Quotes4study

"Yes, and quick to take offense. And there was too much rhetoric, such long sentences."

Fyodor Dostoyevsky     The Brothers Karamazov

It was reckoned the fault of the orators at the decline of the Roman empire, when they had been long instructed by rhetoricians, that their periods were so harmonious as that they could be sung as well as spoken. What a ridiculous figure must one of these gentlemen cut, thus measuring syllables and weighing words when he should plead the cause of his client!--_Goldsmith._

Maturin M. Ballou     Pearls of Thought

LACORDAIRE, JEAN BAPTISTE HENRI (1802-1861), French ecclesiastic and orator, was born at Recey-sur-Ource, Côte d'Or, on the 12th of March 1802. He was the second of a family of four, the eldest of whom, Jean Théodore (1801-1870), travelled a great deal in his youth, and was afterwards professor of comparative anatomy at Liége. For several years Lacordaire studied at Dijon, showing a marked talent for rhetoric; this led him to the pursuit of law, and in the local debates of the advocates he attained a high celebrity. At Paris he thought of going on the stage, but was induced to finish his legal training and began to practise as an advocate (1817-1824). Meanwhile Lamennais had published his _Essai sur l'Indifférence_,--a passionate plea for Christianity and in particular for Roman Catholicism as necessary for the social progress of mankind. Lacordaire read, and his ardent and believing nature, weary of the theological negations of the Encyclopaedists, was convinced. In 1823 he became a theological student at the seminary of Saint Sulpice; four years later he was ordained and became almoner of the college Henri IV. He was called from it to co-operate with Lamennais in the editorship of _L'Avenir_, a journal established to advocate the union of the democratic principle with ultramontanism. Lacordaire strove to show that Catholicism was not bound up with the idea of dynasty, and definitely allied it with a well-defined liberty, equality and fraternity. But the new propagandism was denounced from Rome in an encyclical. In the meantime Lacordaire and Montalembert, believing that, under the charter of 1830, they were entitled to liberty of instruction, opened an independent free school. It was closed in two days, and the teachers fined before the court of peers. These reverses Lacordaire accepted with quiet dignity; but they brought his relationship with Lamennais to a close. He now began the course of Christian _conférences_ at the Collége Stanislas, which attracted the art and intellect of Paris; thence he went to Nôtre Dame, and for two years his sermons were the delight of the capital. His presence was dignified, his voice capable of indefinite modulation, and his gestures animated and attractive. He still preached the gospel of the people's sovereignty in civil life and the pope's supremacy in religion, but brought to his propagandism the full resources of a mind familiar with philosophy, history and literature, and indeed led the reaction against Voltairean scepticism. He was asked to edit the _Univers_, and to take a chair in the university of Louvain, but he declined both appointments, and in 1838 set out for Rome, revolving a great scheme for christianizing France by restoring the old order of St Dominic. At Rome he donned the habit of the preaching friar and joined the monastery of Minerva. His _Mémoire pour le rétablissement en France de l'ordre des frères prêcheurs_ was then prepared and dedicated to his country; at the same time he collected the materials for the life of St Dominic. When he returned to France in 1841 he resumed his preaching at Nôtre Dame, but he had small success in re-establishing the order of which he ever afterwards called himself monk. His funeral orations are the most notable in their kind of any delivered during his time, those devoted to Marshal Drouet and Daniel O'Connell being especially marked by point and clearness. He next thought that his presence in the National Assembly would be of use to his cause; but being rebuked by his ecclesiastical superiors for declaring himself a republican, he resigned his seat ten days after his election. In 1850 he went back to Rome and was made provincial of the order, and for four years laboured to make the Dominicans a religious power. In 1854 he retired to Sorrèze to become director of a private lyceum, and remained there until he died on the 22nd of November 1861. He had been elected to the Academy in the preceding year. Entry: LACORDAIRE

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 16, Slice 1 "L" to "Lamellibranchia"     1910-1911

