Main currents in nineteenth century literature (1906) (14589700517)

Identifier: maincurrentsinni01bran (find matches)
Title: Main currents in nineteenth century literature
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Brandes, Georg Morris Cohen, 1842-1927 White, Diana Morison, Mary
Subjects: Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824 Literature -- History and criticism Nineteenth century Naturalism in literature Romanticism Lake poets
Publisher: New York : Macmillan Co. London, W. Heinemann ltd.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN



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rature and German affairs in general.Here, as in Edinburgh, he displayed more interest in thepolitics of the old Greek republics than in their poetry. We gain the most trustworthy information on thesubject of Constants youthful character and developmentfrom his letters to Mme. de Charriere, a gifted, free-thinkingSwiss authoress, Dutch by birth but completely Gallicised,who was over forty years of age when Constant, then inhis twentieth year, first made her acquaintance. It was inthis ladys house, sitting beside her while she wrote, that,at the age of nineteen, he began the great book on religionat which he was to work almost all his life, makingperpetual alterations as his views changed and took moredefinite form. He finished it thirty years later, in the hourswhich he could spare from the Chamber and the Parisgambling-tables. But it was begun at Mme. de Charrieres ;and there was a curious significance in the fact that thefirst instalment was written on the backs of a pack of playing
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BENJAMIN CONSTANT CONSTANT: ON RELIGION —ADOLPHE 65 cards, each card, as it was filled, being handed to his mentor.Constant expresses himself with absolute frankness in hisletters to this faithful and devoted friend; from them welearn how he felt and thought as a youth. The feelingsand thoughts are those of the eighteenth century, minusits enthusiasm for certain ideas, and plus a good deal ofdoubt. He writes :— I feel the emptiness of everything more than ever ;it is all promise and no fulfilment. I feel how superiorour powers are to our circumstances, and how wretched thisincongruity must inevitably make us. I wonder if God,who created us and our environment, did not die beforeHe finished His work, if the world is not an opus posthunium ?He had the grandest and most beautiful intentions, and allthe means for carrying them out. He had begun to usethese means, the scaffolding for the building was erected,but in the midst of His work He died. Everything is con-structed with an aim w