Quotes4study

Chaque age a ses plaisirs, son esprit, et ses m?urs=--Every age has its pleasures, its style of wit, and its peculiar manners.

_Boileau._

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

Vladimir Nabokov

Every age has its pleasures, its style of wit, and its own ways.

NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPREAUX. 1636-1711.     _The Art of Poetry. Canto iii. Line 374._

In the special sense now most common, the word "cloister" denotes the quadrilateral area in a monastery or college of canons, round which the principal buildings are ranged, and which is usually provided with a covered way or ambulatory running all round, and affording a means of communication between the various centres of the ecclesiastical life, without exposure to the weather. According to the Benedictine arrangement, which from its suitability to the requirements of monastic life was generally adopted in the West, one side of the cloister was formed by the church, the refectory occupying the side opposite to it, that the worshippers might have the least annoyance from the noise or smell of the repasts. On the eastern side the chapter-house was placed, with other apartments belonging to the common life of the brethren adjacent to it, and, as a common rule, the dormitory occupied the whole of the upper story. On the opposite or western side were generally the cellarer's lodgings, with the cellars and store-houses, in which the provisions necessary for the sustenance of the confraternity were housed. In Cistercian monasteries the western side was usually occupied by the "domus conversorum," or lodgings of the lay-brethren, with their day-rooms and workshops below, and dormitory above. The cloister, with its surrounding buildings, generally stood on the south side of the church, to secure as much sunshine as possible. A very early example of this disposition is seen in the plan of the monastery of St Gall (see ABBEY, fig. 3). Local requirements, in some instances, caused the cloister to be placed to the north of the church. This is the case in the English cathedrals, formerly Benedictine abbeys, of Canterbury, Gloucester and Chester, as well as in that of Lincoln. Other examples of the northward situation are at Tintern, Buildwas and Sherborne. Although the covered ambulatories are absolutely essential to the completeness of a monastic cloister, a chief object of which was to enable the inmates to pass from one part of the monastery to another without inconvenience from rain, wind, or sun, it appears that they were sometimes wanting. The cloister at St Albans seems to have been deficient in ambulatories till the abbacy of Robert of Gorham, 1151-1166, when the eastern walk was erected. This, as was often the case with the earliest ambulatories, was of wood covered with a sloping roof or "penthouse." We learn from Osbern's account of the conflagration of the monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury, 1067, that a cloister with covered ways existed at that time, affording communication between the church, the dormitory and the refectory. We learn from an early drawing of the monastery of Canterbury that this cloister was formed by an arcade of Norman arches supported on shafts, and covered by a shed roof. A fragment of an arcaded cloister of this pattern is still found on the eastern side of the infirmary-cloister of the same foundation. This earlier form of cloister has been generally superseded in England by a range of windows, usually unglazed, but sometimes, as at Gloucester, provided with glass, lighting a vaulted ambulatory, of which the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, Salisbury and Norwich are typical examples. The older design was preserved in the South, where "the cloister is never a window, or anything in the least approaching to it in design, but a range of small elegant pillars, sometimes single, sometimes coupled, and supporting arches of a light and elegant design, all the features being of a character suited to the place where they are used, and to that only" (Fergusson, _Hist. of Arch._ i. p. 610). As examples of this description of cloister, we may refer to the exquisite cloisters of St John Lateran, and St Paul's without the walls, at Rome, where the coupled shafts and arches are richly ornamented with ribbons of mosaic, and those of the convent of St Scholastica at Subiaco, all of the 13th century, and to the beautiful cloisters at Arles, in southern France; those of Aix, Fontfroide, Elne, &c., are of the same type; as also the Romanesque cloisters at Zürich, where the design suffers from the deep abacus having only a single slender shaft to support it, and at Laach, where the quadrangle occupies the place of the "atrium" of the early basilicas at the west end, as at St Clement's at Rome, and St Ambrose at Milan. Spain also presents some magnificent cloisters of both types, of which that of the royal convent of Huelgas, near Burgos, of the arcaded form, is, according to Fergusson, "unrivalled for beauty both of detail and design, and is perhaps unsurpassed by anything in its age and style in any part of Europe." Few cloisters are more beautiful than those of Monreale and Cefalu in Sicily, where the arrangement is the same, of slender columns in pairs with capitals of elaborate foliage supporting pointed arches of great elegance of form. Entry: CLOISTER

