genre tant d'eclat dans notre litterature; que c'est elle qui les a inspirees, suscitees, fait eclore; que sans lui nous n'aurions ni 'Hans d'Islande,' ni 'Cinq-Mars,' ni 'Les Chouans,' ni ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... mask of which each had a copy, and the spaces between the words then filled up so that the letter would carry some meaning when read as a whole. Love-letters were supposed to give most room for nonsense. Knowing very little French, I bought a pocket dictionary and a copy of Racine, and, during a ten days' stay in Paris, by diligent use of the former in all my transactions, I picked up enough for the needs of travel, and, spending all my leisure over the latter, I was, before my mission was over, able to converse with considerable ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... and Napoleon! How they will feed on the literature of modern nations, from Chaucer through Tennyson; from Luther through Goethe; from Rabelais through Victor Hugo; from Bryant and Irving through Hawthorne and Longfellow! How much they will translate from Homer and Virgil and Tacitus; from Schiller, Racine, Fenelon, and Moliere! How much philosophy they will read from Darwin, Spencer, Huxley! How they will trace the stars in the heavens, and the marks of God's fingers on the rocks and sands! How they will separate into their parts water and air, plants ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... gravely: "very well indeed! not at all like your father, though, who never paid a compliment in his life. Your clothes, by the by, are in exquisite taste: I had no idea that English people had arrived at such perfection in the fine arts. Your face is a little too long! You admire Racine, of course? How do ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... about, I unfortunately proposed to declaim the great speech from Gustavus, in the second act—'No Piron! no Piron!' he cried out, in a thundering and terrific voice, 'I do not love bad verse; let me have all you know from Racine.' ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... monarch was idolized and authors wrote only for courts and scholars: Bossuet, with his rhetorical graces; La Bruyere, with his gallery of characters, not one of which was moulded among the people; De la Rochefoucauld's maxims, drawn from the arcana of fashionable life; Racine, whose heroes die with an immaculate couplet and speak the faint echoes of Grecian or Roman sentiment! When politics became common property, and the walls of a prescriptive and conventional system fell, how wild ran speculation and sentiment in the copious and superficial ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... haven't got Massinger, you have nothing to do but go to the first Bibliotheque you can light upon at Boulogne, and ask for it (Gifford's edition); and if they haven't got it, you can have "Athalie," par Monsieur Racine, and make the best of it. But that ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... which had been made. 'Mind you go by the 5 p.m. train,' Marie said. 'That will take you into Liverpool at 10:15. There's an hotel at the railway station. Didon has got our tickets under the names of Madame and Mademoiselle Racine. We are to have one cabin between us. You must get yours to-morrow. She has found out that there is ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... a writer of both fiction and text-books and many short stories. She is the author of "Corneille And Racine In England," "English Rhetoric And Composition," "What Shall We Do Now," "Gunhild," "The Squirrel Cage" and "The Montessori Mother." Louise C. Don Carlos has written "A Battle In The Smoke," one of the best Kansas works on fiction. She did ...
— Kansas Women in Literature • Nettie Garmer Barker
... the Debierre Report, adopted by the French Senate on 21 Oct., 1916, may be quoted in this connexion: "La revolution Salonicienne vue de pres, n' est rien. Elle est sans racine, sans lendemain probable. Venizelos est tres amoindri. La Grece, dont les officiers et les soldats ne veulent pas se battre, est avec Constantin."—Mermeix, Le Commandement Unique, Part II, ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... then, no desire to master those noble bursts of eloquence by which Racine, Bossuet, Fenelon, and Cousin have charmed the intellects ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... at the royal feet, a Bossuet and a Boileau check the flow of independent thought to bask them in the beams of the royal smile, a Fenelon retiring with saddened brow to record for posterity the truths which he was not permitted to utter to the royal ear, a Racine shrinking from the cold glance of the royal eye and going home to die of a broken heart. Here Louis had signed the decree which sent his dragoons to force his Protestant subjects to the mass and the confessional; here he had received with a smile of triumph the tidings that the Pope himself had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... hope at the triumphs of our own day all along the line! Yea, even though we have heard the illustrious Bossuet preach, and applauded Moliere in one of his own plays, and gazed at and listened to (and almost forgiven) Racine and Corneille, and Boileau and Fenelon, and the good Lafontaine—those five ruthless persecutors of our ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... there—the taste of a woman, or rather of a