I. Praecognita disciplinarum, 4 books, hexilogia, technologia, archelogia, didactica, that is, on intellectual habits and on the classification, origin and study of the arts. II. Philology, 6 books, lexica, grammar, rhetoric, logic, oratory and poetry; book 5, lexica, contains dictionaries explained in Latin of 1076 Hebrew, 842 Syriac, 1934 Arabic, 1923 Greek and 2092 Latin words, and also nomenclator technologiae, &c., a classified vocabulary of terms used in the arts and sciences, in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, filling 34 pages; book 6 contains Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin and German grammars; book 10, poetica, contains a list of 61 Rotwelsch words. III. Theoretic philosophy, 10 books:--book 11, metaphysics; 12, pneumatics (on spirits); 13, physics; 14, arithmetic; 15, geometry; 16, cosmography; 17, uranometria (astronomy and astrology); 18, geography (with maps of the Old World, eastern Mediterranean, and Palestine under the Old and New Testaments, and a plate of Noah's ark); 19, optics; 20, music. IV. Practical philosophy, 4 books:--21, ethics; 22, economics (on relationships); 23, politics, with florilegium politicum, 119 pages of extracts from historians, philosophers and orators; 24, scholastics (on education, with a florilegium of 25 pages). V. The three superior faculties:--25, theology; 26, jurisprudence; 27, medicine (ending with the rules of the Salernian school). VI. Mechanical arts in general:--book 28, mathematical mechanical arts; book 29, agriculture, gardening, care of animals, baking, brewing, preparing medicines, metallurgy (with mining); book 30, physical mechanical arts--printing, dialling, &c. Under paedutica (games) is Vida's Latin poem on chess, and one by Leuschner on the ludus Lorzius. VII. Farragines disciplinarum, 5 books:--31, mnemonics; 32, history; 33, chronology; 34, architecture; 35, quodlibetica, miscellaneous arts, as magic, cabbala, alchemy, magnetism, &c., with others apparently distinguished and named by himself, as, paradoxologia, the art of explaining paradoxes; dipnosophistica, the art of philosophizing while feasting; cyclognomica, the art of conversing well de quovis scibili; tabacologia, the nature, use and abuse of tobacco, &c.--in all 35 articles in this book. Entry: I

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 3 "Electrostatics" to "Engis"     1910-1911

BOURDALOUE, LOUIS (1632-1704), French Jesuit and preacher, was born at Bourges on the 20th of August 1632. At the age of sixteen he entered the Society of Jesus, and was appointed successively professor of rhetoric, philosophy and moral theology, in various colleges of the Order. His success as a preacher in the provinces determined his superiors to call him to Paris in 1669 to occupy for a year the pulpit of the church of St Louis. Owing to his eloquence he was speedily ranked in popular estimation with Corneille, Racine, and the other leading figures of the most brilliant period of Louis XIV.'s reign. He preached at the court of Versailles during the Advent of 1670 and the Lent of 1672, and was subsequently called again to deliver the Lenten course of sermons in 1674, 1675, 1680 and 1682, and the Advent sermons of 1684, 1689 and 1693. This was all the more noteworthy as it was the custom never to call the same preacher more than three times to court. On the revocation of the Edict of Nantes he was sent to Languedoc to confirm the new converts in the Catholic faith, and he had extraordinary success in this delicate mission. Catholics and Protestants were unanimous in praising his fiery eloquence in the Lent sermons which he preached at Montpellier in 1686. Towards the close of his life he confined his ministry to charitable institutions, hospitals and prisons, where his sympathetic discourses and conciliatory manners were always effective. He died in Paris on the 13th of May 1704. His peculiar strength lay in his power of adapting himself to audiences of every kind, and throughout his public career he was highly appreciated by all classes of society. His influence was due as much to his saintly character and to the gentleness of his manners as to the force of his reasoning. Voltaire said that his sermons surpassed those of Bossuet (whose retirement in 1669, however, practically coincided with Bourdaloue's early pulpit utterances); and there is little doubt that their simplicity and coherence, and the direct appeal which they made to hearers of all classes, gave them a superiority over the more profound sermons of Bossuet. Bourdaloue may be with justice regarded as one of the greatest French orators, and many of his sermons have been adopted as text-books in schools. Entry: BOURDALOUE

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Slice 3 "Borgia, Lucrezia" to "Bradford, John"     1910-1911

To the student of literature the first half of the 19th century is the age of Byron. He has failed to retain his influence over English readers. The knowledge, the culture of which he was the immediate channel, were speedily available through other sources. The politics of the Revolution neither interested nor affected the Liberalism or Radicalism of the middle classes. It was not only the loftier and wholesomer poetry of Wordsworth and of Tennyson which averted enthusiasm from Byron, not only moral earnestness and religious revival but the optimism and the materialism of commercial prosperity. As time went on, a severer and more intelligent criticism was brought to bear on his handiwork as a poet. It was pointed out that his constructions were loose and ambiguous, that his grammar was faulty, that his rhythm was inharmonious, and it was argued that these defects and blemishes were outward and visible signs of a lack of fineness in the man's spiritual texture; that below the sentiment and behind the rhetoric the thoughts and ideas were mean and commonplace. There was a suspicion of artifice, a questioning of the passion as genuine. Poetry came to be regarded more and more as a source of spiritual comfort, if not a religious exercise, yet, in some sort, a substitute for religion. There was little or nothing in Byron's poetry which fulfilled this want. He had no message for seekers after truth. Matthew Arnold, in his preface to _The Poetry of Byron_, prophesied that "when the year 1900 is turned, and our nation comes to recount the poetic glories in the century which has then just ended, her first names with her will be those of Byron and Wordsworth." Entry: BYRON