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 5 "Clervaux" to "Cockade"     1910-1911

"Pray take notice," said the countess, "that my present residence is 22 Rue de Rivoli, and that I am at home to my friends every Saturday evening. So now, you are both forewarned." The young men bowed, and quitted the box. Upon reaching their stalls, they found the whole of the audience in the parterre standing up and directing their gaze towards the box formerly possessed by the Russian ambassador. A man of from thirty-five to forty years of age, dressed in deep black, had just entered, accompanied by a young woman dressed after the Eastern style. The lady was surpassingly beautiful, while the rich magnificence of her attire drew all eyes upon her. "Hullo," said Albert; "it is Monte Cristo and his Greek!"

Alexandre Dumas, Pere     The Count of Monte Cristo

"Some years ago--to be definite, in May, 1884--there came to Lee a gentleman, Neville St. Clair by name, who appeared to have plenty of money. He took a large villa, laid out the grounds very nicely, and lived generally in good style. By degrees he made friends in the neighbourhood, and in 1887 he married the daughter of a local brewer, by whom he now has two children. He had no occupation, but was interested in several companies and went into town as a rule in the morning, returning by the 5:14 from Cannon Street every night. Mr. St. Clair is now thirty-seven years of age, is a man of temperate habits, a good husband, a very affectionate father, and a man who is popular with all who know him. I may add that his whole debts at the present moment, as far as we have been able to ascertain, amount to 88 pounds 10s., while he has 220 pounds standing to his credit in the Capital and Counties Bank. There is no reason, therefore, to think that money troubles have been weighing upon his mind.

Arthur Conan Doyle     The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

HUMMEL, JOHANN NEPOMUK (1778-1837), German composer and pianist, was born on the 14th of November 1778, at Pressburg, in Hungary, and received his first artistic training from his father, himself a musician. In 1785 the latter received an appointment as conductor of the orchestra at the theatre of Schikaneder, the friend of Mozart and the librettist of the _Magic Flute_. It was in this way that Hummel became acquainted with the composer, who took a great fancy to him, and even invited him to his house for a considerable period. During two years, from the age of seven to nine, Hummel received the invaluable instruction of Mozart, after which he set out with his father on an artistic tour through Germany, England and other countries, his clever playing winning the admiration of amateurs. He began to compose in his eleventh year. After his return to Vienna he completed his studies under Albrechtsberger and Haydn, and for a number of years devoted himself exclusively to composition. At a later period he learned song-writing from Salieri. For some years he held the appointment of orchestral conductor to Prince Eszterhazy, probably entering upon this office in 1807. From 1811 to 1815 he lived in Vienna. On the 18th of May 1813 he married Elisabeth Röckl, a singer, and the sister of one of Beethoven's friends. It was not till 1816 that he again appeared in public as a pianist, his success being quite extraordinary. His gift of improvisation at the piano was especially admired, but his larger compositions also were highly appreciated, and for a time Hummel was considered one of the leading musicians of an age in which Beethoven was in the zenith of his power. In Prussia, which he visited in 1822, the ovations offered to him were unprecedented, and other countries--France in 1825 and 1829, Belgium in 1826 and England in 1830 and 1833--added further laurels to his crown. He died in 1837 at Weimar, where for a long time he had been the musical conductor of the court theatre. His compositions are very numerous, and comprise almost every branch of music. He wrote, amongst other things, several operas, both tragic and comic, and two grand masses (Op. 80 and 111). Infinitely more important are his compositions for the pianoforte (his two concerti in A minor and B minor, and the sonata in F sharp minor), and his chamber music (the celebrated septet, and several trios, &c.). His experience as a player and teacher of the pianoforte was embodied in his _Great Pianoforte School_ (Vienna), and the excellence of his method is further proved by such pupils as Henselt and Ferdinand Hiller. Both as a composer and as a pianist Hummel continued the traditions of the earlier Viennese school of Mozart and Haydn; his style in both capacities was marked by purity and correctness rather than by passion and imagination. Entry: HUMMEL

