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James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley, Chapter 31: conclusions (search)
at. But for such, the race of men would long ago have extirpated itself in its mad, blind strife. But for such, it would never have been discovered that what is not good for the whole swarm is not good for a single bee, that no individual can be safe in welfare, while any other individual is not. Genius? No. That is not the word. Dr. Arnold was not a man of genius. Carlyle is not a man of genius. But Great Britain owes more to them than to all the men of genius that have lived since Cromwell's time. Such men differ from the poets and authors of their day, precisely in the same way, though not, perhaps, in the same degree, as the Apostles differed from Cicero, Seneca, and Virgil. Between the Clays and Websters of this country and Horace Greeley, the difference is similar in kind. Horace Greeley, Thomas Carlyle, and Dr. Arnold, have each uttered much which, perhaps, the world will not finally accept. Such men seem particularly liable to a certain class of mistakes. But, says
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Massachusetts in the Army and Navy during the war of 1861-1865, vol. 1: prelminary narrative, Preliminary narrative. (search)
, at the shortest possible notice, exhibit it in the highest grade of any other sphere. It was common, too, at the beginning of the war, to cite historical instances of civilians who had, by merely buckling on uniform, become great commanders. Cromwell, Hampden, Andrew Jackson were quoted as examples; but Cromwell began military service as captain of a troop of horse, and was not commissioned even as colonel until he had gone through the battle of Edgehill. Hampden began his career as captainCromwell began military service as captain of a troop of horse, and was not commissioned even as colonel until he had gone through the battle of Edgehill. Hampden began his career as captain of a local regiment, and rose no higher than colonel. Jackson had fought through six months of Indian warfare, with three thousand men under him, before he defended New Orleans with barely twice that number. These modest precedents certainly gave no ground for entrusting the command of great army corps to men who had never before heard a shot fired in anger. There were volunteer generals who did Massachusetts peculiar honor, and who had the inestimable advantage of beginning near the foot of
Laura E. Richards, Maud Howe, Florence Howe Hall, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, in two volumes, with portraits and other illustrations: volume 1, Chapter 1: Ancestral (search)
he virtues of mine! These words are so characteristic of her, that in beginning the story of her life it seems proper to dwell at some length on the ancestors whose memory she cherished with such reverence. The name of Ward occurs first on the roll of Battle Abbey: Seven hundred and ten distinguished persons accompanied William of Normandy to England, among them Ward, one of the noble captains. Her first known ancestor, John Ward, of Gloucester, England, sometime cavalry officer in Cromwell's army, came to this country after the Restoration and settled at Newport in Rhode Island. His son Thomas married Amy Smith, a granddaughter of Roger Williams. Thomas's son Richard became Governor of Rhode Island and had fourteen children, among them Samuel, who in turn became Governor of the Colony, and a member of the Continental Congress. He was the only Colonial governor who refused to take the oath to enforce the Stamp Act. In 1775, in the Continental Congress, he was made Chairman
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Irene E. Jerome., In a fair country, My out-door study (search)
ravellers turn to the man who enters the railroad-station with a fowling-piece in hand, or the boy with water-lilies! There is a momentary sensation of the freedom of the woods, a whiff of oxygen for the anxious money-changers. How agreeably sounds the news—to all but his creditors—that the lawyer or the merchant has locked his office-door and gone fishing! The American temperament needs at this moment nothing so much as that wholesome training of semi-rural life which reared Hampden and Cromwell to assume at one grasp the sovereignty of England, and which has ever since served as the foundation of England's greatest ability. The best thoughts and purposes seem ordained to come to human beings beneath the open sky, as the ancients fabled that Pan found when he was engaged in the chase, the goddess Ceres whom no other of the gods could find when seeking seriously. The little I have gained from colleges and libraries has certainly not worn so well as the little I learned in childhoo
George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor (ed. George Hillard), Chapter 3: (search)
e in Europe, from which we shall often draw. Journal. May 20, 1815.—A few miles after we left the valley [Llangollen], to which we cast back many a longing, lingering look, we came to Chirk Castle, the seat of the Middletons; which seems, in all its more ancient division, one extensive monument of fidelity to the Stuarts. Even the old housekeeper, who showed us the apartments, was a thorough Jacobite. The banqueting-room was, filled with pictures which proved their sufferings from Cromwell, and their loyalty to their sovereign; and the chamber of state was preserved with a sort of reverence in the same condition, with the same tapestry, furniture, and bedclothes that it had when Charles I. slept there, on his way to his ruin at Chester. Among the fine pictures in the collection, I was struck with that of a beautiful lady, with an uncommonly meek and subdued expression of countenance, and dressed in the humble weeds of a nun. I inquired of the old housekeeper, who claimed to
