Century Dictionary

“ We see how this fermentation has been continued in the political movements of the middle of the seventeenth century, and we note the influence of the European upheaval at the end of the eighteenth century. The extraordinary outburst of intellect in the second half of that century is accentuated by the fact that, taking into account all entries in the 'Biographical Dictionary,' the gross number of eminent men of the low standard required for inclusion shows little increase in the eighteenth century (5,789, as against 5,674 in the preceding century, is the editor's estimate) ”

“ In the nineteenth century the advance recommences at a very rapid pace, the total number of nineteenth-century names more than doubling those of the previous century. In mental and physical activity the nineteenth century resembles the sixteenth; but the advance of the nineteenth century upon the eighteenth in the total of memoirs is relatively far smaller than the advance of the sixteenth upon the fifteenth. ”

“ Historical present, the present tense used for the past, to add life and reality to the narrative, as in 'cometh' in Mark, v. 22.—Ancient history, the history of the world down to the fall of Rome, 476 A.D.; Medieval history, the history of the period between the fall of Rome and the beginning of the 16th century; Modern history, history since the beginning of the 16th century; Natural history, originally an expression including all the concrete sciences, now the science of living things: (in frequent use) zoology, esp. in so far as that is concerned with the life and habits of animals ”

“ But to students of the ecclesiastical and political history of England in the sixteenth century the vast accumulations of facts and documents of which his books consist render them of the utmost value. ”

“ From these instances it will be evident that the spirit of the early Victorian age was still a living force in the second decade of the present century. Many articles in this volume relate to men and women whose characters matured and whose convictions were fully formed before 1870. Some of these illustrious survivals may owe a part of their current reputation to the fact that they survived so long. But a career must be judged as a whole; the effect of a life’s work is cumulative; and a man’s personal influence must be gauged, in some degree, by its duration as well as by its intensity. ”

“ And yet, in another and a higher sense, the century has hardly known among its many intellectual forces one that has been more influential in its effect upon literary art, or in certain directions has more potently influenced the ideals and more profoundly given expression to the ethical and philosophic thought of the time. ”

“ In 1846 he published his 'Historical and Critical View of the Speculative Philosophy of Europe in the Nineteenth Century.' Though the book came from a young and unknown author, it reached a second edition in the year after its appearance. ”

“ Nor must it be thought the high opinion of the century is derived from the fact that only a very few examples of its illumination and bookmaking are now extant, and that these being the chosen specimens give the illumination of the century a higher place than it might otherwise have. ”

“ The sixteenth century cannot be compared with the nineteenth century in the variety and scope of scientific discoveries; but, compared with the ages which had preceded it, it was a memorable epoch, marked by the simultaneous breaking up of the darkness of mediaeval Europe, and the bursting forth of new energies in all departments of human thought and action. ”

“ From a comparative estimate of the number and importance of these achievements, he concludes that not only was the century just passed superior to any one that had gone before, but that it must in its results be compared with the whole preceding historical period. It, therefore, marks the beginning of a new era of human progress. ”

“ Walsh's book, The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries, will startle many readers, but we respectfully commend to the open-minded his presentation of that great epoch. A century that witnessed such extraordinary achievements in architecture, in arts and crafts, in education, and in literature and law, as did the Thirteenth, is not to be lightly dismissed or unfavorably compared with periods nearer our own. ”

“ First of all, in this review, it is important to show in what the greatness of the century consists, to contrast its beginning and its ending, and point out the stages of the magnificent progress it has made. ”

“ When we think of the course of history we break it up into blocks of handy size, comparing century with century, year with year. This is perfectly justifiable, very useful, in fact inevitable, and quite innocent, provided we realize that it is a logical fiction, adapted to practical purposes merely. ”

“ We may get a step nearer to the subject by distinguishing three152 periods in the century, in which there is a partial difference of tendency. The first period, which we may roughly define as lasting well on into the 30’s, is, in the main, a period of construction, of creative thought, in which the great germinating ideas that distinguished the century are more or less adequately expressed in different countries, and in which they receive a first, somewhat hasty, application to all departments of human knowledge. ”

“ Every century has had its epoch-making characters,—men and women who dominated and directed the thoughts, purposes, activities, and achievements of their times. The nineteenth century is distinguished above all others by the number and quality of those who came to stand for the inception, advance, and culmination of the world’s great movements and who highly exemplified in their careers the enterprise and genius of their day. ”

“ The whole century is like a great relic of the royal favorite.... She presides over that variety and that wide range of objects, so diverse in the universality of their type, that the eighteenth century created in her image to surround her existence, to serve her and to adorn her. ”

“ It is surely worth while, therefore, to make an attempt to individualize the centuries, not by affixing to them any arbitrary marks of one’s own, but by taking notice of the distinguishing quality they possess, and grouping round that, as a centre, the incidents which either produce this characteristic or are produced by it. What should we call the present century, for instance? We should at once name it the Century of Invention. ”

“ The suggestion that the nineteenth century cannot yet be judged as to its final effect in many directions has already been made, and of nothing is this more true than of its Art. Of one phase of this period, however, we may speak with confidence. No other century of which we know the history has seen so many changes—such progress, or such energy of purpose so largely rewarded as in the century we are considering. ”