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 8 "Hudson River" to "Hurstmonceaux"     1910-1911

_18th-Century Savants._--In science and general erudition the 18th century in France was at first much occupied with the mathematical studies for which the French genius is so peculiarly adapted, which the great discoveries of Descartes had made possible and popular, and which those of his supplanter Newton only made more popular still. Voltaire took to himself the credit, which he fairly deserves, of first introducing the Newtonian system into France, and it was soon widely popular--even ladies devoting themselves to the exposition of mathematical subjects, as in the case of Gabrielle de Breteuil, marquise du Châtelet (1706-1749) Voltaire's "divine Émilie." Indeed ladies played a great part in the literary and scientific activity of the century, by actual contribution sometimes, but still more by continuing and extending the tradition of "salons." The duchesse du Maine, Mesdames de Lambert, de Tencin, Geoffrin, du Deffand, Necker, and above all, the baronne d'Holbach (whose husband, however, was here the principal personage) presided over coteries which became more and more "philosophical." Many of the greatest mathematicians of the age, such as de Moivre and Laplace, were French by birth, while others like Euler belonged to French-speaking races, and wrote in French. The physical sciences were also ardently cultivated, the impulse to them being given partly by the generally materialistic tendency of the age, partly by the Newtonian system, and partly also by the extended knowledge of the world provided by the circumnavigatory voyage of Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729-1811), and other travels. P. L. de Moreau Maupertuis (1698-1759) and C. M. de la Condamine (1701-1774) made long journeys for scientific purposes and duly recorded their experiences. The former, a mathematician and physicist of some ability but more oddity, is chiefly known to literature by the ridicule of Voltaire in the _Diatribe du Docteur Akakia_. Jean le Rond, called d'Alembert (1717-1783), a great mathematician and a writer of considerable though rather academic excellence, is principally known from his connexion with and introduction to the _Encyclopédie_, of which more presently. Chemistry was also assiduously cultivated, the baron d'Holbach, among others, being a devotee thereof, and helping to advance the science to the point where, at the conclusion of the century, it was illustrated by Berthollet and Lavoisier. During all this devotion to science in its modern acceptation, the older and more literary forms of erudition were not neglected, especially by the illustrious Benedictines of the abbey of St Maur. Dom Augustin Calmet (1672-1757) the author of the well-known _Dictionary of the Bible_, belonged to this order, and to them also (in particular to Dom Rivet) was due the beginning of the immense _Histoire littéraire de la France_, a work interrupted by the Revolution and long suspended, but diligently continued since the middle of the 19th century. Of less orthodox names distinguished for erudition, Nicolas Fréret (1688-1749), secretary of the Academy, is perhaps the most remarkable. But in the consideration of the science and learning in the 18th century from a literary point of view, there is one name and one book which require particular and, in the case of the book, somewhat extended mention. The man is Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon (1717-1788), the book the _Encyclopédie_. The immense _Natural History_ of Buffon, though not entirely his own, is a remarkable monument of the union of scientific tastes with literary ability. As has happened in many similar instances, there is in parts more literature than science to be found in it; and from the point of view of the latter, Buffon was far too careless in observation and far too solicitous of perfection of style and grandiosity of view. The style of Buffon has sometimes been made the subject of the highest eulogy, and it is at its best admirable; but one still feels in it the fault of all serious French prose in this century before Rousseau--the presence, that is to say, of an artificial spirit rather than of natural variety and power. The _Encyclopédie_, unquestionably on the whole the most important French literary production of the century, if we except the works of Rousseau and Voltaire, was conducted for a time by Diderot and d'Alembert, afterwards by Diderot alone. It numbered among its contributors almost every Frenchman of eminence in letters. It is often spoken of as if, under the guise of an encyclopaedia, it had been merely a _plaidoyer_ against religion, but this is entirely erroneous. Whatever anti-ecclesiastical bent some of the articles may have, the book as a whole is simply what it professes to be, a dictionary--that is to say, not merely an historical and critical lexicon, like those of Bayle and Moreri (indeed history and biography were nominally excluded), but a dictionary of arts, sciences, trades and technical terms. Diderot himself had perhaps the greatest faculty of any man that ever lived for the literary treatment in a workman-like manner of the most heterogeneous and in some cases rebellious subjects; and his untiring labour, not merely in writing original articles, but in editing the contributions of others, determined the character of the whole work. There is no doubt that it had, quite independently of any theological or political influence, an immense share in diffusing and gratifying the taste for general information. Entry: J

