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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
Christendom watched the struggle with coldness and apathy. Four ships, which successfully forced an entrance into the harbour, were the limit of their assistance. None the less, Mahomet meditated a retreat. Unless the city could be attacked from the harbour, its reduction appeared to be hopeless. In this perplexity the genius of Mahomet executed a plan of a bold and marvellous cast. He transported his fleet over land for ten miles. In the course of one night four-score light galleys and brigantines painfully climbed the hill, steered over the plain, and were launched from the declivity into the shallow waters of the harbour, far above the molestation of the deeper vessels of the Greeks. A bridge, or mole, hastily built, formed a base for one of his largest cannon. The galleys, with troops and scaling ladders, approached the most accessible side of the walls, and, after a siege of forty days, the diminutive garrison, exhausted by a double attack, could hope no longer to avert the fate of the capital.
On Monday, May 28, preparations were made for the final assault. Mahomet had inspired his soldiers with the hope of rewards in this world and the next. His camp re-echoed with the shouts of "God is God; there is but one God, and Mahomet is the apostle of God"; and the sea and land, from Galata to the Seven Towers, were illuminated with the blaze of the Moslem fires.
Far different was the state of the Christians. On that last night of the Roman Empire, Constantine Palæologus, in his palace, addressed the noblest of the Greeks and the bravest of the allies on the duties and dangers that lay before them. It was the funeral oration of the Roman Empire. That same night the emperor and some faithful companions entered the Dome of St. Sofia, which, within a few hours, was to be converted into a mosque, and devoutly received, with tears and prayers, the sacrament of the Holy Communion. He reposed some moments in the palace, which resounded with cries and lamentations, solicited the pardon of all whom he might have injured, and mounted on horseback to visit the guards and explore the motions of the enemy. The distress and fall of the last Constantine are more glorious than the long prosperity of the Byzantine Cæsars.
At daybreak on May 29 the Turks assaulted the city by sea and land. For two hours the Greeks maintained the defence with advantage, and the voice of the emperor was heard encouraging the soldiers to achieve by a last effort the deliverance of their country. The new and fresh forces of the Turks supplied the places of their wearied associates. From all sides the attack was pressed.
The number of the Ottomans was fifty, perhaps one hundred, times superior to that of the Christians, the double walls were reduced by the cannons to a heap of ruins, and at last one point was found which the besiegers could penetrate. Hasan, the Janizary, of gigantic stature and strength, ascended the outward fortification. The walls and towers were instantly covered with a swarm of Turks, and the Greeks, now driven from the vantage ground, were overwhelmed by increasing multitudes.
Amidst these multitudes, the emperor, who accomplished all the duties of a general and a soldier, was long seen and finally lost. His mournful exclamation was heard, "Cannot there be found a Christian to cut off my head?" and his last fear was that of falling alive into the hands of the infidels. The prudent despair of Constantine cast away the purple. Amidst the tumult he fell by an unknown hand, and his body was buried under a mountain of the slain.
After his death, resistance and order were no more. Two thousand Greeks were put to the sword, and more would have perished had not avarice soon prevailed over cruelty.
It was thus, after a siege of fifty-three days, that Constantinople, which had defied the power of Chosroes and the caliphs, was irretrievably subdued by the arms of Mahomet II. Sixty thousand Greeks were driven through the streets like cattle and sold as slaves. The nuns were torn from the monasteries and compelled to enter the harems of their conquerors. The churches were plundered, and the gold and silver, the pearls and jewels, the vases and sacerdotal ornaments of St. Sofia were most wickedly converted to the service of mankind.
The cathedral itself, despoiled of its images and ornaments, was converted into a mosque, and Mahomet II. performed the namaz of prayer and thanksgiving at the great altar, where the Christian mysteries had so lately been celebrated before the last of the Cæsars. The body of Constantine was discovered under a heap of slain, by the golden eagles embroidered on his shoes, and after exposing the bloody trophy, Mahomet bestowed on his rival the honours of a decent funeral. Constantinople, desolated by bloodshed, was re-peopled and re-adorned by Mahomet. Its churches were shared between the two religions, and the Greeks were attracted back to their ancient capital by the assurance of their lives and the free exercise of their religion.
The grief and terror of Europe when the fall of Constantinople became known revived, or seemed to revive, the old enthusiasm of the crusades. Pius II. attempted to lead Christendom against the Turks, but on the very day on which he embarked his forces drew back, and he was compelled to abandon the attempt. The siege and sack of Otranto by the Turks put an end to all thoughts of a crusade, and the general consternation was only allayed by the death of Mahomet II. in the fifty-first year of his age.
His lofty genius aspired to the conquest of Italy; he was possessed of a strong city and a capacious harbour, and the same reign might have been decorated with the trophies of the New and the Ancient Rome.
FRANÇOIS GUIZOT
History of Civilisation in Europe
François Pierre Guillaume Guizot, French historian and statesman, was born of Huguenot parents at Nimes on October 4, 1787. The liberal opinions of his family did not save his father from the guillotine in 1794, and the mother fled to Geneva, where Guizot was educated. He went to Paris in the later days of the Empire, and engaged himself at once in literature and politics. His lectures on the History of Civilisation delivered in 1828, 1829, and 1830, during his professorship at the University of Paris, revealed him as a historian with a rare capacity for mastering the broad essential truths of history, co-ordinating them, and expounding them with vigour and impressiveness. His first series of lectures was on "The History of Civilisation in Europe," a masterly abstract of a colossal subject; the second on "The History of Civilisation in France." From 1830 to 1848 Guizot occupied high offices of State, ultimately becoming prime minister; in 1848, like his master Louis Philippe, he had to fly the country. He died on September 12, 1874.
I.--The Nature of Civilisation
The subject I propose to consider is the civilisation of Europe--its origins, its progress, its aims, its character. The fact of civilisation belongs to what is called the philosophic portion of history; it is a vague, obscure, complex fact, very difficult, I admit, to explain and describe, but none the less requiring explanation and description. It is, indeed, the greatest historical fact, to which all others contribute; it is a kind of ocean which makes the wealth of a people, and in the bosom of which all the elements of the people's life, all the forces of its existence, are joined in unity.
What, then, is civilisation--this grave, far-reaching precious reality that seems the expression of the entire life of a people? It seems to me that the first and fundamental fact conveyed by the word civilisation is the fact of progress, of development. But what is this progress? What is this development? Here is the greatest difficulty of all.
The etymology of the word civilisation seems to provide an easy answer. It tells us that civilisation is the perfecting of civil life, the development of society properly so called, of the relations of men to men. But is this all? Have we exhausted the natural and usual sense of the word? France, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was acknowledged to be the most civilised country in Europe; yet in respect of purely civil progress France was then greatly inferior to some other European countries, Holland and England, for example. Another development, then, reveals itself--the development of individual life, of the man himself, of his faculties, sentiments, and ideas.