girl, who seeks to give a grace to the commonest things around her. With the mechanical habit of a student, Leonard took down one or two of the volumes still left on the shelves. He found SPENSER'S Fairy Queen, RACINE in French, TASSO in Italian; and on the fly-leaf of each volume, in the exquisite handwriting familiar to his memory, the name "Leonora." He kissed the books, and replaced them with a feeling akin both ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... liberty of genius to such new conquests. Unfortunately, we cannot agree as to the proportions in which each of them is required. The French exaggerated the importance of tradition, and so gave us the classical drama of Racine and Corneille. Walt Whitman exaggerated the importance of liberty, and so gave us Leaves of Grass. In nearly all periods of literary energy, we find writers rushing to one or other of these extremes. Either they declare that the classics are perfect and cannot be surpassed but only ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... are we bound, under the guidance of modern science? An irresistible current is drawing us on, and causing us to leave the morals of Philinthe in our rear. We are coming to those which Racine has engraven in immortal traits in the person of Mathan. When once conscience is put aside, all means are good in order to succeed; and the experience of the world teaches us that, to succeed, the worst means are ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... her comrade, opened her French dictionary and plunged into the difficulties of her page of translation from Racine. ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... o'clock, proceeded to the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, and, taking a seat in an arm-chair, sat in a reclining posture, sometimes silently watching the progress of her tapestry-work, and again engaged in quiet conversation. Occasionally some of Racine's tragedies were read. The king took a listless pleasure in drawing out Madame de Maintenon to remark upon the merits or defects of ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... science into his mystic writings. His sect was revived in England in the eighteenth century through the efforts of William Law. Saint-Martin translated into French two of his Latin works under the titles L'Aurore naissante, ou la Racine de la philosophie (1800), and Les trois principes de l'essence divine (1802). The originals had appeared nearly two hundred years earlier,—Aurora in 1612, and De tribus ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... not in those times secure from his resentment. His country is at such a distance, that the manners might be safely falsified, and the incidents feigned; for remoteness of place is remarked, by Racine, to afford the same conveniencies to a ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... in the kingdom of France. One element of his education he commemorates in a letter to his favourite daughter. 'Let your brother,' he says, 'work hard at the French poets. Let him learn them by heart, especially the incomparable Racine; never mind whether he understands him yet or not. I didn't understand him when my mother used to come repeating his verses by my bedside, and lulled me to sleep with her fine voice to the sound of that inimitable music. I knew hundreds of lines long before I knew how to read; and it is ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... ancient times, equalled sweetmeats, and were given to the judge by the side which gained the suit, as a mark of gratitude. These epices had long been changed into a compulsory payment of money when Moliere wrote. In Racine's Plaideurs, act ii. scene vii., Petit Jean takes literally the demand of the judge for epices, and fetches the ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere
... most interesting group of nicknames is that of which we may take Shakespeare as the type. Incidentally we should be thankful that our greatest poet bore a name so much more picturesque than Corneille, crow, or Racine, root. It is agreed among all competent scholars that in compounds of this formation the verb was originally an imperative. This is shown by the form; cf. ne'er-do-well, Fr. vaurien, Ger. Taugenichts, good-for-naught. Thus ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... agent and the patient of her crime, the victim and the instrument of sacrifice and blood-offering to Venus Libitina, goddess of love and death,—to her, even in the deepest pit of her deliberate wickedness, remorse is natural and redemption conceivable. Like the Phaedra of Racine, and herein so nobly unlike the Phaedra of Euripides, she is capable of the deepest and bitterest penitence,—incapable of dying with a hideous and homicidal falsehood on her long polluted lips. Her latest breath is not a ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... praise of Cicero and especially of this oration, spoken by M. Gueroult at the College of France in June, 1815. The worst literary faults laid to the charge of Cicero, if committed by him—which M. Gueroult thinks to be doubtful—had been committed even by Voltaire and Racine! The learned Frenchman, with whom I altogether sympathize, rises to an ecstasy of violent admiration, and this at the very moment in which Waterloo was being fought. But in truth the great doings of the ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... the great