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 2 "French Literature" to "Frost, William"     1910-1911

Our knowledge of the art of the later Hellenistic age has received a great accession since 1875 through the systematic labours directed by the German Archaeological Institute, which have resulted in recovering the remains of Pergamum, the fortress-city which was the capital of the dynasty of the Philetaeri. Among the ancient buildings of Pergamum none was more ambitious in scale and striking in execution than the great altar used for sacrifices to Zeus, a monument supposed to be referred to in the phrase of the Apocalypse "where Satan's throne is." This altar, like many great sacrificial altars of later Greece, was a vast erection to which one mounted by many steps, and its outside was adorned with a frieze which represented on a gigantic scale, in the style of the 2nd century B.C., the battle between the gods and the giants. This enormous frieze (see PERGAMUM) is now one of the treasures of the Royal Museums of Berlin, and it cannot fail to impress visitors by the size of the figures, the energy of the action, and the strong vein of sentiment which pervades the whole, giving it a certain air of modernity, though the subject is strange to the Christian world. In early Greek art the giants where they oppose the gods are represented as men armed in full panoply, "in shining armour, holding long spears in their hands," to use the phrase in which Hesiod describes them. But in the Pergamene frieze the giants are strange compounds, having the heads and bodies of wild and fierce barbarians, sometimes also human legs, but sometimes in the place of legs two long serpents, the heads of which take with the giants themselves a share in the battle. Sometimes also they are winged. The gods appear in the forms which had been gradually made for them in the course of Greek history, but they are usually accompanied by the animals sacred to them in cultus, between which and the serpent-feet of the giants a weird combat goes on. We can conjecture the source whence the Pergamene artist derived the shaggy hair, the fierce expression, the huge muscles of his giants (fig. 49); probably these features came originally from the Galatians, who at the time had settled in Asia Minor, and were spreading the terror of their name and the report of their savage devastations through all Asia Minor. The victory over the giants clearly stands for the victory of Greek civilization over Gallic barbarism; and this meaning is made more emphatic because the gods are obviously inferior in physical force to their opponents, indeed, a large proportion of the divine combatants are goddesses. Yet everywhere the giants are overthrown, writhing in pain on the ground, or transfixed by the weapons of their opponents; everywhere the gods are victorious, yet in the victory retain much of their divine calm. The piecing together of the frieze at Berlin has been a labour of many years; it is now complete, and there is a special museum devoted to it. Some of the groups have become familiar to students from photographs, especially the group which represents Zeus slaying his enemies with thunderbolts, and the group wherein Athena seizes by the hair an overthrown opponent, who is winged, while Victory runs to crown her, and beneath is seen Gaia, the earth-goddess who is the mother of the giants, rising out of the ground, and mourning over her vanquished and tortured children. Another and smaller frieze which also decorated the altar-place gives us scenes from the history of Telephus, who opposed the landing of the army of Agamemnon in Asia Minor and was overthrown by Achilles. This frieze, which is quite fragmentary, is put together by Dr Schneider in the _Jahrbuch_ of the German Archaeological Institute for 1900. Entry: A

