Some years ago I met my old master, Sir Frank Benson-he was Mr. F. R. Benson then-and he asked me in his friendly way what I had been doing lately. "I am just finishing a book," I replied, "a book that everybody will hate."
There is not a fragment of Sappho that is not surrounded in the mind of the reader by the rainbow of suggestion.
Of that golden chain of philosophers, who, having themselves happily penetrated, luminously unfolded to others the profundities of the philosophy of Plato, Proclus is indisputably the largest and most refulgent link.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
Illustrated by TGS Publishing with 30 period illustrations from or about ancient Rome, Pompeii
The Priapeia, now for the first time literally and completely translated into English verse and prose, is a collection of short Latin poems in the shape of jocose epigrams affixed to the statues of the god Priapus. These were often rude carvings from a tree-trunk, human-shaped, with a huge phallus which could at need be used as a cudgel against robbers, and they were placed in the gardens of wealthy Romans, for the twofold purpose of promoting fertility and of preventing depredations on the produce.
The founders of Texas, the founders of America, knew their world history and the ancient legends. The capitol buildings are blessed with the ancient gods and legends. Perhaps we too should understand what they really stood for.
"Marriage is not an institution of nature. The family in the east is entirely different from the family in the west. Man is the servant of nature, and the institutions of society are grafts, not spontaneous growths of nature. Laws are made to suit manners, and manners vary. Marriage must therefore undergo the gradual development towards perfection to which all human affairs submit."
The study of words, languages, etymologies reveal more about our past, our history, our origins than most people know. Each word is a mystery in itself. According to Jewish traditions the world was spoken into existence by a word. Words can make or break even famous people.
The autobiography of Frank Harris. Follow the loves and travels, friends and colleagues of this famous author and journalist.
"I believe those who examine their own minds, will readily agree with me, that reason, with difficulty, conquers settled habits, even when it is arrived at some degree of maturity: why then do we suffer children to be bound with fetters, which their half-formed faculties cannot break."
The modes of ancient Greek music are of interest to us, not only as the forms under which the Fine Art of Music was developed by a people of extraordinary artistic capability, but also on account of the peculiar ethical influence ascribed to them by the greatest ancient philosophers. It appears from a well-known passage in the Republic of Plato, as well as from many other references, that in ancient Greece there were certain kinds or forms of music, which were known by national or tribal names-Dorian, Ionian, Phrygian, Lydian and the like...
It is not long since the Middle Ages, of the literature of which this book gives us such curious examples, were supposed to be an unaccountable phenomenon accidentally thrust in betwixt the two periods of civilisation, the classical and the modern, and forming a period without growth or meaning-a period which began about the time of the decay of the Roman Empire, and ended suddenly, and more or less unaccountably, at the time of the Reformation.
The impossibilities of yesterday become the accepted facts of to-day. Here is a fairy tale founded upon the wonders of electricity and written for children of this generation. Yet when my readers shall have become men and women my story may not seem to their children like a fairy tale at all.
Originally published in two small volumes, now both volumes reprinted in one book. Historic look at erotic writings of the ancient world. Added by TGS: 16 illustrations representing the period and subject.
I somehow have always disliked the terminology literary criticism, though most of what is contained in these essays would be classified as such. For most people the word criticism carries negative connotations, as in "The judges were very critical of the performance," or "Why should he be the subject of so much criticism?"