French actress, arrived in England. She had already established her empire in Paris by her marvellous revival of Racine's and Corneille's masterpieces. She was now to exercise the same fascination over an alien people, to whom her speech was a foreign tongue. She made her first appearance in the part of Hermione in Racine's Andromaque ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... bottom shelf—which holds it all between its brown and gold covers. An extravagance that—for it cost me some sovereigns—but it is something to have the portraits of all that wonderful galaxy, of Louis, of the devout Maintenon, of the frail Montespan, of Bossuet, Fenelon, Moliere, Racine, Pascal, Conde, Turenne, and all the saints and sinners of the age. If you want to make yourself a present, and chance upon a copy of "The Court and Times of Louis XIV.," you will never think that your money has ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... unknown (or nearly so) in the circles of Paris; the writers a la mode, whether ultra or liberal, were, or thought themselves to be, supporters and practisers of the old school of literature;" in the interval of her absence she published a work in which she told the Parisians that Racine was no poet, and gave them other valuable information of the kind, calculated to dispel their classical infatuation:—when she returned, every thing was changed; poets and prosers were vieing with each other in gloriously ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... costume. She is not beautiful, but the animation of her visage takes the place of beauty. To aid the expression I wished to give her, I entreated her to recite tragic verses while I painted. She declaimed passages from Corneille and Racine. I find many persons established at Coppet: the beautiful Madame Recamier, the Comte de Sabran, a young English woman, Benjamin Constant, etc. Its society is continually renewed. They come to visit ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... les eaux va boivant, L'arbre la boit par sa racine, La mer salee boit le vent, Et le Soleil boit la marine. Le Soleil est beu de la Lune, Tout boit soit en haut ou en bas: Suivant ceste reigle commune, Pourquoy donc ne boirons-nous pas?—Edit. Fol. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... the middle of March, 1854, a man named Joshua Glover, was seized near Racine, in Wisconsin, as a Fugitive Slave. His arrest was marked by the circumstances of cruelty and cowardice which seem to be essential to the execution of this Law above all others. He was brought, chained and bleeding, ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... the elevators. I trust I have made it understood that corn comes into Buffalo, not only from Chicago, of which I have spoken specially, but from all the ports round the lakes: Racine, Milwaukee, Grand Haven, Port Sarnia, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, and many others. At these ports the produce is generally bought and sold; but at Buffalo it is merely passed through a gateway. It is taken from vessels of a size fitted ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... that Sarah Bernhardt must be seen, if we are to realise all that her art is capable of. In writing "Phedre," Racine anticipated Sarah Bernhardt. If the part had been made for her by a poet of our own days, it could not have been brought more perfectly within her limits, nor could it have more perfectly filled those limits to their utmost edge. It is one of the greatest ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... the avenue ascend the double stair leading up to the beautiful terrace, on which, to the left, stands the Cathedral, and to the right, projecting from the balustrade, the little house with about 9 yards of frontage, in which Racine resided with his uncle, acanon of the cathedral. Below, in the deep narrow valley, is the stream Eure, which once supplied the Roman aqueduct at Nmes. At the S.W. corner of the church rises from a square basement a circular campanile, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... the compositor and proof reader will be interested to know that Ignacy Seczupakiewicz brought suit in Racine against Praxida Seczupakiewicz. ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... me suddenly one day the remembrance of a scene from Racine's "Plaideurs," in which the counsel for the defence, eager to show how fundamental his knowledge, begins his speech: "Before the Creation of the World"—And the Judge (with a touch of weariness ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... now been a literary as well as a civil reaction. As there was again a throne and a court, a magistracy, a chivalry, and a hierarchy, so was there a revival of classical taste. Honour was again paid to the prose of Pascal and Massillon, and to the verse of Racine and La Fontaine. The oratory which had delighted the galleries of the Convention was not only as much out of date as the language of Villehardouin and Joinville, but was associated in the public mind with images of horror. All the peculiarities of the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... said, by those who ought to know better (it was said to Racine by Frenchmen), that dramatic construction cannot matter, if the passion or spirit with which the author writes, be abundant and sincere. The powder in a cartridge may be abundant and the bullet at the end ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... the French attracts no particular attention. Again, amidst the supposed refinements of French tragedy, and not observe the coarser tragedy of Corneille, but amidst the more feminine and polished tragedy of Racine, there is no recoil at all from saying of such or such a sentiment, 'Il me perce les entrailles'—it penetrates my bowels. The Greeks and Romans still more extensively use the several varieties of expression for the intestines, as a symbolic phraseology for the domestic and social ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... Racine's portrait revives the long controversy between the classic and romantic schools; that of La Bruy re the art of character-painting now one of the highest functions of popular literature; that of Bossuet the pulpit eloquence ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... poet, Racine, having one day returned from Versailles, where he had been on a visit, was waited upon by a gentleman with an invitation to dine at the Hotel de Conde. "I cannot possibly do myself that honour," said the poet; "it is some time since I have been with my family; they are overjoyed to ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... is rich in talents; they injure each other perhaps by their multitude; but posterity, judging with more calmness, will see much to admire. Thus we do justice to the great productions of Racine and Moliere which when written were ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... to love and prefer Racine, ah! that is, no doubt, to love above all things, elegance, grace, what is natural and true (at least relatively), sensibility, touching and charming passion; but at the same time is it not also, to allow your taste ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... us such a natural, living Phaedra that we were all strongly moved. How fine a part it is! As a youngster I used to learn verses from 'Phaedra' by heart. I am told that in France devotion to classical tradition is growing weaker, and that Moliere and Racine are more and more seldom played. What a pity! Our people, on the contrary, remain faithful to their great poets and enjoy their works. After school comes college, and after college—the theatre. It should elevate and expand the soul. The people do not need any representation ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... being angry with their commander King Agamemnon, becalmed their ships at Aulis. The seer Calchas thereupon declared that the goddess could be propitiated only by the death of Iphigeneia, the daughter of Agamemnon. This legend forms the theme of tragedies by Euripides, Racine, and Goethe. ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... applause of Europe so much as his unexampled munificence. A number of foreign savants and scholars were the recipients of his distinguished bounty, in the form of presents or pensions; among Frenchmen who were similarly benefited were Racine, Quinault, Flechier, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... innovation in diction in a poetical drama, or to imagine anything comparable to the attitude of a Parisian audience at the cheap holiday performances at the Francais or the Odeon, where the severe classic tragedies of Racine, of Corneille, of Victor Hugo, or the well-worn comedies of Moliere or of Beaumarchais are played with small lure of stage upholstery, and listened to with close attention by a popular audience responsive to the exquisite rhythm and ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... principle. In the writings of Pope, several expressions occur which are easily susceptible of this construction, and which have often been quoted and applied in defence of Religious Liberalism, notwithstanding his explicit disavowal of it in his letter to the younger Racine, prefixed to the collected edition of his works. But on the continent of Europe, Syncretism has been much more fully developed, and fearlessly applied to every department of human thought. Pushed to its ultimate consequences, ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... and exalting among the moderns not only Moliere and Corneille, but also Chapelain, Scuderi, and Quinault, whom he called the greatest lyrical and dramatic poet that France ever had. The battle had begun with a debate in the Academy: Racine having ironically complimented Perrault on the ingenuity with which he had elevated little men above the ancients in his poem (published 1687), le Siecle de Louis le Grand. Fontenelle touched the matter lightly, as Perraults ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... days. It was in this period that he laid the foundation of his wide knowledge of the history and the literature of Canada and of the two countries from which Canada has sprung. Bossuet and Moliere, Hugo and Racine, Burke {16} and Sheridan, Macaulay and Bright, Shakespeare and Burns, all were equally devoured. Perhaps because of his grandfather's association with the Pangman seigneury (the property of the fur trader Peter Pangman), his interest was early turned to the great fur trade of Canada, ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... Testament, the Koran, a selection of the works of the Fathers of the Church, works respecting the Aryans, Calvinists, of Mythology, &c. The epics are to be Homer, Lucan, Tasso, Telemachus, The