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 4 "Grasshopper" to "Greek Language"     1910-1911

The cittern has retained the following characteristics of the archetype. (1) The derivation of the name, which after the introduction of the bow was used to characterize various instruments whose strings were twanged by fingers or plectrum, such as the harp and the rotta (both known as _cithara_), the citola and the zither. In an interlinear Latin and Anglo-Saxon version of the Psalms, dated A.D. 700 (Brit. Mus., Vesp. A. 1), _cithara_ is translated _citran_, from which it is not difficult to trace the English _cithron, citteran, cittarn_, of the 16th century. (2) The construction of the sound-chest with flat back and sound-board connected by ribs. The pear-shaped outline was possibly borrowed from the Eastern instruments, both bowed as the rebab and twanged as the lute, so common all over Europe during the middle ages, or more probably derived from the _kithara_ of the Greeks of Asia Minor, which had the corners rounded. These early steps in the transition from the _cithara_ may be seen in the miniatures of the Utrecht Psalter,[9] a unique and much-copied Carolingian MS. executed at Reims (9th century), the illustrations of which were undoubtedly adapted from an earlier psalter from the Christian East. The instruments which remained true to the prototype in outline as well as in construction and in the derivation of the name were the ghittern and the guitar, so often confused with the cittern. It is evident that the kinship of cittern and guitar was formerly recognized, for during the 18th century, as stated above, the cittern was known as the English guitar to distinguish it from the Spanish guitar. The grotesque head, popularly considered the characteristic feature of the cittern, was probably added in the 12th century at a time when this style of decoration was very noticeable in other musical instruments, such as the cornet or _Zinck_, the _Platerspiel_, the chaunter of the bagpipe, &c. The cittern of the middle ages was also to be found in oval shape. From the 13th century representations of the pear-shaped instrument abound in miniatures and carvings.[10] Entry: CITTERN

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 4 "Cincinnatus" to "Cleruchy"     1910-1911

CASSIANUS, JOANNES EREMITA, or JOANNES MASSILIENSIS (?360-?435), a celebrated recluse, one of the first founders of monastic institutions in western Europe, was probably born in Provence about 360, but he spent the early part of his life in the monastery of Bethlehem with his friend Germanus, and his affinities were always Eastern rather than Western. In company with Germanus he visited Egypt, and dwelt for several years among the ascetics of the desert near the banks of the Nile. In 403 he repaired to Constantinople, where he received ordination as deacon at the hands of Chrysostom. At Marseilles (after 410) he founded two religious societies--a convent for nuns, and the abbey of St Victor, which during his time is said to have contained 5000 inmates. In later times his regulations enjoyed a high reputation, and were adopted by the monks and nuns of Port Royal. He was eventually canonized; and a festival in his honour long continued to be celebrated at Marseilles on the 25th of July. Cassianus was one of the first and most prominent of the Semi-Pelagians, maintaining that while man is by nature sinful, he yet has some good remaining in him, and that, while the immediate gift of God's grace is necessary to salvation, conversion may also be begun by the exercise of man's will. He further asserted that God is always willing to bestow his grace on all who seek it, though, at the same time, it is true that he sometimes bestows it without its being sought. These views have been held by a very large part of the church from his time, and embrace much of the essence of Arminianism. The style of Cassianus is slovenly, and shows no literary polish, but its direct simplicity is far superior to the rhetorical affectations which disfigure most of the writings of that age. At the request of Castor, bishop of Apt, he wrote two monumental and influential treatises on the monastic life. The _De Institutione Coenobiorum_ (twelve books) describes the dress, the food, the devotional exercises, the discipline and the special spiritual dangers of monastic life in the East (gluttony, unchastity, avarice, anger, gloom, apathy, vanity and pride). The _Collationes Patrum_, a series of dialogues with the pious fathers of Egypt, deal with the way in which these dangers (and others, e.g. demons) may be avoided or overcome. At the desire of Leo (then archdeacon of Rome) he wrote against Nestorius his _De Incarnatione Domini_ in seven books. Entry: CASSIANUS

