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...The Rolling Stone of History. -- Surprising revelations -- Ancient Cities that are now no more -- Effects of Cataclysms upon the human race -- The rise and fall of nations -- Cave dwellers who became masters of the world -- The first boats -- Building a strong nation -- The earliest ...

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...ONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The Rolling Stone of History. -- Surprising revelations -- Ancient Cities that are now no more -- Effects of Cataclysms upon the h... ...tion -- The earliest navigators -- Evolution of the ship -- Discoveries of the ancients -- Islands of the long ago -- Changes in the earth's surface -... ...ditions sent out by Menelaus and Neco -- The circumnavigation of Africa by the ancients -- Solomon's navy -- Discovery of the West Indies by Carthagin... ... a new world -- A wondrously profitable commerce -- A northwest passage -- The Romans pass to China by a north route -- Destruction of the Roman empir... ...sesses a charm which modern annals cannot rival; there is a sun-tinted mist of romance enveloping the remote past which flatters, like a wondrous mira... ...e it upon the authority of Antonio Galvano, the Portuguese historian, that the Romans, having made themselves masters of all Europe, Northern Africa, ... ...f all the nautical legends. Novelists have used it, poets have embellished it, dramatists have put it on the boards with all the accessories of magnif... ...kind of savage hallo, or shriek, not unlike what is sometimes practised in the comic dances on our European theatres. They formed the triple semi-circ... ...wo of the women would advance together, followed by two men who performed many comical antics, and who, indeed, seemed to monopolize the attention of ...

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...Excerpt: Good Comedies are such rare productions, that notwithstanding the wealth of our literature in the Comic element, it would not occupy us long to run over the English list. If they are brought to the test I shall propose, very reputable Comedies will be found unworthy of their station, like the ladies of Arthur?s Court when...

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... on Comedy by George Meredith On the Idea of Comedy and of the Uses of the Comic Spirit 1 Good Comedies are such rare productions, that notwith- stand... ...re productions, that notwith- standing the wealth of our literature in the Comic element, it would not occupy us long to run over the English list. If... ...ere reduced to the or- deal of the mantle. There are plain reasons why the Comic poet is not a fre- quent apparition; and why the great Comic poet rem... ...hens was enslaved but prosperous, have lent his hand to the composition of romantic comedy. He certainly inspired that fine genius. 10 An Essay on Co... ... it. The farce of the Precieuses ridiculed and put a stop to the monstrous romantic jargon made popular by certain famous novels. The comedy of the Fe... ...auty, the adorable bundle of caprices, very feminine, very sympathetic, of romantic and sentimental fiction? Our women are taught to think so. The Agn... ...an from the mire it was plunged into by the comic poets, or rather satiric dramatists, of the middle period of Greek Comedy preceding him and the New ... ...ly the Comic can fitly touch. Aristophanes would probably have crowned the ancient tree, with the consolatory observation to the haggard line of long-... ...Rabelais, one or two in Don Quixote, and the Sup- per in the Manner of the Ancients, in Peregrine Pickle, are of a similar cataract of laughter. But i...

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...erpretation of their value. In practice they had long sunk into forms. But ancient forms easily lend themselves to a revivification by meanings and ap... ...lf with snake-like folds about the legal es- tablishment; surmount it as a Roman vinea surmounted the fortifications which it beleaguered; and which, ... ...u published a translation of Bottiger’s ‘Sabina,’ a learned account of the Roman toilette. I here send you a companion to that work—not a direct trans... ...n consequence unread,) on the toi- lette and the wardrobe of the ladies of ancient Palestine. Hartmann was a respectable Oriental scholar, and he pub-... ... yields a strong presumption that he has exhausted it. The male costume of ancient Pales- tine is yet to be illustrated; but, for the female, it is pr... ... Bottiger remarks, that, even in the age of Augustus, the morning dress of Roman ladies when at home was nothing more than this very tunic; which, if ... ...ult of his act an emotion of curiosity. But all curiosity is allied to the comic, and is not an ennobling emotion, ei- ther for him who feels it or fo... ... have even dimly guessed at the meaning of a situation in comedy where the comic rested upon arbitrary rules and conventional propri- eties. In all sa... ...ut in that one of her many shapes which to Pope had always seemed the most comic as well as the most hate- ful. Instantly Pope’s ancient malice is rek...

