The "Characters" of Jean de La BruyèreScribner & Welford, 1885 - 494 Seiten These writings provide a unique view of the height of 17th-century French culture. |
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Abbé Achille de Harlay admired allusion appear become better Boileau Bossuet Bruyère Bruyère's called Characters commentators Condé contrary conversation Corneille court courtiers death Descartes dress Duke edition enemies everything exists fashion favour favourite feel fortune France freethinkers French Academy friends give grand honour imagine intelligence king La Bruyère ladies latter laugh least less live longer look Louis XIV Louvois Madame Madame de Maintenon Madame de Montespan Madame de Sévigné magistrates maître des requêtes manner Marquis merit mind ministers Molière natural never noble Onuphrius opinion original ourselves paragraph Paris passion perhaps persons Phædo Pierre Corneille pleasure poet portrait praise preach pretend prince published rank receive rich ridiculous seems sermon sometimes speak supposed talents talk Tartuffe tell Theophrastus things thought tion town truth vanity vice virtue whilst wife wish woman women words wretched write
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Seite 24 - And who, that had beheld such a bankrupt beggarly fellow as Cromwell, first entering the parliament-house with a threadbare torn cloak, and a greasy hat, (and perhaps neither of them paid for), could have suspected, that in the space of so few years, he should by the murder of one king, and the banishment of another, ascend the throne...
Seite 318 - They retire at night into their dens where they live on black bread, water and roots. They spare other human beings the trouble of sowing, ploughing and harvesting, and thus should not be in want of the bread they have planted.
Seite 112 - To speak and to offend, with some people, are but one and the same thing; their words are fraught with gall and wormwood, from a proud, splenetic, and malevolent disposition; it had been well for them, had they been born stupid or mute; the little vivacity and wit they have, prejudice them more than dulness does others. They are not always satisfied with giving sharp answers; they insolently attack the present, and wound the character of the absent; they bristle up and butt on all sides like rams;...
Seite 19 - Characters] Out of the Greeke Original, by Io: Healey. 1616. Reprinted: 1636. 2. The Characters, or The Manners of the Age, by Monsieur de La Bruye're, of the French Academy; made English by Several Hands: with the Characters of Theophrastus, translated from the Greek; and a Prefatory Discourse to them, by Mons.
Seite 277 - Sunday to forget the days on which he was to officiate, and would walk into church with his gun under his arm, to ascertain what the people wanted there. Once, when he was playing at backgammon, he poured out a glass of wine, and it being his turn to throw, having the box in one hand and the glass in the other, and being extremely dry, and unwilling to lose any time, he swallowed down both the dice, and discharged the wine upon the dice-board.
Seite 378 - ... but God and nature are not in his thoughts, for they do not go beyond the bulb of his tulip, which he would not sell for a thousand crowns, though he will give it to you for nothing when tulips are no longer in fashion, and carnations are all the rage. This rational being, who has a soul and professes some religion, comes home tired and half-starved, but very pleased with his day's work ; he has seen some tulips.
Seite 274 - ... himself closer, he finds that he has only half shaved, that his sword hangs on his right side, and his stockings are turned down over his heels. If he walks abroad, he feels all at once a violent blow on his chest or face ; he does not guess what it can be, till, arousing himself and opening his eyes, he finds himself before the shaft of a cart, or behind a carpenter's long plank, that a workman is carrying on his shoulders. He has been seen to knock his forehead against that of a blind man ;...
Seite 24 - And who, that had beheld such a bankrupt, beggarly " fellow as Cromwell, first entering the parliament house " with a threadbare torn cloak, greasy hat, (perhaps neither " of them paid for,) could have suspected, that in the space " of so few years, he should, by the murder of one king, " and the banishment of another, ascend the throne...
Seite 149 - There is nothing keeps longer than a middling fortune, and nothing melts away sooner than a great one. Poverty treads upon the heels of great and unexpected riches.
Seite 32 - ... the art to make truth prevalent, and eloquence a gift of the soul that renders one master of the sense and hearts of other men, by which we persuade and inspire them with what we please. Eloquence may be found in all discourses and all kinds of writings; it is rarely where we seek it, and sometimes where it is least expected. Eloquence is to the sublime what the whole is to its part. What is the sublime? We talk much about it, but nobody pretends to define it. Is it in itself a figure? Is it...