Henriade, &c." Machiavelli, Fielding, Richardson, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Corneille, Racine, and Rousseau were also among the ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... secrets, as we have said; they had tricks which are now lost arts. A sort of fantastic stunted thing left their hands; it was ridiculous and wonderful. They would touch up a little being with such skill that its father could not have known it. Et que meconnaitrait l'oeil meme de son pere, as Racine says in bad French. Sometimes they left the spine straight and remade the face. They unmarked a child as one might unmark a pocket-handkerchief. Products, destined for tumblers, had their joints dislocated in a masterly manner—you would have said they had been boned. Thus gymnasts ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... Detroit de Colbert. To-day the Terre Napoleon charts look like a partial index to the Pantheon and Pere Lachaise. Laplace, Buffon, Volney, Maupertuis, Montaigne, Lannes, Pascal, Talleyrand, Berthier, Lafayette, Descartes, Racine, Moliere, Bernadotte, Lafontein, Condillac, Bossuet, Colbert, Rabelais, D'Alembert, Sully, Bayard, Fenelon, Voltaire,* (* Voltaire's name is on the Terre Napoleon sectional chart, but it seems to have been crowded out of the large Carte Generale. As there is no actual bay in Spencer's ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... the case, everything that we might call distinctly poetical, all those things which are precious to us in Shakespeare, or Marlowe, or Webster, in Goethe or Schiller, nay, even, occurring at intervals, in Racine himself, at least as much as mere psychology or oratory or pathos, appeared to Alfieri in the light of mere meretricious gewgaws, which took away from the interest of dramatic action without affording him any satisfaction ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... a fire-breathing chimera, and every soldier an irresistible Amadis; in which, when perfected, we find lofty sentiments, splendid imagery, eloquent expression, sound morality, everything but the language of human passion and human character. In the hands of Corneille, and still more in those of Racine, much of the absurdity of the original model was cleared away, and much that was valuable substituted in its stead; but the plan being fundamentally wrong, the high talents of these authors unfortunately only tended to reconcile their countrymen to a style of writing which must otherwise ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... somewhere—without claiming to have made a discovery—la litterature est une chose qui touche a toutes choses. And the tones of literature range from Isaiah to Wycherley, from Thucydides to Tolstoy; its forms from Pindar to a folk song, from Racine to Rudyard Kipling, from Gibbon to Herodotus or Froissart. And while no two people would agree in drawing the line of aesthetic value which should determine whether any given verbal expression of thought ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... So those tremendous positivists, the Hebrew prophets, had the most prosaic notions about the goods and evils of life. So Lucretius praised, I will not say the atoms merely, but even fecundity and wisdom. The motives, to take another example, which Racine attributed to his personages, were prosaically conceived; a physiologist could not be more exact in his calculations, for even love may be made the mainspring in a clock-work of emotions. Yet that Racine was a born poet appears ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Christian people of Wisconsin was at the State Association, met at Racine Sept. 24. Finding on my arrival a large representation of ladies gathered to celebrate the anniversary of their Foreign Missionary Society, I felt sure that there must be also an active sympathy for the work in our own land, and I was not disappointed. ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 01, January, 1884 • Various
... reader may himself judge of the justice of Dryden's censure, I subjoin the argument on this knotty point, as it is stated by Hippolytus and his mistress in the 5th act of the "Phedre" of Racine. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... set me down at the corner of the Rue Racine. I have never met him again; I have never learned who ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... a man of taste is no longer silenced by the arbitrary control of a military despot, who, for an exclamation or gesture, not exactly coinciding with his own prepossessions, pointed him out to his myrmidons, and transferred him at once to prison. You may now laugh with Moleire, or weep with Racine, without having your mirth or sensibility thus unseasonably ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... of the Bannockburn Medical Crusade what manner of life their preachers lead; speak to the Racine Gospel Agency, those lean Americans whose boast is that they go where no Englishman dare follow; get a Pastor of the Tubingen Mission to talk of his experiences—if you can. You will be referred to the printed reports, but these contain no mention of the men ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... classed him with the ablest of his contemporaries. He developed the somewhat bombastic type of drama known as the heroic play, and brought it to its height in his "Conquest of Granada"; then, becoming dissatisfied with this form, he cultivated the French classic