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary"     1910-1911

When a wider culture was imported from Greece it was, however, the form rather than the spirit of true Hellenic education that was transferred. This was, indeed, to some extent inevitable from the decadent state of Greek education at the time, but it was accentuated by the essentially practical character of the Roman mind. The instrument of education first introduced was Greek literature, much of which was soon translated into Latin. In time the schools of the _grammatici_, teaching grammar and literature, were supplemented by schools of rhetoric and philosophy, though the philosophy taught in them was itself little more than rhetorical declamation. These furnished the means of higher culture for those youths who did not study at Alexandria or Athens, and were also preparatory to studies at those universities. Under the Empire the rhetorical schools were gradually organized into a state system, the general principles of administration being laid down by imperial decree, and even such details as the appointment and rate of payment of the professors, at first left to the municipalities, being in time assumed by the central government. There is no evidence of any state regulation or support of the lower schools. This widening of culture affected both boys and girls, the domestic education of the latter being supplemented by a study of literature. But it is the higher training in rhetoric which is especially characteristic of Hellenized Roman education. Entry: I

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 10 "Echinoderma" to "Edward"     1910-1911

The first part of the Graeco-Roman period may be defined as extending from 146 B.C. to the close of the Roman republic. At its commencement stands the name of one who had more real affinity than any of his contemporaries with the great writers of old Athens, and who, at the same time, saw most clearly how the empire of the world was passing to Rome. The subject of Polybius (c. 205-120) was the history of Roman conquest from 264 to 146 B.C. His style, plain and straightforward, is free from the florid rhetoric of the time. But the distinction of Polybius is that he is the last Greek writer who in some measure retains the spirit of the old citizen-life. He chose his subject, not because it gave scope to learning or literary skill, but with a motive akin to that which prompted the history of Thucydides--namely, because, as a Greek citizen, he felt intensely the political importance of those wars which had given Rome the mastery of the world. The chief historical work which the following century produced--the _Universal History_ of Diodorus Siculus (fl. c. 50 B.C.)--resembled that of Polybius in recognizing Rome as the political centre of the earth, as the point on which all earlier series of events converged. In all else Diodorus represents the new age in which the Greek historian had no longer the practical knowledge and insight of a traveller, a soldier or a statesman, but only the diligence, and usually the dullness, of a laborious compiler. Entry: C

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 5 "Greek Law" to "Ground-Squirrel"     1910-1911

EPHORUS (c. 400-330 B.C.), of Cyme in Aeolis, in Asia Minor, Greek historian. Together with the historian Theopompus he was a pupil of Isocrates, in whose school he attended two courses of rhetoric. But he does not seem to have made much progress in the art, and it is said to have been at the suggestion of Isocrates himself that he took up literary composition and the study of history. The fruit of his labours was his [Greek: Historiai] in 29 books, the first universal history, beginning with the return of the Heraclidae to Peloponnesus, as the first well-attested historical event. The whole work was edited by his son Demophilus, who added a 30th book, containing a summary description of the Social War and ending with the taking of Perinthus (340) by Philip of Macedon (cf. Diod. Sic. xvi. 14 with xvi. 76). Each book was complete in itself, and had a separate title and preface. It is clear that Ephorus made critical use of the best authorities, and his work, highly praised and much read, was freely drawn upon by Diodorus Siculus[1] and other compilers. Strabo (viii. p. 332) attaches much importance to his geographical investigations, and praises him for being the first to separate the historical from the merely geographical element. Polybius (xii. 25 g) while crediting him with a knowledge of the conditions of naval warfare, ridicules his description of the battles of Leuctra and Mantineia as showing ignorance of the nature of land operations. He was further to be commended for drawing (though not always) a sharp line of demarcation between the mythical and historical (Strabo ix. p. 423); he even recognized that a profusion of detail, though lending corroborative force to accounts of recent events, is ground for suspicion in reports of far-distant history. His style was high-flown and artificial, as was natural considering his early training, and he frequently sacrificed truth to rhetoric effect; but, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he and Theopompus were the only historical writers whose language was accurate and finished. Other works attributed to him were:--_A Treatise on Discoveries; Respecting Good and Evil Things; On Remarkable Things in Various Countries_ (it is doubtful whether these were separate works, or merely extracts from the _Histories_); _A Treatise on my Country_, on the history and antiquities of Cyme, and an essay _On Style_, his only rhetorical work, which is occasionally mentioned by the rhetorician Theon. Nothing is known of his life, except the statement in Plutarch that he declined to visit the court of Alexander the Great. Entry: EPHORUS

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 6 "English Language" to "Epsom Salts"     1910-1911

The whole Byzantine intellectual life, like that of the Western medieval period, is dominated by theological interests. Theology accordingly, in literature too, occupies the chief place, in regard to both quantity and quality. Next to it comes the writing of history, which the Byzantines cultivated with great conscientiousness until after the fall of the empire. All other kinds of prose writing, e.g. in geography, philosophy, rhetoric and the technical sciences, were comparatively neglected, and such works are of value for the most part only in so far as they preserve and interpret old material. In poetry, again, theology takes the lead. The poetry of the Church produced works of high aesthetic merit and enduring value. In secular poetry, the writing of epigrams especially was cultivated with assiduity and often with ability. In popular literature poetry predominates, and many productions worthy of notice, new both in matter and in form, are here met with. Entry: II

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 5 "Greek Law" to "Ground-Squirrel"     1910-1911