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...nto political economy, into the Greek and Latin accents, into antiquities, Roman roads, old castles, the ori- gin and analogy of languages; upon all t... ...val of interest in earlier modern English prose, which is a feature of the Romantic Movement. Still none of his contemporaries wrote as he did; eviden... ...the man to laugh at it. But sometimes, undoubtedly, it expressed itself in comic shapes. The course taken with the infatuated outsiders, in the partic... ... at last I was obliged to tell him a very fine story from one of our elder dramatists: viz., that once, in some far Oriental kingdom, when the sultan ... ..., should have been crowned with Birmingham tinsel, with paste diamonds and Roman pearls, and then led off to instant execution.” The Welshman doubted ... ...irty-five years back, Mr. Waterton, a distinguished coun- try gentleman of ancient family in Northumberland, pub- licly mounted and rode in top-boots ... ...radise, the man falls by his own choice; again, by infinite iteration, the ancient earth groans to Heaven, through her secret caves, over the weakness... ...ster, with its vast cincture of populous rural districts, was called up by ancient usage to the tribunal of Lilliputian Lancaster. To break up this ol... ...HIN ME: Cf. Luke xxiv. 32. 14 32 A VERY FINE STORY FROM ONE OF OUR EL- DER DRAMATISTS: The dramatist in question has not been identified. I am indebte...

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...a successful flight, and, there- fore, for the following revolution in the romance of his own abominable life. He had in his pockets above a hundred p... ...s of years. 5 Let the reader, who is disposed to regard as exaggerated or romantic the pure fiendishness imputed to Williams, recol- lect that, excep... ...er to the effort, found a vast auxiliary advantage in a peerage and a very ancient descent. On these double wings he soared into a region of public in... ...ment is, that it never goes the length of wearying, but only of giv- ing a comic air of downright Wapping and Rotherhithe veri- similitude. All men gr... ...here is some shadow of a resemblance there. For Wieland had a touch of the comico-cynical in his nature; and it is notorious that he was often called ... ...ar more playful and genial than Swift’s; something of this is shown in his romance of ‘Idris,’ and oftentimes in his prose. But what the world knows W... ...tailor and co. As to ‘Cato,’ Schlosser, as usual, wanders in the shadow of ancient night. The English ‘people,’ it seems, so ‘extravagantly applauded’... ...enting the gayer as- pects of society as it really was, and supported by a comic interest of the mock-heroic derived from a playful machin- ery, inste... ...ed reader knows well what is coming. Fox is ‘formed after the model of the ancients’—Fox is ‘simple’—Fox is ‘natu- ral’—Fox is ‘chaste’—Fox is ‘forcib...

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...e primæval forest as far behind as one of these clear headed children of the Roman forum and the Greek amphitheatre; and even if they have lost someth... ... de FRENCH WAYS AND THEIR MEANING 3 tached from the lingering spell of the ancient shadowy world in which trees and animals talked to each other, an... ... to birds and insects because in some remote and perhaps prehistoric past an ancient Gaul once decreed that “blackberries give the fever.” An hour awa... ...innocent self. Yet the blackberry has been condemned untried because of some ancient taboo that the French peasant dares not disregard. FRENCH WAYS A... ...nless there is a Duke or an Ambassador or a Bishop present; and these rules, comic enough where peer meets prelate, become more humorous (and also gro... ...eir natural hauteur would not let them betray surprise to the intruder. That romantic illusion has been dispelled by modern investigation, and the tra... ...ivable to them that any one should consider it superfluous, and even slightly comic, to know a great deal, to know the best in every line, to know, in ... ...o stamp FRENCH WAYS AND THEIR MEANING 33 her once for all with the stamp of Roman citizenship; and in the intervals between these events the old, alm... ...y different from the person depicted under that name by French novelists and dramatists; but in truth every literature, in its main lines, reflects the...

