How might one describe Max Beerbohm to someone who knows nothing about him? Well, for a start, one might imagine D.H. Lawrence. Pi...cture the shagginess of Lawrence, his thick beard, his rough-cut clothes, his disdain for all the social and physical niceties. Recall his passionateness--his passion, so to say, for passion itself--his darkness, his gloom. Think back to his appeal to the primary instincts, his personal messianism, his refusal to deal with anything smaller than capital "D" Destiny. Do not neglect his humorlessness, his distaste for all that otherwise passed for being civilized, his blood theories and manifold roiling hatreds. Have you, then, D.H. Lawrence firmly in mind? Splendid. Now reverse all of Lawrence's qualities and you will have a fair beginning notion of Max Beerbohm, who, after allowing that Lawrence was a man of "unquestionable genius," felt it necessary to add, "he never realized, don't you know--he never suspected that to be stark, staring mad is somewhat of a handicap to a writer."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nichols [the money lender]: "In this sharing and living as one family that you talk so much about, [who] has conferred the most ob...ligations?" David: "In all our transactions with each other, I believe the word obligations was never once thought of by either of us." Nichols: "But many a man has come to me to mortgage his last foot of land, and all his complaint has been of ingratitude from those he had obliged." David: "You don't speak our language, sir." Here Nichols sneers.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The structure was designed by an old sea captain who believed that the world would end in a flood. He built a home in the traditio...nal shape of the Ark, inverted, with the roof forming the hull of the proposed vessel. The builder expected that the deluge would cause the house to topple and then reverse itself, floating away on its roof until it should land on some new Ararat.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Another serious reverse. [Gen. Ambrose] Burnside's repulse at Fredericksburg.... Now remains our last card, the emancipation of th...e slaves. That may do it.... Our partisanship about generals is now rebuked. General [George B.] McClellan has serious faults or defects, but his friends can truly claim that if he had retained command, this disaster would not have occurred. The people and press would perhaps do well to cultivate patience. It is a virtue so needed in a struggle so equal as this. If the people can hold out, we shall find the right man after [a] while.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What a noble privilege is it of human reason to attain the knowledge of the supreme Being; and, from the visible works of nature, ...be enabled to infer so sublime a principle as its supreme Creator? But turn the reverse of the medal. Survey most nations and most ages. Examine the religious principles, which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded, that they are any thing but sick men's dreams: Or perhaps will regard them more as the playsome whimsies of monkies in human shape, than the serious, positive, dogmatical asseverations of a being, who dignifies himself with the name of rational.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We are playing with fire when we skip the years of three, four, and five to hurry children into being age six.... Every child has ...a right to his fifth year of life, his fourth year, his third year. He has a right to live each year with joy and self-fulfillment. No one should ever claim the power to make a child mortgage his today for the sake of tomorrow.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I wouldn't wish the eighties on anyone, it was the time when all that was rotten bubbled to the surface. If you were not at the re...ceiving end of this mayhem you could be unaware of it. It was possible to live through the decade preoccupied by the mortgage and the pence you saved on your income tax. It was also possible for those of us who saw what was happening to turn our eyes in a different direction; but what, in another decade, had been a trip to the clap clinic was now a trip to the mortuary.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
During the late war [the American Revolution] I had an infallible rule for deciding what [Great Britain] would do on every occasio...n. It was, to consider what they ought to do, and to take the reverse of that as what they would assuredly do, and I can say with truth that I was never deceived.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »