Through the Year With Famous Authors Part 22

MAY

It must be so,--Plato, thou reasonest well!

Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread and inward horror Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction?

'Tis the divinity that stirs within us; 'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man.

Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought.

"Cato," Act V. Sc. I.--_Joseph Addison_.

JOSEPH ADDISON, a famous English essayist and poet, was born at Milston, Wiltshire, May 1, 1672, and died in London, June 17, 1719. He wrote 41 original papers in the "Tattler," and 34 with Steele; 274 in the "Spectator," 24 to a revived "Spectator," and 2 to Steele's "Lover." His other works include: "Letters from Italy" (a poem), "The Campaign" (a poem), "Fair Rosamond" (an opera), "Remarks on Several Parts of Italy,"

and "Cato" (a tragedy).

As an orator, Webster has been compared in simplicity to Demosthenes and in profundity to Burke.

"Daniel Webster; History of the United States,"--_James Ford Rhodes_.

JAMES FORD RHODES, a distinguished American historian, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, May 1, 1848. He is best known by his noted work in two volumes, "History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850." His other works include, "Historical Essays," "Lectures on the American Civil War Delivered at Oxford," "History of the Civil War," "History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley," etc.

All power appears only in transition. Permanent power is stuff.

--_Novalis_.

NOVALIS, the _nom de plume_ of FRIEDRICH VON HARDENBURG, a noted German philosopher and mystic, was born in Saxony, May 2, 1772, and died, 1801.

Among his writings are: "Hymns to the Night," "Disciples at Sais," and "Heinrich von Ofterdingen."

The people of Ma.s.sachusetts in the seventeenth century, like all other Christian people at that time and later,--at least, with extremely rare individual exceptions,--believed in the reality of a hideous crime called witchcraft. They thought they had Scripture for that belief, and they knew they had law for it, explicit and abundant; and with them law and Scripture were absolute authorities for the regulation of opinion and of conduct.

"History of New England."--_J. G. Palfrey_.

JOHN GORHAM PALFREY, a distinguished American clergyman and author, was born in Boston, May 2, 1796, and died in Cambridge, Ma.s.s., April 26, 1881. He published numerous sermons, lectures, addresses, etc., but "The History of New England," won for him world-wide fame.

I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.

I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.

"Three Men in a Boat," Chap. 15,--_J. K. Jerome_.

JEROME K. JEROME, a famous English writer, was born at Walsall, May 2, 1861. Among his works are: "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow," "Three Men in a Boat," "Novel Notes," "John Ingerfield," "Fennel," "Ruth," "Pa.s.sing of the Third Floor Back," "Esther Castways," "Malvina of Brittany," "All Roads Lead to Calvary," etc.

Bisogna che i giudici siano a.s.sai perche pochi sempre fanno a modo de'pochi.[1]

"Dei Discorsi," I, 7,--_Machiavelli_.

NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, a renowned Italian statesman and political and historical writer was born at Florence, May 3, 1469, and died there, June 22, 1527. He wrote: "Mandragola," "The Prince," "Florentine History," "Discourses," "Art of War," etc.

There is another and a better world.

"The Stranger," Act. i, Sc. 1,--_A. F. Kotzebue_.

AUGUST FRIEDRICH FERDINAND VON KOTZEBUE, a famous German dramatist, was born at Weimar, May 3, 1761, and died at Mannheim, March 23, 1819. His best known works are: "The Spaniards in Peru," "The Stranger,"

"Misanthropy and Repentance," "German Provincials," "The Indians in England," and his noted novel, "Sorrows of the Ortenberg Family."

The Doctrine of Stoicism modified by a doctrine of culture is n.o.bly preached in Matthew Arnold's verse.

"New Studios in Literature," p. 37,--_Edward Dowden_.

EDWARD DOWDEN, a distinguished Irish poet and historian of literature, was born at Cork, May 3, 1843, and died in 1913. He has written: "Life of Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley," "Primer of French Literature," "Studies in Literature," "Poems," "Southey," "Shakespeare, His Mind and Art,"

"Introduction to Shakespeare," "Wordsworth," "New Studies in Literature," "The French Revolution and English Literature," "A History of French Literature," "Robert Browning," "Michel de Montaigne,"

"Essays: Modern and Elizabethan," "Poetical Works" (2 vols.). His "Letters" appeared in 1914.

The triumphs of the warrior are bounded by the narrow theatre of his own age, but those of a Scott or a Shakespeare will be renewed with greater l.u.s.ter in ages yet unborn, when the victorious chieftain shall be forgotten, or shall live only in the song of the minstrel and the page of the chronicler.

--_Prescott_.

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT, a famous American historian, was born at Salem, Ma.s.s., May 4, 1796, and died in New York, January 28, 1859. He wrote: "History of Ferdinand and Isabella," "History of the Conquest of Mexico," "History of the Conquest of Peru," "Critical Essays," "History of the Reign of Philip II of Spain," etc.

It is well to think well: it is divine to act well.

--_Horace Mann_.

HORACE MANN, a noted American educator and educational writer was born in Franklin, Ma.s.s., May 4, 1796, and died in Yellow Springs, Ohio, August 2, 1859. He published: "A Few Thoughts for a Young Man,"

"Slavery: Letters and Speeches," "Powers and Duties of Woman," etc.

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

"Technical Education,"--_Thomas Henry Huxley_.

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY, a renowned English scientist, was born in Ealing, May 4, 1825, and died June 29, 1895. Among his famous works are: "Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature," "On the Educational Value of the Natural-History Sciences," "Lectures on the Elements of Comparative Anatomy," "Lessons in Elementary Physiology," "On the Physical Basis of Life," "Half Hours with Modern Scientists," "American Addresses," "An Introduction to the Cla.s.sification of Animals," "Science and Culture, and Other Essays," etc., etc.

Time, to the nation as to the individual, is nothing absolute; its duration depends on the rate of thought and feeling.

--_John W. Draper_.

JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER, a famous physiologist, historical and miscellaneous prose-writer, was born near Liverpool, England, May 5, 1811, and died at Hastings-on-the-Hudson, N. Y., January 4, 1882. He has written: "Human Physiology," "History of the Intellectual Development of Europe,"

"History of the American Civil War," and his most celebrated work, "History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science."