tragedy on the model of Racine. This he modified by combining with the regularity of the French treatment of dramatic action a richness of characterization in which he showed himself a disciple of Shakespeare, and of this mixed type ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... "There never was found, in any age of the world," says Bacon, "either religion or law that did so highly exalt the public good as the Bible." "It is the window in this prison of hope," says Dwight, "through which we look into eternity." "How admirable and beautiful," says Racine, "is the simplicity of the Evangelists! They never speak injuriously of the enemies of Jesus Christ, of his judges, nor of his executioners. They speak the facts without a single reflection. They comment neither ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... and exaggerated. At that time, the Christian moderation was unknown to him, as well as the measure which the good taste of the ancients prompted. He has often been compared to the most touching geniuses, to Virgil, to Racine, who had also the gift of tears. But Augustin's tenderness is more abandoned, and, so to speak, more romantic. It even works up, sometimes, ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... enjoyed the pleasures, of highly-polished society. Mrs Courtenay was an admirable performer upon the harp; Miss Emma Courtenay, her niece, was a delightful pianist; and my host himself was no mean amateur upon the flute. Our evenings would pass quickly away, in reading Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Metastasio, or the modern writers of English literature after which we would remain till the night had far advanced, enjoying the beautiful compositions of Beethoven, Gluck, and Mozart, or the brilliant overtures of Donizetti, ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... fancy; to work as I wish and in my own way; to do nothing if I wish it; to dream of a beautiful future; to think of you and to know you are happy; to have as ladylove the Julie of Rousseau; to have La Fontaine and Moliere as friends, Racine for a master, and Pere-Lachaise to walk to,—oh! if it would only ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... ordinarily takes years was not surprising. They did things that way, too, at Haynes-Cooper. Take the case of Nathan Haynes himself. And Michael Fenger too who, not so many years before, had been a machine-boy in a Racine ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... the last anointed is no more also; and I flatter myself I am not alone, even in this kingdom, when I wish that it may please the Almighty neither by the hands of His priests nor His nobles (I allude to a striking passage of Racine) to raise his posterity to the rank of his ancestors, and reillume ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... than such individuals as your father, because, theatres we have, but no tribunals for public harangues.[6] You have hissed the tragedy of Cataline; when you shall see Phaedrus played, you will probably agree that the part of Phaedrus, in Racine, is infinitely superior to the model you have known in Euripides. I hope, also, that you will agree our Moliere surpasses your Terence. By your permission, I shall have the honour of escorting you to the opera, where you will ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... The fatal tumbril which bore Chenier to the guillotine, conveyed also to the same scaffold the poet Roucher, his friend:—"Ils parlerent de la poesie a leurs derniers moments; pour eux, apres l'amitie, c'etait la plus belle chose de la terre. Racine fut l'objet de leur entretien et de leur derriere admiration. Ils voulurent reciter ses vers; ils choisirent la premiere scene ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... l'Incarnation, should extract them in full, as matter of edification and evidence of saintship. Her recent biographer, the Abb Casgrain, refrains from quoting them, though he mentions them approvingly as evincing fervor. The Abb Racine, in his Discours l'Occasion du 192me Anniversaire de l'heureuse Mort de la Vn. Mre de l'Incarnation, delivered at Quebec in 1864, speaks of them as transcendent proofs of the supreme favor of Heaven.—Some of the pupils of Marie de ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... prudence comes to the aid of her principles, whose pride does not interfere with either, and who has a certain—it is hardly unfair to call it—slyness which is of the sex rather than of the individual. But, as such, she is quite admirably worked out—a heroine of Racine in more detail and different circumstances, a triumph of art, and at the same time with so much nature that it is impossible to dismiss her as merely artificial. The nearest thing to her in English prose fiction before (Marianne, of course, is closer in ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... experience. On the evening of the raid he was in a box at the theatre where Guitry, who had run over from Paris, was appearing in the little role of Phedre, when the noise of firing was heard above the alexandrines of Racine. "With great presence of mind," so Mr. Mullinger told us, "Guitry came down stage, right, and said in quizzical tone to us: 'Eh bien, chere petite folle et vieux marcheur, just run up to the roof, will you please, and tell us what it's all about, don't you know.' The Princess and I stood ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... and