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...ct leads us to talk of deadly feuds, and we must begin with one still more ancient than that to which our story relates. During the reign of James IV ... ...ght, shrieked aloud, and fled into the woods, where, as de- scribed in the romance, she roamed a raving maniac, and for some time secreted herself fro... ...” [Sir James Turner’s Memoirs, Bannatyne edition, p. 59.] In quoting these ancient authorities, I must not forget the more modern sketch of a Scottish... ...oubted Ritt-master. The general idea of the char- acter is familiar to our comic dramatists after the Restora- tion—and may be said in some measure to... ... Ritt-master. The general idea of the char- acter is familiar to our comic dramatists after the Restora- tion—and may be said in some measure to be co... ...but distinguish a few rude stones—the language was almost extinguished—the ancient race from which he boasted his descent had found a refuge beyond th... ...s arrayed in heath of the darkest purple. In the present times, a scene so romantic would have been judged to pos- sess the highest charms for the tra... ...honourable ambassador has been hanged as a spy before now. Neither did the Romans use ambassadors much more mercifully at the siege of Capua, although... ...ble friends,” said Captain Dalgetty, again eyeing them both with an air of comic penetration, “I find it would not be altogether unacceptable to eithe...

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... decent and decorous, but it treats “Don Quixote” in the same fashion as a comic book that cannot be made too comic. To attempt to improve the humour ... ...a, the Mendozas, Gongora, were all 9 Cervantes – Ormsby’s 1922 ed. men of ancient families, and, curiously, all, except the last, of fami- lies that ... ...though nominally taken from the castle, it was in reality derived from the ancient territorial possession of the family, and as a set-off, and to dist... ...likely to have a strong feeling on the subject of the sham chivalry of the romances. It gives a point, too, to what he says in more than one place abo... ...Part of “Don Quixote” alone proves a vast amount of miscellaneous reading, romances of chivalry, ballads, popular poetry, chronicles, for which he had... ...d away. The new Spain was the mightiest power the world had seen since the Roman Empire and it had not yet been called upon to pay the price of its gr... ...ond time, would very likely have tried to im- prove him by making him more comical, clever, amiable, or virtu- ous. But Cervantes was too true an arti... ...a knight. “For, how could you expect me not to feel uneasy about what that ancient lawgiver they call the Public will say when it sees me, after slumb... ...these books enables the author to show his powers, epic, lyric, tragic, or comic, and all the moods the sweet and winning arts of poesy and oratory ar...

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... decent and decorous, but it treats “Don Quixote” in the same fashion as a comic book that cannot be made too comic. To attempt to improve the humour ... ...do, Calderon, Garcilaso de la Vega, the Mendozas, Gongora, were all men of ancient families, and, curiously, all, except the last, of fami- lies that ... ...though nominally taken from the castle, it was in reality derived from the ancient territorial possession of the family, and as a set-off, and to dist... ...likely to have a strong feeling on the subject of the sham chivalry of the romances. It gives a point, too, to what 10 Don Quixote he says in more th... ...Part of “Don Quixote” alone proves a vast amount of miscellaneous reading, romances of chivalry, ballads, popular poetry, chronicles, for which he had... ...d away. The new Spain was the mightiest power the world had seen since the Roman Empire and it had not yet been called upon to pay the price of its gr... ...ond time, would very likely have tried to im- prove him by making him more comical, clever, amiable, or virtu- ous. But Cervantes was too true an arti... ...a knight. “For, how could you expect me not to feel uneasy about what that ancient lawgiver they call the Public will say when it sees me, after slumb... ...these books enables the author to show his powers, epic, lyric, tragic, or comic, and all the moods the sweet and winning arts of poesy and oratory ar...

