History as Literature, and Other Essays"Addresses I made before the American Historical Association, the University of Oxford, the University of Berlin, and the Sorbonne at Paris, together with six essays I wrote for the Outlook, and one that I wrote for the Century."--Preface. |
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achievement admiration American ancient Aryan blood Bricriu career centuries chariot citizen civilization conquest course Cubist Cuchulain culture Dante deal deeds Deirdrè duty Dwight Émile Boutroux empire Erse especially Europe European evil evolution fact fighting forces French growth Henri Bergson Henry Osborn Taylor heroes historian human individual instance intellectual interest kind king land less liberty literary literature living lofty mankind material matter mean Meave mediæval ment merely mighty mind modern Mongol moral movement nation ness Nibelungenlied Norse Norse sagas Paris Commune past period philosophers physical poems poet political possess qualities Queen Meave race religion republic Roman Rome sagas scholarship scientific sense social Song of Roland soul South America speak spirit striking teaching Teutonic THEODORE ROOSEVELT things thought tion to-day treat true truth tyranny wealth wholly wisdom writings
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Page 18 - Side by side with the need for the perfection of the individual in the technic of his special calling goes the need of broad human sympathy, and the need of lofty and generous emotion in that individual. Only thus can the citizenship of the modern state rise level to the complex modern social
Page 304 - of life. It is no less true, however, that change may mean death and not life, and retrogression instead of development. Probably we err in treating most of these pictures seriously. It is likely that many of them represent in the painters the astute appreciation of the power to make folly lucrative which the late PT
Page 288 - together with the tragical fate of the Children of Lir and the tragical fate of the Children of Tuirenn, were known as the "Three Sorrowful Tales of Erin." None has better retained its vitality down to the present day. Even to us, reading the songs in an alien age and tongue, they are very beautiful.
Page 17 - ordinary; for writings are useless unless they are / read, and they can not be read unless they are readable. Furthermore, while doing full justice , to the importance of the usual, of the commonplace, the great historian will not lose sight of the importance of the heroic. It is hard to tell just what it is that is most important to know. The wisdom of one generation
Page 288 - sings wistfully of her Scottish abiding-place, with its pleasant, cuckoo-haunted groves, and its cliffs, and the white sand on the beaches. She tells of her lover's single infidelity, when he came enamoured of the daughter of a Scottish lord, and
Page 21 - of learning bound to the past by the shackles; of an iron conservatism. It is neither necessary rigidly to mark the limits of the province of history, ( nor to treat of all that is within that province, nor
Page 288 - the beautiful girl who forsook her betrothed, the Over-King of Ulster, for the love of Naisi, and fled with him and his two brothers across the waters to Scotland. At last they returned to Ireland, and there
Page 307 - of the French and Spanish caves. There are interesting samples of the strivings for the representation of the human form among artists of many different countries and times, all in the same stage of
Page 283 - silver, urns and mugs and troughs and vessels of iron and silver. They played chess by the fires in their great halls, and they feasted and drank and quarrelled within them, and the women had sun-parlors of their own. Among the most striking of the tales are those of the "Fate of the Sons of Usnach,
Page 8 - and its form, aside from the mere technical value that inheres in a special treatise for specialists. For a great work of literature there is the same demand now that there always has been; and in any great work of literature the first element is great imaginative power. The imaginative power demanded for a great historian is different from that demanded for a great poet; but it is no less marked.*