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Homer (search for this): chapter 1
an in degree. In writing this, I am thinking less of Plato than of Homer, and not more of Homer than of the dramatic and lyric poets. So faHomer than of the dramatic and lyric poets. So far from the knowledge of other literatures tending to depreciate the Greek, it seems to me that no one can adequately value this who has not cn all other books must say, after all, in returning to a volume of Homer or Sophocles,--Here is beauty, true and sovereign; its like was nevated; when they were ended, he began again. The only exception was Homer, whose works were read every year during a summer vacation of a month at the sea-shore,--the proper place to read Homer, he said. I read a book of the Iliad every day before dinner, and a book of the Odysseyd palaces, to him who had all Aeschylus for a winter residence, and Homer for the seaside! And a culture which seems remotest from practicals been fed by a myriad minds unseen. Why ask whether there was one Homer or a hundred? The hundred contributed their lives, their hopes, th
Sparks (search for this): chapter 1
that, while the leaders of public affairs in America are usually what are called self-made men, this is not the case with our literary leaders. Among first-class American writers, culture is usually in the second generation; they have usually tumbled about in a library, as Holmes says, in childhood; at all events, they are usually college-bred men. It has been remarked, for instance, that our eight foremost historians — assuming that this list comprises Prescott, Motley, Bancroft, Hildreth, Sparks, Ticknor, Palfrey, Parkman — were all college graduates, and indeed graduated at a single college. The choice of names may be open to question, but the general fact is undoubted. Now if it be true that there are fewer among us who rise from the ranks in literature than in politics, it seems not merely to indicate that literature, as being a finer product than statesmanship, implies more elaborate training; but also that our institutions guarantee such training in the one case, and not in
Park (search for this): chapter 1
could no more grow up ignorant of art than he could here remain untrained in politics. When we are once convinced that this higher training is desirable, we shall begin to feel the worth of our accumulated wealth. That is true of wealth which Talleyrand said of wisdom,--everybody is richer than anybody. The richest man in the world cannot afford the parks, the edifices, the galleries, the libraries, that this community can have for itself, whenever it chooses to create them. The Central Park in New York, the Public Library at Boston, the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge,--these are steps toward a more than Athenian culture. These institutions open their vast privileges, free from that sting of selfishness which the private monopolizer feels. Public enthusiasm is roused to sustain them, gifts flow in upon them, and they ennoble the common life around. It was claimed for Athens, that wealth could buy few facilities for culture which poverty did not also share. I take
Retzsch (search for this): chapter 1
ome the studios were better than the carpenters' shops. Both exulted in the thought that in America these things were better ordered; and both therein approached the verge of concessions which would sacrifice the noblest aims of man. For carpentry and upholstery, good as a beginning, are despicable as an ending. What cultivated person would not prefer poorer lodgings and better museums? I remember that, many years since, in a crowded country-house, I slept one night on the floor beneath Retzsch's copy of the Sistine Madonna,--then perhaps the loveliest work of art on this continent. As I lay and watched the silent moonbeams enter and rest upon the canvas, I felt that my share of the hospitality was, after all, the best. The couch might be comfortless, but the dreams were divine. It is such a hospitality that one wishes, after all, from the age in which he lives. Culture is the training and finishing of the whole man, until he sees physical demands to be merely secondary, and
Nathaniel Hawthorne (search for this): chapter 1
accept a low standard of execution, to substitute artifice for art, and to disregard the more permanent verdict of more fastidious tribunals. The richest thought and the finest literary handling which America has yet produced — as of Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau — reached at first but a small audience, and are but very gradually attaining a wider hold. Renan has said that every man's work is superficial, until he has learned to content himself with the approbation of a few. This is only otion, and bids art live. Rouge gagne. If the romance of life does not assert itself in safe and innocent ways, it finds its outlet with fatal certainty in guilt; as we see colorless Puritanism touched with scarlet splendor through the glass of Hawthorne. Every form of human life is romantic; every age may become classic. Lamentations, doubts, discouragements, all are wasted things. Everything is here, between these Atlantic and Pacific shores, save only the perfected utterance that comes wi