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...’s imagination, and the narrow alleys round the harbour grew rich with the romance which his young fancy lent them. One evening he asked whether he mi... ...ic. He was accustomed to say that Papists re- quired an epithet, they were Roman Catholic; but the Church of England was Catholic in the best, the ful... ...in her even voice read the opposite 39 W. Somerset Maugham page. It was a romantic narrative of some East- ern traveller of the thirties, pompous may... ...n but a suc- cessful charlatan, and in that was always some- thing for the comic spirit to rejoice in. “ Verruckter Kerl! A madman!” he said. He had s... ...st excitement; it was extravagantly praised and bitterly at- tacked; other dramatists followed with plays written under the modern influence, and Phil... ... from Rome to put a subtle fragrance of Italy . He thought the city of the ancient Romans a little vulgar , finding distinction only in the decadence ... ...th his red fat face and his little gleam- ing eyes, looked extraordinarily comic; but Philip was too much in earnest to laugh. “Have you never done an... ...spirits and a constant gaiety . He strummed a little on the piano and sang comic songs with gusto; and evening after evening, while Philip was read- i... ..., and whether a similarity of surname was not his only connection with the ancient family whose tree he was displaying. LXXXVIII There was a knock at ...

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...leration in matters of religion, —have always advocated the admis- sion of Roman Catholics and Jews into Parliament, and even to the Bench. In ordinar... ...liser was the last man from whom the Duke of St Bungay would have expected romance at any time, and, least of all, at such a time as this. ‘Aid from h... ...e who believe all England to be Romish at heart, because here in England a Roman Catholic can say what he will, and print what he will.’ ‘And yet,’ sa... ...ut I’ll open it if you like.’ Then he tore off the envelope with an air of comic importance, and stood for a few min- utes while he read it. ‘What I f... ...le to give it. As it was with the merchants whom Shakespeare and the other dramatists described,—so it is with me. My caravels are out at sea, and wil... ...was unhappy, saturnine, and generally silent except when closeted with his ancient mentor. And he knew that he was saturnine and silent, and that it b... ... really doubt whether you look at the matter in the right light,’ said the ancient statesman, who was in truth fright- ened at what was being proposed...

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...ew who pro- fessed themselves followers in the retinue and equipage of the ancients, as creatures of a lower race. Boileau, as a mere imitator and pro... ...beyance; an effort of self-conquest realized in more cases than one by the ancient fathers, both Greek and Latin, with regard to the profane classics.... ...less they had found it fuming upwards like incense to the Pagan deities in ancient times, from altars erected at every turning upon all the paths of m... ... every turning upon all the paths of men? But it is objected that inferior dramatists were sometimes preferred to Shakspeare; and again, that vile tra... ... essential condition of attraction. Moreover, in some de- partments of the comic, Beaumont and Fletcher, when writ- ing in combination, really had a f... ...her husband’s family, beyond the prom- ises of fairy land or the dreams of romance; for it is certain that to her chiefly this family was also indebte... ...er, it is believed that Shakspeare wrote nothing more after this exquisite romantic drama. With respect to the remainder of his personal history, Dr. ... ... T rue; but prodigious as it is, there is really nothing between them. The Roman stage, at least the tragic stage, as is well known, was put out, as b... ...h- ing, most emphatically drew forth the sexual distinctions, viz., in the comic aspects of social intercourse, the reason that we see no women on the...

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... in me to be credible or intelligible. We, as we read, must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner; must fasten these i... ...ily we always read as superior be- ings. Universal history, the poets, the romancers, do not in their stateliest pictures, —in the sacerdotal, the im-... ... honor and such lax discipline as great boys have? The costly charm of the ancient tragedy, and indeed of all the old literature, is that the persons ... ...n the vaunted dis- tinction between Greek and English, between Classic and Romantic schools, seems superficial and pedantic. When a thought of Plato b... ...s’s eye. Honor is venerable to us because it is no ephemera. It is always ancient virtue. We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day. We love i... ...al; that in nature nothing can be given, all things are sold. This is that ancient doctrine of Nemesis, who keeps watch in the universe and lets no of... ...f things for its illustration. But what marks its elevation and has even a comic look to us, is the inno- cent serenity with which these babe-like Jup... ...nded with hundreds of figures performing com- plex dramas, with tragic and comic issues, long conversa- tions, many characters, many ups and downs of ... ...betray the universal- ity of the love of cultivated manners. I know that a comic disparity would be felt, if we should enter the acknowl- edged ‘first...