George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor (ed. George Hillard), Chapter 8: (search)
ever seen . . . . There was one thing, however, that Professor Smyth was anxious to show us, and we went, of course, to see it. It is an original portrait of Cromwell, kept in the apartments of the Master of Sydney College. It is in colored chalks, beyond all doubt done from the life, and done, too, after anxiety had made deebridge, and now read the passage to us with great spirit and feeling, to justify his opinion. No doubt the picture is very striking, and so is Hume's account of Cromwell, and both belong to anything but a man of an easy or tranquil mind. But I doubt whether Cromwell ever suffered so much from remorse, as Hume, in this particularCromwell ever suffered so much from remorse, as Hume, in this particular passage, supposes. Indeed, a few pages later he seems to admit it. . . . . When we had rested, we went to dinner at Professor Smyth's. He has a very comfortable bachelor establishment in Peter House, the same, I think, that was occupied by Gray the poet, whose successor he is in the chair of History, a place given to him by L
George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor (ed. George Hillard), Chapter 9: (search)
ngowan Castle, of Scott's Guy Mannering. We gladly consented, and, driving through Dumfries, went down through a fine country, to the point where the Nith joins the Solway. There we found these grand ruins, standing in the solitude of their neglected old age. The first castle, which was destroyed by fire in the year 1300, has left few or no proper remains; the present widespread ruins belong to the castle that was built immediately afterwards, and which was maintained till it was taken by Cromwell, who could not prevail on the Earl of Nithsdale to surrender, though reduced to great extremity, until he had the written orders of the King to that effect. . . . . The ruins are finely situated, extensive, and picturesque, and were shown to us by an old warder,—maintained there by the Maxwells,—now eighty-three years old, who kept a school in the village fifty-three years, and who, in showing them, repeated long passages from Grose, . . . . besides fragments from Burns, and snatches of old
James Russell Lowell, Among my books, Wordsworth. (search)
on, he said. There was a general combination to put him down, but on the other hand there was a powerful party in his favor, consisting of William Wordsworth. He not only continued in good heart himself, but, reversing the order usual on such occasions, kept up the spirits of his friends. The Rev. Dr. Wordsworth has encumbered the memory of his uncle with two volumes of Memoirs, which for confused dreariness are only matched by the Rev. Mark Noble's History of the Protectorate House of Cromwell. It is a misfortune that his materials were not put into the hands of Professor Reed, whose notes to the American edition are among the most valuable parts of it, as they certainly are the clearest. The book contains, however, some valuable letters of Wordsworth; and those relating to this part of his life should be read by every student of his works, for the light they throw upon the principles which governed him in the composition of his poems. In a letter to Lady Beaumont (May 21, 180
James Russell Lowell, Among my books, Milton. (search)
shall be given in justification of what has been alleged against him in that particular. He says of Loudon that he was committed to the Tower, where for more than two months he lay, with as near a prospect as ever prisoner had of a chop with the executioner's axe on a scaffold on Tower Hill. I may be overfastidious, but the word chop offends my ears with its coarseness, or if that be too strong, has certainly the unpleasant effect of an emphasis unduly placed. Old Auchinleck's saying of Cromwell, that he gart kings ken they had a lith in their necks, is a good example of really vivid phrase, suggesting the axe and the block, and giving one of those dreadful hints to the imagination which are more powerful than any amount of detail, and whose skilful use is the only magic employed by the masters of truly picturesque writing. The sentence just quoted will serve also as an example of that tendency to surplusage which adds to the bulk of Mr. Masson's sentences at the cost of their ef
Margaret Fuller, Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (ed. W. H. Channing), chapter 3 (search)
who seek Him seems to me the nobler way to conceive of his influence. And if there were not some error in my way of seeking, I do not believe I should suffer from languor or deadness on spiritual subjects, at the time when I have most need to feel myself at home there. To find this error is my earnest wish; and perhaps I am now travelling to that end, though by a thorny road. It is a mortification to find so much yet to do; for at one time the scheme of things seemed so clear, that, with Cromwell, I might say, I was once in grace. With my mind I prize high objects as much as then: it is my heart which is cold. And sometimes I fear that the necessity of urging them on those under my care dulls my sense of their beauty. It is so hard to prevent one's feelings from evaporating in words. The faint sickness of a wounded heart. How frequently do these words of Beckford recur to my mind! His prayer, imperfect as it is, says more to me than many a purer aspiration. It breathes suc
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