Richard Claverhouse Jebb

“ The symmetry, the clear outlines, the cheerful repose of Classical art, are wedded to the sentiment, passion, and variety of the Romantic. The great German poet felt, and has expressed with wonderful subtlety, the truth that no modern can absolutely dissociate the Hellenic influence from the others which have contributed to shape our modern life; no one can now be a pure Hellene, nor, if he could, would it be desirable; but everyone should recognise the special elements with which the Hellenic ideal can ennoble and chasten the modern spirit, and these he should by all means cultivate. ”

“ Humanity cannot afford to lose out of its inheritance any part of the best work which has been done for it in the past. All that is most beautiful and most instructive in Greek achievement is our permanent possession; one which can be enjoyed without detriment to those other studies which modern life demands; one which no lapse of time can make obsolete, and which no multiplication of interests can make superfluous. Each successive generation must learn from ancient Greece that which can be taught by her alone. ”

“ In comparing science and literature as general instruments of education, Arnold observed that the power of intellect and knowledge is not the only one that goes to the building up of human life; there is also the power of conduct and the power of beauty. Literature, he said, serves to bring knowledge into relation with our sense for conduct and our sense for beauty. The greater and more fruitful is the progress of science, the greater is the need for humane letters, to establish and maintain a harmony between the new knowledge and those profound, unchanging instincts of our nature. ”

“ The ideal of humanism has thus been reinforced in a manner which brings back to us something of the spirit which animated the Renaissance when it was largest and most vigorous. For the enthusiasm of the Renaissance was nourished by the monuments of classical art scarcely less than by the masterpieces of literature. Each statue that was disinterred from Italian soil, every stone or coin or gem that could help to illustrate the past, became a source of delight to men whose strenuous aim was to apprehend classical antiquity as a whole. ”

“ But if revolution was to be escaped, reform was inevitable, and it was for the Senate to choose between the alternatives. Could the noble lords have known then, in that their day, the things that belonged to their peace—could they have forgotten their fishponds and their game preserves, and have remembered that, as the rulers of the civilised world, they had duties which the eternal order of nature would exact at their hands, the shaken constitution might again have regained its stability, and the forms and even the reality of the republic might have continued for another century. ”

“ Borrowing an old Latin word, they called this new learning humanity; for them, however, the phrase had a depth of meaning undreamt of by Cicero. Now, for the first time, they felt that they had entered into full possession of themselves; nothing is more characteristic of the Italian renaissance than the self-asserting individuality of the chief actors; each strives to throw the work of his own spirit into relief; the common life falls into the back-ground; the history of that age is the history of men rather than of communities. ”

“ If there be any man faultless, bring him forth into public view, shew him openly, and let him be known; but I will venture to affirm, and, until the contrary be plainly shewn, shall always maintain, that no such man is to be found. Tell not me, Sir, of impeccability and perfection; such talk is for those that are strangers in the world: I have seen several nations, and conversed with all ranks of people: I have known the great and the mean, the learned and the ignorant, the old and the young, the clerical and the lay; but I have never found a man without a fault ”

“ History shows how, from the Roman age to our own, Greece has everywhere helped to educate gifted minds, from which her light has radiated in ever widening circles. It has been her privilege to elicit a sense of kinship in the finer spirits of every race, and to enter as a vitalising essence into the most varied forms of modern thought, bringing to every such alliance some distinction which no other element could have conferred. ”

“ If those fragments of Greek architecture and sculpture which we so prize had come down to us without any credentials of their origin, simply as relics of an otherwise unknown race, it would not have been fantastic to conjecture that, of all the peoples recorded in history, the only one presumably capable of producing such monuments in marble was the same people whose thoughts had moulded, and whose spirit had chastened, the most perfect among the forms of human speech. ”

“ But there is no suggestion of enthusiasm,—unless it be the literary enthusiasm of a student. It is difficult to imagine those cool eyes kindled by any glow of passion, or that genial serenity broken by a spiritual struggle. This man, we feel, would be an intellectual champion of truth and reason; his wit might be as the spear of Ithuriel, and his satire as the sword of Gideon; but he has not the face of a hero or a martyr. ”

“ Johnson was a great man to his contemporaries, and, if we judge soundly, he must appear a great man to us; although we estimate in a somewhat different proportion the elements which constitute his greatness. To us he is no longer the literary oracle or the profound sage; he is rather a man of singularly robust intellect; a most keen and sane observer of character; a man wise in the wisdom of life, who knew the evil and the misery that must be always in the world, but never wasted in idle repining the strength that should be reserved for combating and, so far as possible, alleviating them ”

“ Universities, like other human institutions, have their failures. But his words truly express the aim and tendency of the best University teaching. It belongs to the spirit of such teaching that it should nourish and sustain ideals; and a University can do nothing better for its sons than that; a vision of the ideal can guard monotony of work from becoming monotony of life. But there is yet another element of University training which must not be left out of account; it is, indeed, among the most vital of all. I mean that informal education which young men give to each other. ”

“ And then at last an hour arrived when the new religion was received as an indwelling spirit into the mighty fabric of the Empire, when the kingdom of this world, secular still, became also the kingdom of Christ, when the pillars that upbore the Roman State and the paths that Rome had opened over land and sea sustained a structure and carried a message that were to remain when her dominion had fallen. "Rome alone," cries Claudian, "has taken the conquered to her bosom, and has made men to be one household with one name, and has linked far places in a bond of charity. ”

“ How far can this wonderful fact be directly connected with the influence of the political work done by Pericles, or with the personal influence of the man? We must beware of exaggerating such influences. Statesmanship may encourage men of genius, but it cannot make them. When we look back on that age, we seem to recognise in its abounding and versatile brilliancy rather the golden time of a marvellously gifted race, than merely the attraction which a city of unique opportunities exercised over the rest of the world. ”

“ Thus, the most signal achievement of the French genius in art has been the creation of Gothic architecture; and, as the President of the Royal Academy reminded its Students some years ago, the cradle of that architecture was the Royal Domain of central France, a region in which the Celtic blood of the Cymri was mingled with the Latin element derived from the Romans, and with the Teutonic element furnished by the Franks; giving birth to that Gothic style which blends freedom with self-restraint, audacity with prudence, and science with emotion. ”

“ Many of the extant pieces of the orator Isocrates, in the fourth century B.C., though couched in the form of speeches, were meant to be read, not spoken, and are in reality highly finished political pamphlets. More, perhaps, than any writer of antiquity, Isocrates resembles a journalist who is deeply impressed with the dignity and responsibility of his calling; who spares no pains to make his work really good; and who has constantly before his mind the feeling that his audience is wider, and his power greater, than if he was actually addressing a public assembly on the same theme. ”