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 4 "Carnegie Andrew" to "Casus Belli"     1910-1911

The few certain early works of Correggio show a rapid progression towards the attainment of his own original style. Though he never achieved any large measure of reputation during his brief lifetime, and was perhaps totally unknown beyond his own district of country, he found a sufficiency of employers, and this from a very youthful age. One of his early pictures, painted in 1514 when he was nineteen or twenty years old, is a large altar-piece commissioned for the Franciscan convent at Carpi, representing the Virgin enthroned, with Saints; it indicates a predilection for the style of Leonardo da Vinci, and has certainly even greater freedom than similarly early works of Raphael. This picture is now in the Dresden gallery. Another painting of Correggio's youth is the "Arrest of Christ." A third is an Ancona (or triple altar-piece--the "Repose in Egypt, with Sts Bartholomew and John") in the church of the Conventuali at Correggio, showing the transition from the painter's first to his second style. Between 1514 and 1520 Correggio worked much, both in oil and in fresco, for churches and convents. In 1521 he began his famous fresco of the "Ascension of Christ," on the cupola of the Benedictine church of San Giovanni in Parma; here the Redeemer is surrounded by the twelve apostles and the four doctors of the church, supported by a host of wingless cherub boys amid the clouds. This he finished in 1524, and soon afterwards undertook his still vaster work on another cupola, that of the cathedral of the same city, presenting the "Assumption of the Virgin," amid an unnumbered host of saints and angels rapt in celestial joy. It occupied him up to 1530. The astounding boldness of scheme in these works, especially as regards their incessant and audacious foreshortenings--the whole mass of figures being portrayed as in the clouds, and as seen from below--becomes all the more startling when we recall to mind the three facts--that Correggio had apparently never seen any of the masterpieces of Raphael or his other great predecessors and contemporaries, in Rome, Florence, or other chief centres of art; that he was the first artist who ever undertook the painting of a large cupola; and that he not only went at once to the extreme of what can be adventured in foreshortening, but even forestalled in this attempt the mightiest geniuses of an elder generation--the "Last Judgment" of Michelangelo, for instance, not having been begun earlier than 1533 (although the ceiling of the Sixtine chapel, in which foreshortening plays a comparatively small part, dates from 1508 to 1512). The cupola of the cathedral has neither skylight nor windows, but only light reflected from below; the frescoes, some portions of which were ultimately supplied by Giorgio Gandini, are now dusky with the smoke of tapers, and parts of them, in the cathedral and in the church of St John, have during many past years been peeling off. The violent foreshortenings were not, in the painter's own time, the object of unmixed admiration; some satirist termed the groups a "guazzetto di rane," or "hash of frogs." This was not exactly the opinion of Titian, who is reported to have said, on seeing the pictures, and finding them lightly esteemed by local dignitaries, "Reverse the cupola, and fill it with gold, and even that will not be its money's worth." Annibale Caracci and the Eclectics generally evinced their zealous admiration quite as ardently. Parma is the only city which contains frescoes by Correggio. For the paintings of the cupola of San Giovanni he received the moderate sum of 472 sequins; for those of the cathedral, much less proportionately, 350. On these amounts he had to subsist, himself and his family, and to provide the colours, for about ten years, having little time for further work meanwhile. Parma was in an exceedingly unsettled and turbulent condition during some of the years covered by Correggio's labours there, veering between the governmental ascendancy of the French and of the Pope, with wars and rumours of wars, alarms, tumults and pestilence. Entry: CORREGGIO

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 4 "Coquelin" to "Costume"     1910-1911

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