Coleridge observes that all men are born Aristotelians or Platonists. The latter feel that classes, orders, and genres are realiti...es; the former, that they are generalizations. For the latter, language is nothing but an approximative set of symbols; for the former, it is the map of the universe. The Platonist knows that the universe is somehow a cosmos, an order; that order, for the Aristotelian, can be an error or a fiction of our partial knowledge. Across the latitudes and the epochs, the two immortal antagonists change their name and language: one is Parmenides, Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Francis Bradley; the other, Heraclitus, Aristotle, Locke, Hume, William James.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
O Jesse had a wife, a mourner all her life And the children they were brave,... But the dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard He laid Jesse James in his grave.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Johnny Rocco: Yeah, yeah, that's me. Sure, I was all of those things. And more! When Rocco talked everybody shut up and listened! ...What Rocco said went! Nobody was as big as Rocco! It'll be like that again only more so. I'll be back up there one of these days, and then you're really gonna see something! James Temple (with contempt): If the time ever comes when your kind can walk a city street in daylight with nothing to fear from the people.... Frank McCloud: The time has come, Mr. Temple. It's here.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
...expatriated Americans, even Henry James himself, have always seemed to me somewhat anchorless, rudderless, drifting before the ...wind.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[James G. Blaine's] devotion to the public interests, his marked ability, and his exalted patriotism have won for him the gratitud...e and affection of his countrymen and the admiration of the world. In the varied pursuits of legislation, diplomacy, and literature his genius has added new luster to American citizenship.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I reside at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James; I am not up to small deceit, or any sinful games;... And I'll tell in simple language what I know about the row That broke up our society upon the Stanislow. But first I would remark, that it is not a proper plan For any scientific man to whale his fellow-man,LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I hate American simplicity. I glory in the piling up of complications of every sort. If I could pronounce the name James in any di...fferent or more elaborate way I should be in favour of doing it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Henry Adams and Henry James invite obvious comparisons. Exact contemporaries on the American literary scene, both were beguiled by... European culture, both were distressed by American ills. Philosophically and aesthetically they also had much in common. But these two writers arrived at logically opposite extremes in struggling with the historical, political, economic, and social problems of their age. Adams came to view the basic impulse toward unity as the force that could give coherence to the multiplicity of experience; he viewed philosophies of history as aesthetic systems that made it possible to organize the incoherence of historical and natural events. James, on the other hand, felt that art and history were inextricably related, and that history could be viewed in terms of the differing interpretations man designs to relate himself to the social or natural world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »