Suspended Judgments

Оглавление

John Cowper Powys. Suspended Judgments

Suspended Judgments

Table of Contents

THE ART OF DISCRIMINATION

MONTAIGNE

PASCAL

VOLTAIRE

ROUSSEAU

BALZAC

VICTOR HUGO

GUY DE MAUPASSANT

ANATOLE FRANCE

PAUL VERLAINE

REMY DE GOURMONT

WILLIAM BLAKE

BYRON

EMILY BRONTË

JOSEPH CONRAD

HENRY JAMES

OSCAR WILDE

SUSPENDED JUDGMENT

Отрывок из книги

John Cowper Powys

Essays on Books and Sensations

.....

The mention of the situation, in which in spite of Shakespeare and the rest poor modern sceptics still find themselves, is an indication of how hopelessly illusive all talk of "progress" is. Between Calvin on the one hand and the Sorbonne on the other, Montaigne might well shuffle home from his municipal duties and read Horace in his tower. And we, after three hundred odd years, have little better to do.

Heine, impish descendant of this great doubter, took refuge from human madness at the feet of Venus in the Louvre. Machiavel—for all his crafty wisdom—was driven back to his books and his memories. Goethe built up the "pyramid of his existence" among pictures and fossils and love affairs, leaving the making of history to others, and keeping "religious truth" at a convenient distance.

.....