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...the dead would be happy. Socrates in reply is led into a half-serious, half-comic vein of reflec- tion. Who knows, as Euripides says, whether life... ...s. Nor must we forget that the side of ethics which regards others is by the ancients merged in politics. Both in Plato and Aristotle, as well as in t... ...compared with the analogous notion, which occurs in the Protagoras, that the ancient poets were the Sophists of their day. In some other respects the ... ...of stating the question is really opposed both to the spirit of Plato and of ancient philoso- phy generally. For Plato is not asserting any abstract r... ...se of Proverbs, Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him, etc., quoted in Romans.) Men are not in the habit of dwelling upon the dark side of their... ...forgotten their high vocation of teachers; and the two greatest of the Greek dramatists owe their sublimity to their ethical character. The noblest tr...

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...upset the theatre critics, in a turn of the wrist, by substituting for the romantic commonplaces of the stage the moral commonplaces of the pulpit, pl... ...s, adultery, and force our managers and authors to find out what all great dramatists find out spontaneously: to wit, that people who sacrifice every ... ...vulgar work without question. The conclave which compiles the index of the Roman Catholic Church is the most august, ancient, learned, famous, and aut... ... which compiles the index of the Roman Catholic Church is the most august, ancient, learned, famous, and authoritative censorship in Europe. Is it mor... ...are built to induce, not voluptuous reverie but intellectual interest, not romantic rhapsody but humane concern. Accordingly, I do not find those crit... ... nature. The result of this con- flict is tragic in Mrs Warren’s case, and comic in the clergyman’s case (at least we are savage enough to laugh at it...

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...s not allowed to discuss the elemental relations of men and women: all her romantic twaddle about novelet-made love, all her purely legal dilemmas as ... ... whole cen- tury, thus treating him as English journalism has treated that comic foe of the gods, Punch. Moliere’s Don Juan casts back to the original... ... is not a true Don Juan at all; for he is no more an enemy of God than any romantic and ad- venturous young sower of wild oats. Had you and I been in ... ...ou. I do not adulterate the product with aph- rodisiacs nor dilute it with romance and water; for I am merely executing your commission, not producing... ...nd so your Don Juan has come to birth as a stage projec- tion of the tragi-comic love chase of the man by the woman; and my Don Juan is the quarry ins... ...men of property, of the franchise, of the free use of their limbs, of that ancient symbol of immortality, the right to make oneself at home in the hou... ...y you see on the stage, where the work- ers are all footmen, parlourmaids, comic lodging-letters and fashionable professional men, whilst the heroes a... ...ke quite seriously, will be no news to you. Even Plato and Boswell, as the dramatists who invented Socrates and Dr Johnson, impress me more deeply tha... ...iction I can- not be a bellettrist. No doubt I must recognize, as even the Ancient Mariner did, that I must tell my story entertain- ingly if I am to ...

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...much a first essay in political philosophy as Die Feen is a first essay in romantic opera. The attempt to recover its spirit twenty years later, when ... ...at the poor dwarf is repulsive to their sense of physical beauty and their romantic conception of heroism, that he is ugly and awkward, greedy and rid... ...o him as enthusiasm. He finds it exquisitely amusing—having a touch of the comic spirit in him—that the dwarf, in stirring up the moral fervor of Wota... ...self writhed during Alberic’s brief reign. Mimmy is a blinking, shambling, ancient creature, too weak and timid to dream of taking arms himself to des... ...ve been so poor and faithless as to trade for their power on the lies of a romancer. Back to Opera Again AND NOW, O Nibelungen Spectator, pluck up; fo... ...onist Wotan is the hero, likewise philosophically symbolic. The two master-dramatists therefore produce practically the same version of Brynhild. Thus... ...hose three simple chords which festive students who vamp accompaniments to comic songs “by ear” soon find sufficient for nearly all the popular tunes ... ...of tenderness and noble wisdom in the beauty of a woman. Besides, Bach set comic dialogue to music exactly as he set the recitatives of the Passion, t...