Memoir of George Ticknor, Historian of Spanish Literature

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Collins Printer, 1871 - 24 pages
 

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Page 12 - We well remember the sensation produced on the first delivery of these Lectures, which served to break down the barrier which had so long confined the student to a converse with antiquity; they opened to him a free range among those great masters of modern literature who had hitherto been veiled in the obscurity of a foreign idiom. The influence of this instruction was soon visible in the higher education as well as the literary ardor shown by the graduates.
Page 16 - I am glad you have brot it out during my lifetime, for it will be a vade mecum for the rest of my days. When I have once read it through, I shall keep it by me, like a Stilton cheese, to give a dig into whenever I want a relishing morsel.
Page 10 - American acquaintance the better that he has sharpened your remembrance of me, but he is also a wondrous fellow for romantic lore and antiquarian research, considering his country. I have now seen four or five well-lettered Americans, ardent in pursuit of knowledge, and free from the ignorance and forward presumption which distinguish many of their countrymen. I hope they will inoculate their country with a love of letters, so nearly allied to a desire of peace, and a sense of public justice, virtues...
Page 16 - Stilton cheese, to give a dig into whenever I want a relishing morsel. I began to fear it would never see the light in my day, or that it might fare with you as with that good lady who went thirteen years with child, and then brought forth a little old man, who died in the course of a month of extreme old age. But you have produced three strapping volumes, full of life and freshness and vigor, and that will live forever. You have laid the foundations of your work so deep that nothing can shake it...
Page 17 - Mr. Ticknor's History is conducted in a truly philosophical spirit. Instead of presenting a barren record of books, — which, like the catalogue of a gallery of paintings, is of comparatively little use to those who have not previously studied them, — he illustrates the works by the personal history of their authors, and this, again, by the history of the times in which they lived ; affording, by the reciprocal action of one on the other, a complete record of Spanish civilization, both social...
Page 10 - I have gone through a cruel succession of spasms and sickness, which have terminated in a special fit of the jaundice, so that I might sit for the image of Plutus, the god of specie, so far as complexion goes. I shall like our American- acquaintance the better that he has sharpened your remembrance of me, but he is also a wondrous fellow for romantic lore and antiquarian research, considering his country.
Page 8 - ... excited no small comment at the time, and that, especially by a part of the parish whose brilliant anticipations he thus disappointed, it was not accepted in a kindly spirit. But of its wisdom and rightfulness there was soon no doubt in the mind of anybody. We embarked in April, 1815, and passed a few weeks in London, during the exciting period of Bonaparte's last campaign, and just at the time of the battle of Waterloo. But we were in a hurry to be at work. We hastened, therefore, through Holland,...
Page 14 - ... just time to run to the cathedral, but all other feelings were for the time overpowered by the pleasure of meeting the Ticknors. A very fortunate occurrence, quite unexpected. They too were going up the lake by the steamboat, and thus we united the pleasures of the scenery with the gratification of chat with a very clever family. Perhaps on this account I saw too little of the lake. Its beauties were not unknown to me. At all events, the day was a most agreeable one.
Page 14 - Ticknor, in his preface, speaks of him as " certainly, in his peculiar department, among the most eminent scholars now living, and one to whose familiarity with whatever regards the literature of his own country, the frequent references in his notes bear a testimony not to be mistaken.

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