![The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20] - Читать Любимую Русскую Полную Книгу 👉 Read-E-Book.com](/uploads/posts/books/4/0/5/6/the-world-s-greatest-books-volumes-1-15-17-20-download.jpg)
The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1910
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Культурология
Электронная книга - «The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]». Краткое содержание книги:
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 01 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 02 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 03 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 04 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 05 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 06 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 07 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 08 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 09 — Lives and Letters от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 10 — Lives and Letters от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 11 — Ancient and Mediæval History от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 12 — Modern History от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 13 — Religion and Philosophy от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 14 — Philosophy and Economics от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 15 — Science от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 17 — Poetry and Drama от Неизвестный
The world's greatest books от Mee, Arthur, 1875-1943, joint editor & Hammerton, John Alexander, Sir, 1871-1949, joint editor & McClure, S. S. (Samuel Sidney), 1857-1949, joint editor
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 19 — Travel and Adventure от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 20 — Miscellaneous Literature and Index от Неизвестный
IV.—On Customs and Religion
Fashion in matters of food, health, taste and conscience is utterly foolish. Game is at present out of fashion, and condemned as a food. It is to-day a sin against fashion to be cured of the ague by blood-letting.
The conceited man thinks every day of the way in which he will be able to attract attention on the following day. The philosopher leaves the matter of his clothes to his tailor. It is just as childish to avoid fashion as to follow its decrees too closely.
Fashion exists in the domain of religion.
There have been young ladies who were virtuous, healthy and pious, who wished to enter a convent, but who were not rich enough to take in a wealthy abbey the vows of poverty.
How many men one sees who are strong and righteous, who would never listen to the entreaties of their friends, but who are easily influenced and corrupted by women.
I would like to hear a sober, moderate, chaste, righteous man declare that there is no God. At least he would be speaking in a disinterested manner. But there is no such man to be found.
The fact that I am unable to prove that God does not exist establishes for me the fact that God does exist.
Atheism does not exist. If there were real atheists, it would merely prove that there are monsters in this world.
Forty years ago I didn't exist, and it was not within my power to be born. It does not depend upon me who now exist to be no more. Consequently, I began being and am going on being, thanks to something which is beyond me, which will last after me, which is mightier than I am. If that something is not God, pray tell me what it is.
Everything is great and worthy of admiration in Nature.
O you vain and conceited man, make one of these worms which you despise! You loathe toads; make a toad if you can!
Kings, monarchs, potentates, sacred majesties, have I given you all your supreme names? We, mere men, require some rain for our crops or even some dew; make some dew, send to the earth a drop of water!
A certain inequality in the destinies of men, which maintains order and obedience, is the work of God. It suggests a divine law.
If the reader does not care for these "characters," it will surprise me; if he does care for them, it will also surprise me.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
Walter Savage Landor, writer, scholar, poet, and, it might almost be said, quarreller, said of his own fame, "I shall dine late, but the dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few and select." A powerful, turbulent spirit, he attracted great men. Emerson, Browning, Dickens, and Swinburne travelled to sit at his feet, and he knew Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Lamb, and Southey. Born at Warwick, on January 30, 1775, he was dismissed from Rugby School at the age of fifteen, and from Oxford at the age of nineteen; was estranged from his father; several times left the wife whom he had married for her golden hair, and spent the last years of his life, lonely but lionised, at Florence. To the last—which came on September 17, 1864—he wrote both prose and verse. Landor appears, to the average appreciator of English literature, an interesting personality rather than a great writer, though his epic, "Gebir" (1798), and his tragedy, "Count Julian" (1812), like some of his minor verse, contain passages of great beauty. But it was in the "Imaginary Conversations," written between 1821 and 1829, and first sampled by the public in review form in 1823, that he endowed the English language with his most permanent achievement. Nearly 150 of these "Conversations" were written in all, and we epitomise here five of the best-known.
I.—Peter the Great and Alexis
Peter: And so, after flying from thy father's house, thou hast returned again from Vienna. After this affront in the face of Europe, thou darest to appear before me?
Alexis: My emperor and father! I am brought before your majesty not at my own desire.
Peter: I believe it well. What hope hast thou, rebel, in thy flight to Vienna?
Alexis: The hope of peace and privacy; the hope of security, and, above all things, of never more offending you.
Peter: Didst thou take money?
Alexis: A few gold pieces. Hitherto your liberality, my father, hath supplied my wants of every kind.
Peter: Not of wisdom, not of duty, not of spirit, not of courage, not of ambition. I have educated thee among my guards and horses, among my drums and trumpets, among my flags and masts. I have rolled cannon balls before thee over iron plates; I have shown thee bright new arms, bayonets, and sabres. I have myself led thee forth to the window when fellows were hanged and shot; and I have made thee, in spite of thee, look steadfastly upon them, incorrigible coward! Thy intention, I know, is to subvert the institutions it has been the labour of my lifetime to establish. Thou hast never rejoiced at my victories.
Alexis: I have rejoiced at your happiness and your safety.
Peter: Liar! Coward! Traitor! When the Polanders and the Swedes fell before me, didst thou congratulate me? Didst thou praise the Lord of Hosts? Wert thou not silent and civil and low-spirited?
Alexis: I lamented the irretrievable loss of human life, I lamented that the bravest and noblest were swept away the first, that order was succeeded by confusion, and that your majesty was destroying the glorious plans you alone were capable of devising.
Peter: Of what plans art thou speaking?
Alexis: Of civilising the Muscovites. The Polanders in parts were civilised; the Swedes more than any other nation.
Peter: Civilised, forsooth? Why the robes of the metropolitan, him at Upsal, are not worth three ducats. But I am wasting my words. Thine are tenets that strike at the root of politeness and sound government.
Alexis: When I hear the God of Mercy invoked to massacres, and thanked for furthering what He reprobates and condemns—I look back in vain on any barbarous people for worse barbarism.
Peter: Malignant atheist! Am I Czar of Muscovy, and hear discourse on reason and religion—from my own son, too? No, by the Holy Trinity! thou art no son of mine. Unnatural brute, I have no more to do with thee. Ho there! Chancellor! What! Come at last! Wert napping, or counting thy ducats?
Chancellor: Your majesty's will, and pleasure!
Peter: Is the senate assembled?
Chancellor: Every member, sire.
Peter: Conduct this youth with thee, and let them judge him; thou understandest?
Chancellor: Your majesty's commands are the breath of our nostrils.
Peter: If these rascals are amiss, I will try my new cargo of Livonian hemp upon 'em.
Chancellor (returning): Sire! Sire!
Peter: Speak, fellow! Surely they have not condemned him to death without giving themselves time to read the accusation, that thou comest back so quickly.
Chancellor: No, sire! Nor has either been done.
Peter: Then thy head quits thy shoulders.
Chancellor: O sire! he fell.
Peter: Tie him up to thy chair, then. Cowardly beast! What made him fall?
Chancellor: The hand of death.
Peter: Prythee speak plainlier.
Chancellor: He said calmly, but not without sighing twice or thrice, "Lead me to the scaffold; I am weary of life. My father says, too truly, I am not courageous, but the death that leads me to my God shall never terrify me." When he heard your majesty's name accusing him of treason and attempts at parricide, he fell speechless. We raised him up: he was dead!
Peter: Inconsiderate and barbarous varlet as thou art, dost thou recite this ill accident to a father—and to one who has not dined? Bring me a glass of brandy. Away and bring it: scamper! Hark ye! bring the bottle with it: and—hark ye! a rasher of bacon on thy life! and some pickled sturgeon, and some krout and caviar.