emotional counter-revolution rather than a movement characterized by catholicity of critical appreciation. Literary criticism is certainly full of similar intolerance; though when Gautier talks about Racine, or Zola about "Mes Haines," or Mr. Howells about Scott, the polemic temper, the temper most opposed to the critical, is very generally recognized. And in spite of their admirable accomplishment in various branches of literature, these writers will never quite recover from the misfortune ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... known a whole century before Spain or Italy had any theater, while the romantic drama in other countries of Europe was founded on the early French drama. Modern drama in France during the time of Corneille, Racine and Voltaire was almost entirely classic. The French regarded the Greek standard as the highest art; and sought to imitate it faithfully, so much so that the French Academy, criticizing a tragedy ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... Louis are exhausted, and in this country, where his Augustan age has seldom been regarded with much enthusiasm, who can seriously address himself to the perusal of his great tragedians, Corneille and Racine—or of his great comedians, Moliere and Regnard—or if his great poets, Boileau and La Fontaine—or of his great wits, La Rochfaucauld and La Bruyere—or of his great philosophers, Des Cartes and Pascal—or of his great divines, Bossuet and Arnauld—or of his great scholars, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... communicated through their own peculiar forms of speech, it becomes a stranger to distrust his own knowledge, rather than their taste. I dare say that were I more accustomed to the language, I might enjoy Corneille and Racine, and even Voltaire, for I can now greatly enjoy Moliere; but, to be honest in the matter, all reciters of heroic French poetry appear to me to depend on a pompous declamation, to compensate for the poverty of the idioms, and the want ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... worthy priests gave me was not a very literary one. We turned out a good deal of Latin verse, but they would not recognize any French poetry later than the Religion of Racine the younger. The name of Lamartine was pronounced only with a sneer, and the existence of M. Hugo was not so much as known. To compose French verse was regarded as a very dangerous habit, and would have been sufficient to get a pupil expelled. ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... the persons. Let us now turn to comedy. Many a droll scene, many a comedy even, may be referred to this simple type. Read the speech of Chicanneau in the Plaideurs: here we find lawsuits within lawsuits, and the mechanism works faster and faster—Racine produces in us this feeling of increasing acceleration by crowding his law terms ever closer together—until the lawsuit over a truss of hay costs the plaintiff the best part of his fortune. And again the same arrangement occurs in ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... Madelinette Lajeunesse had become the greatest singer of her day. But what had put the severest strain upon the modesty of Pontiac was the fact that, on the morrow of Madelinette's first triumph in Paris, she had married M. Louis Racine, the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that unconquerable love of the Absolute which possesses all true poets, Racine seeks in God alone the source of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... brought upon the stage The Distressed Mother, almost a translation of Racine's Andromaque. Such a work requires no uncommon powers, but the friends of Philips exerted every art to promote his interest. Before the appearance of the play a whole Spectator, none indeed of the best, was devoted to its praise; while it yet continued to be acted, another Spectator ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... imbibe the prejudices of the class who can afford to be idle, and the natural result is an odd mixture of conflicting prejudices. He is classical in taste and cosmopolitan in life, and yet he always retains a certain John-Bull element. His preference of Shakespeare to Racine is associated with, if not partly prompted by, a mere English antipathy to foreigners. He never becomes Italianised so far as to lose his contempt for men whose ideas of sport rank larks with the orthodox partridge. He abuses Castlereagh and poor George III. to his heart's content, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... he had a strange idea of prosody. In order to get lines of the same length he wrote his words between two parallel lines traced from the top to the bottom of the page. His system of versification seemed to be correct when applied to the Alexandrine verse of Racine; but when he saw the fables of La Fontaine, in which the lines are very irregular, he ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Mull. Addison's Remarks on Italy. Addison not much conversant with Italian literature. The French masters of the art of accommodating literature. Their Ana. Racine. Corneille. Moliere. Fenelon. Voltaire. Bossuet. Massillon. Bourdaloue. Virgil's description of the entrance into ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... perhaps, I may be permitted to remark that it seems a pity that Racine is so constantly used as a school-book, instead of some of the moderns who are nearer to ourselves in ideas and manners. Racine is a great and admirable writer; but what you want for ordinary readers who have not much time, and whose faculties of attention are already largely ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 1: On Popular Culture • John Morley