“ It does not, I should suppose, lie in the way of The Century, whose general audience on both sides of the Atlantic takes only an amused interest in this singular revival of a traditional literary animosity—an anachronism in these tolerant days when the reading world cares less and less about the origin of literature that pleases it—it does not lie in the way of The Century to do more than report this phenomenal literary effervescence. ”

“ They have affected changes more subtle and perhaps less obvious which are at least as worthy of our consideration and are at least as unique in the history of the civilized world. No century has seen so great a change in our intellectual apprehension of the world in which we live. ”

“ This is only another example of their ability to combine the useful with the beautiful so characteristic of the century, stamping practically every phase of its accomplishment and making their work more admirable because its usefulness does not suffer on account of any strained efforts after supposed beauties. ”

“ For most people the impossible would apparently be accomplished if a century so far back as the Thirteenth were to be even seriously thought of as the greatest of centuries. Evolution has come to be accepted so unquestioningly, that of course "we are the heirs of all the ages of the foremost files of time," and must be far ahead of our forbears, especially of the distant past, in everything. ”

“ Without closer analysis, the above is true of the literature of all reading and writing peoples who have kept touch with the century’s progress. But it is especially true in the literature of English speaking peoples. History has, in accordance with a growing spirit of research, become more truthful, philosophy more expressive, and science more exact. The outcrop of books shows the yearnings of the century, not only as to their number but as to theme and treatment. ”

“ Measuring epochs, or eras, by spaces of a hundred years each, that which embraces the nineteenth century stands out in sublime and encouraging contrast with any that has preceded it. As the legatee of all prior centuries, it has enlarged and ennobled its bequest to an extent unparalleled in history; while it has at the same time, through a genius and energy peculiar to itself, created an original endowment for its own enjoyment and for the future richer by far than any heretofore recorded. ”

“ We find in it a harmony of power, a universality of endowment, a glow, an aspiring ambition and confidence such as we never find in later centuries, at least so generally and so permanently diffused. ...
The Thirteenth Century was an era of no special character. It was in nothing one-sided and in nothing discordant. It had great thinkers, great rulers, great teachers, great poets, {xii} great artists, great moralists, and great workmen. It could not be called the material age, the devotional age, the political age, or the poetic age in any special degree. ”

“ If we could affix to each century as characteristic a presentment as those portraits do of the steel-clad hero of Towton, or the be-wigged, be-buckled courtier of George the Second, our object would be gained. We should see a whole history in a glance at a century’s face. If it were peculiarly marked by nature or accident, so much the more easy would it be to recognise the likeness. If the century was a warlike, quarrelsome century, and had scars across its brow ”

“ The men of this epoch inherited a ferment of ideas attendant upon the historical revolt of the sixteenth century, and they bequeathed formed systems of thought touching every aspect of human life. It is the one century which consistently, and throughout the whole range of human activities, provided intellectual genius adequate for the greatness of its occasions. ”

“ It is a melancholy thing to consider the aberrations of the human mind and heart which almost daily are brought before our eyes in one form or another. We call our century a great age, the age of improvement and enlightenment. ”

“ It would be an arrogant pretension for the nineteenth century to assert its superiority over its illustrious predecessors, the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century, in all that concerns literature or art. ”

“ Taking the experience of the previous century as a basis, it may be estimated that some 40 per cent, at least of the eminent persons belonging to the first half of the nineteenth century are still alive. ”

“ There can be no more fitting time than this to review the marvelous progress of the closing century, through a portion of which all of us have lived, many of us through a great portion of it. Some of the greatest of its events have taken place before our own eyes; in some of them many now living have borne a part; to picture them again to our mental vision cannot fail to be of interest and profit to us all. ”

“ It is time that history should proportion itself to the reality, that it should allow to each influence its true measure, and that it should cease to place the masks of kings on epochs made in the image of poets and philosophers. To whom belongs the eighteenth century,—to Louis XV. or to Voltaire? Confront Versailles with Ferney, and see from which of these two points civilization flows.
A century is a formula; an epoch is a thought expressed,—after which, civilization passes to another. Civilization has phrases: these phrases are the centuries. ”

“ The thirteenth century has been called "the greatest of centuries," and, mainly, because it was the beginning period of emergence from the 'Dark Ages' and because the hearts of men were beginning to be thrilled with the anticipatory birth-throes of the coming revival of letters. ”

“ They see in it an entity of time with which the counting of years has little to do. Their somewhat mystical view is set forth in the following, which we quote from a communication that appeared in the "New York Times": "The centurial figures are the symbol, and the only symbol, of the centuries. Once every hundred years there is a change in the symbol, and this great secular event is of startling prominence. What more natural than to bring the century into harmony with its only visible mark? ”

“ Confined at first to the more wealthy classes, we can trace as time goes on its extension lower and lower in the social scale, until at the end of the 17th century its use was almost universal. Thenceforward its vogue steadily declined. ”

“ But it was eminently characteristic of the eighteenth century, an age of staid and decorous subsidence from the energetic restlessness of the seventeenth—an age in which men eschewed revolution and innovation, and devoted themselves assiduously to conserve, consolidate, polish, refine, and make the best of what they had. ”

“ In a more special sense, that of the distinctive varieties of literature, we may credit the nineteenth century with several marked steps of progress. The most meritorious works of the past ages were in the fields of poetry, drama, philosophy, oratory, and other branches of imaginative and metaphysical thought. The practice of accurate observation and the literature arising from it are very largely of nineteenth century development. ”