Agassiz (search for this): chapter 1
its original form. The engrossing excitement of public affairs has nearly abolished the old Lyceum, and put a political orator in the lecturer's place. Science and art have long ceased to be the most available subjects for a popular lecture. Agassiz and Bayard Taylor, by dint of exceedingly rapid and continuous travelling, can still find a few regions which Americans will consent to hear described, outside of America; and a few wandering lecturers on geology still haunt the field, their dis often be exaggerated in quantity, no doubt, but in its quality was always honorable. The community seeks wealth, but it knows how to respect its public men who are poor through honesty, or its scholars who are poor for the sake of knowledge. Agassiz never said anything which more endeared him to the mass of his adopted fellow-countrymen, than when he declined a profitable lecturing engagement on the ground that he had no time to make money. Such a community is at least building the nurse
Ampere (search for this): chapter 1
elief that the Greek literature is still so entirely unequalled among the accumulated memorials of the world, that it seems to differ from all others in kind rather than in degree. In writing this, I am thinking less of Plato than of Homer, and not more of Homer than of the dramatic and lyric poets. So far from the knowledge of other literatures tending to depreciate the Greek, it seems to me that no one can adequately value this who has not come back to it after long study of the others. Ampere, that master of French prose, has hardly overstated the truth when he says that the man best versed in all other books must say, after all, in returning to a volume of Homer or Sophocles,--Here is beauty, true and sovereign; its like was never written among men,--Voila la beaute veritable et souveraine; jamais il ne s'est écrit rien de pareil chez les hommes. I do not see how there could possibly be a list of the dozen masterpieces of the world's literature, of which at least one half shoul
Bancroft (search for this): chapter 1
t is often noticed that, while the leaders of public affairs in America are usually what are called self-made men, this is not the case with our literary leaders. Among first-class American writers, culture is usually in the second generation; they have usually tumbled about in a library, as Holmes says, in childhood; at all events, they are usually college-bred men. It has been remarked, for instance, that our eight foremost historians — assuming that this list comprises Prescott, Motley, Bancroft, Hildreth, Sparks, Ticknor, Palfrey, Parkman — were all college graduates, and indeed graduated at a single college. The choice of names may be open to question, but the general fact is undoubted. Now if it be true that there are fewer among us who rise from the ranks in literature than in politics, it seems not merely to indicate that literature, as being a finer product than statesmanship, implies more elaborate training; but also that our institutions guarantee such training in the o
German (search for this): chapter 1
of Scotland) that in America every one gets a mouthful of education, but scarcely any one a full meal. It is the defect of some of our recent debates on this subject, that, instead of remedying the starvation, the reformers propose to deduct from the dinner. The disputants appear to agree in the assumption that an average Senior Sophister is a plethoric monster of learning, and that something must be done to take him down. For this end, some plan to remove his Greek and Latin, others his German, others again his mathematics,--all assuming it as a thing not to be tolerated, that one small head should carry all he knows. Yet surely it needs but little actual observation of our college boys, in their more unguarded moments,--at the annual regatta, for instance, or among the young ladies on Class Day,--to mitigate these fears. The Class Orator does not always impress us with any bewildering accumulation of mental attainments; nor does the head of the Lazy Club appear to possess mor
De Tocqueville (search for this): chapter 1
ning. A man of healthy nature can, indeed, find a certain tonic in this cool atmosphere; it is only a question whether more perfect works of art may not one day be produced, amid more genial surroundings. Firm must be the will, patient the heart, passionate the aspiration, to secure the fulfilment of some high and lonely purpose, when revery spreads always its beds of roses on the one side, and practical work summons to its treadmill on the other. Whatever may have been the case in De Tocqueville's day,--and his report of us, thirty-five years old, seems to be almost the latest intelligence that has reached Europe,--there is certainly now no danger that public life will not have sufficient attractions for cultivated Americans. There is more danger that it will absorb them too much. Why should we insist, like Nick Bottom the weaver, on playing all the parts? The proper paths of the statesman and the artist may often touch, but will rarely coincide. It is not that politics are
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