Through the Year With Famous Authors Part 10

and "Esmeralda."

These deeper questions cannot be treated in this short appendix to Descartes' life. They are mentioned here merely to show how he was to modern thought what Socrates was to Greek philosophy. Far greater, too, was he than Socrates, in the range of his influence.

In every department of his thinking--in his first philosophy, his theology, his physics, his psychology, his physiology--he sowed the dragon's teeth from which sprang hosts of armed men, to join in an intellectual conflict, internecine, let us trust, to their many errors and prejudices, but fraught with new life and energy to the intellectual progress of Europe.

"Descartes,"--_John Pentland Mahaffy_.

JOHN PENTLAND MAHAFFY, a distinguished Irish cla.s.sical scholar and historian, was born at Chapponnaire, Switzerland, February 26, 1839, and died in 1919. Among his publications are: "Social Life in Greece,"

"Rambles and Studies in Greece," "Greek Life and Thought," "Greece Under Roman Sway," "History of Cla.s.sical Greek Literature," "The Silver Age of the Greek World," "The Empire of the Ptolemies," etc.

Sail, on, O Ship of State!

Sail on, O Union, strong and great!

Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

"_The Building of the Ship_,"--_Longfellow_.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, one of the greatest of American poets, was born at Portland, Me., February 27, 1807, and died at Cambridge, Ma.s.s., March 24, 1882. His celebrated works include: "Voices of the Night,"

"Hyperion," "Poems on Slavery," "Ballads and Other Poems," "The Spanish Student," "Poets and Poetry of Europe," "Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie,"

"The Seaside and the Fireside," "The Golden Legend," "A Volume of Poems," "Song of Hiawatha," "Poems," "Courtship of Miles Standish,"

"Tales of a Wayside Inn," "A New England Tragedy," "Excelsior," "The Skeleton in Armor," "The Building of a Ship," etc.

A grain of sand leads to the fall of a mountain when the moment has come for the mountain to fall.

--_Ernest Renan_.

JOSEPH ERNEST RENAN, the renowned French Semitic-Orientalist; historian, philologist, and essayist, was born at Treguier, Brittany, February 27, 1823, and died at Paris, October 2, 1892. Among his numerous works may be mentioned: "General History of the Semitic Languages," "The Life of Jesus," "Marcus Aurelius," "Studies in Religious History," "Questions of the Day," "Recollections of My Youth," "New Studies in Religious History," "Discourses and Conferences," "Dialogue of the Dead," "The Song of Songs," and "Ecclesiastes."

Samuel Pepys stands at the head of the world's literature in his own department.... Pepys' "_Diary_" has been frequently compared with Boswell's "_Life of Johnson_," and with justice in so far as the charm of each arises from the inimitable navete of the author's self-revelations. Boswell had a much greater character than his own to draw, but Pepys had to be his own Johnson. It is giving him no excessive praise to say that he makes himself as interesting as Johnson and Boswell together.... Another Milton is more likely to appear than another Pepys.

"The Age of Dryden,"--_Richard Garnett_.

RICHARD GARNETT, a noted English librarian and author, was born at Litchfield, February 27, 1835, and died April 13, 1906. He wrote: "Primula," "Io in Egypt," "Idylls and Epigrams," "The Queen and Other Poems," "Collected Poems," "The Twilight of the G.o.ds," "A Short History of Italian Literature," "Essays in Librarianship and Bibliophily," etc.

You hail from Dreamland, Dragon-fly?

A stranger hither? So am I And (sooth to say) I wonder why We either of us came!

"To a Dragon-fly,"--_Agnes M. F. R. Darmesteter_.

AGNES M. F. R. DARMESTETER, a distinguished English poet, was born in Leamington, February 27, 1857. Her writings include: "A Handful of Honeysuckle," "Lyrics," "Retrospect," "Arden," a novel, "Emily Bronte,"

"The New Arcadia and Other Poems," "An Italian Garden, a Book of Songs,"

"The End of the Middle Ages," "Essays and Questions in History," "Life of Renan," "Collected Poems," "The Fields of France," "The Return to Nature," "The French Ideal," "Twentieth Century French Writers," "Madame de Sevigne," etc.

How many worthy men have we seen survive their own reputation!

"Of Glory," Chap. xvi.--_Montaigne_.

MICHEL EYQUEM DE MONTAIGNE, the ill.u.s.trious French moral philosopher, was born at Chateau Montaigne, Perigord, February 28, 1533, and died September 13, 1592. His remarkable "Essays" won for him world-wide fame.

In Nature there is no dirt, everything is in the right condition; the swamp and the worm, as well as the gra.s.s and the bird--all is there for itself. Only because we think that all things have a relation to us, do they appear justifiable or otherwise.

--_Auerbach_.

BERTHOLD AUERBACH, a renowned German novelist, was born at Nordstetten, Wurtemberg, February 28, 1812, and died at Cannes, France, February 8, 1882. He wrote: "The Educated Citizen, a Book for the Thinking Human Mind," "Poet and Merchant," "Spinoza," "The Professor's Lady," "Little Barefoot," "Joseph in the Snow," "Edelweiss," "New Life," "The Head Forester," "The Villa on the Rhine," "Waldfried, a Family History,"

"Black Forest Village Stories," "After Thirty Years," and his most noted work, "On the Heights."

The first, and perhaps the final impression we receive from the work of Robert Browning is that of a great nature, an immense personality.

"Introduction to the Study of Browning,"--_Arthur Symons_.

ARTHUR SYMONS, a celebrated writer of prose and verse, was born in Wales, February 28, 1865. His publications include: "An Introduction to the Study of Browning," "Days and Nights," "Silhouettes," "London Nights," "Amoris Victima," "Studies in Two Literatures," "The Symbolist Movement in Literature," "Images of Good and Evil," "Collected Poems,"

"Plays, Acting, and Music," "Cities," "Studies in Prose and Verse,"

"Spiritual Adventures," "A Book of Twenty Songs," "The Fool of the World," "Studies in Seven Arts," "Cities of Italy," "The Romantic Movement in English Poetry," "Knave of Hearts," "Figures of Several Centuries," "Tragedies," etc.

Take time enough: all other graces Will soon fill up their proper places.

"Advice to Preach Slow,"--_John Byrom_.

JOHN BYROM, a noted English poet, and writer of hymns, was born at Kersel Cell, near Manchester, February 29, 1692, and died in 1763. He wrote a famous poem "Colin and Phoebe." A collection of his poems was published in 1773.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] They have learned nothing, and they have forgotten nothing.

[2] Danger teaches even kings to pray.

[3] The blush is beautiful, but it is sometimes inconvenient.

MARCH

MARCH

That friendship only is, indeed, genuine when two friends, without speaking a word to each other, can, nevertheless, find happiness in being together.