... of frolic and mirth; Who can talk in a manner most graphic Every possible language on earth. When she's roaming in regions Italic, You would think her a fair Florentine; She speaks German like Schiller; and Gallic Better far than Rousseau or Racine. ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... refused every commission from De Maintenon; he even rejected with aversion and horror the proposal she made him to fabricate for her a little ring with emblematic ornaments, which was to be presented to Racine. ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... the past, you must look for another tenant," etc., in the monotonous tone of supremacy, and in the French, not of Journel's dictionary, nor of the dictionary of any such as he, but in the French of Racine and Corneille; in the French of the above suggested circle, which inclosed the General's memory, if it had not inclosed—as he never tired ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... ranks next to Racine and Corneille, but as an epic poet he is a failure. His romances are probably the best evidences of his versatile and wonderful powers. They embody all the hate and really noble anger of his soul against the evils which were crushing the life of the French people. Their wit never fails, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... Murat, Caulaincourt, Junot, Sgur, Rapp, and a few other guests. They thought that he would talk about the next day's battle. Not at all: he discussed literature with Junot, who was familiar with all the new tragedies; he had a good deal to say about Raynouard's Templars, about Racine, Corneille, and the fate of the ancient drama. Then, by a singular transition, he began to talk about his Egyptian campaign. "If I had captured Acre," he said, "I should have put my army into long ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... the ancient writers to the modern, for the reason that their libraries are much richer in old works than in modern books. The Baron unmercifully sacrificed Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas, whom he had never read, upon the altar of Racine and Corneille, of which he possessed two or three editions, and yet it would have embarrassed him to recite half a dozen verses from them. Marillac boldly defended the cause of contemporary literature, which he considered as a personal matter, and poured out a profusion of sarcastic remarks ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... language of the country; and Isabella—who with her friends sang boleros and danced the cachuca; with her brother, read Racine and Corneille—was equally happy while she hung enraptured upon the strains of Pergolese's music, or gazed entranced upon the pictures of Correggio and the Veronese. The princess herself was both a painter and musician, and no one, more than she, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... more to be said," the schoolmaster answered. "Grammar must yield to the exigencies of discovery. Nevertheless, young man, a lucid and harmonious style—the diction of Massillon, of M. de Buffon, of the great Racine—a classical style, in short, can never spoil anything——But, my friend," the schoolmaster interrupted himself, "I was forgetting the object of my visit, which concerns ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... literature? When Raynal reproached the United States with not having produced one celebrated man, Jefferson requested him to wait until we had existed "as long as the Greeks before they had a Homer, the Romans a Virgil, and the French a Racine." Half a century elapsed before our republic produced Irving, Cooper, Sedgwick, Halleck, and Bryant. We must not forget that the cruel prejudice, under which colored people labor, makes it extremely difficult for them to gain admission to the best colleges ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... now consider Mr. Philips as a dramatic writer. The first piece he brought upon the stage, was his Distress'd Mother, translated from the French of Monsieur Racine, but not without such deviations as Mr. Philips thought necessary to heighten the distress; for writing to the heart is a secret which the best of the French poets have not found out. This play was acted first in the year 1711, with every advantage a play could have. Pyrrhus was performed by Mr. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... kings, cultivated and encouraged by the greatest men, and admired by whole nations? And that Father Lebrun's impertinent libel against the stage is seen in a bookseller's shop, standing the very next to the immortal labors of Racine, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... ce qui est de facheus pour le pauvre Caraibe, qui s'est mis au lit au lieu de l'acouchee, c'est qu'on luy fait faire diete dix on douze jours de suite, ne luy donnant rien par jour qu'vn petit morceau de Cassave, et un peu d'eau dans la quelle on a aussi fait boueillir un peu de ce pain de racine.... Mais ils ne font ce grand jeusne qu'a la naissance de leur premier enfant ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa |
