The Greeks have given to the world the science of history; the Israelites gave to the world historical religion. In contrast to al...l their neighbors, both peoples knew what history is; this is no consequence of their mental giftedness, however, for there is another reason. Through mighty events both peoples experienced what history is, and by the investment of their lives they made history. The peculiar mental capacity of each of the two peoples comes to the fore in the way in which they experience history and express it. For both peoples history was a source of present and future knowledge. Thucydides wrote his history because what happened would, according to human ways, surely happen again in the future in the same or a similar way. This was conceived in a genuinely Greek way, for history is an eternal repetition; nothing new happens under the sun. Even in the stream of eternally changing events the Greeks sought the unalterable, the regular occurrence. Thus they employed the same method with regard to history as with regard to nature because history was a piece of nature. For this reason their mental life can justifiably be called non-historical. If God is to be found, he must be sought in the unalterable, in mental being, in the Ideas. God revealed himself to the Israelites in history and not in Ideas; he revealed himself when he acted and created. His being was not learned through propositions but known in actions.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
nat every wight he sholde go selle Al that he hadde and yive it to the poore,... And in swich wise folwe him and his fore: He spak to hem that wolde live parfitly-- And lordinges, by youre leve, that am nat I.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There are wrecks on the fore-beach, wind will beat your ship,... there is no shelter in that headland, it is useless waste, that edge.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The nineteenth-century novelist Thomas Love Peacock once remarked critically that "a poet in our times is a semi-barbarian in a ci...vilized community.... The march of his intellect is like that of a crab, backward." It is my suspicion that though many moderns would applaud what Peacock probably meant only ironically, there is a certain virtue in the sidelong retreat of the crab. He never runs, he never ceases to face what menaces him, and he always keeps his pincers well to the fore. He is a creature adapted by nature for rearguard action and withdrawal, but never rout. The true poet is just such a fortunate creation as the elusive crab. He is born wary and is frequently in retreat because he is a protector of the human spirit.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes... In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the fore-finger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep; Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs, The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, The traces of the smallest spider's web, The collars of the moonshine's watery beams, Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film, Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past,... I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste. Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow. For precious friends hid in death's dateless night And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight. Then can I grieve at grievances foregone. And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It was the most wild and desolate region we had camped in, where, if anywhere, one might expect to meet with befitting inhabitants..., but I heard only the squeak of a nighthawk flitting over. The moon in her first quarter, in the fore part of the night, setting over the bare rocky hills garnished with tall, charred, and hollow stumps or shells of trees, served to reveal the desolation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »