United States or Ethiopia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I knew besides another thing that gave me joy. I knew that my friend had succeeded in my education; that the romance of business, if our fantastic purchase merited the name, had at last stirred my dilletante nature; and, as we swept under cloudy Tamalpais and through the roaring narrows of the bay, the Yankee blood sang in my veins with suspense and exultation.
Any success in propagandism which they may have achieved is to be traced to a natural impatience, especially among dilletante politicians, whose experience is purely academic, at the slowness of the Parliamentary machine in effecting reforms, but any force which it possesses is discounted by the fact that men whose views are extreme in youth tend to become the most moderate with advancing years a fact of which a classic example is to be found in the career of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, one of the most distinguished of the Young Irelanders, who, after a brilliant career in Australia, returned to European his old age and spent several years in the attempt to persuade Conservatives to adopt the policy of Home Rule a propaganda on his part to which the episode of Lord Carnarvon bears witness, and which was advocated by him in the National and Contemporary Reviews in 1884 and 1885.
At a later period, however, he lived for some time at the court of Lucca, but soon found it more pleasant and profitable to resume his itinerant habits. He visited all parts of Italy, but usually made Genoa his head-quarters, where, however, he preferred to play the part of the dilletante to that of the virtuoso, and performed in private circles without giving public concerts.
One such gentleman say a young and active solicitor, with a moderate salary, as permanent secretary in order to secure and, in some measure, requite his services throughout the year would be worth fifty dilletante "friends of the good cause dropping in every now and then," but whose "friendship" evaporates in mere talk.
An expert, a dilletante, was no better judge of pictures and operas; the great artists who shone in the reign of Charles X. received from the amiable Princess the most precious encouragements. Nor did she forget to encourage the efforts of beginners. "Who, then," she said, "would buy the works of these poor young people, if I did not?"
From his first appearance in public, at the age of twelve, his genius was acknowledged with enthusiasm throughout the whole republic of art, from Beethoven down to the obscurest dilletante, and it may be asserted that the history of music knows no instance of success approaching that achieved by the performances of this great player in every capital of Europe, from Madrid to St. Petersburg.
This latter group, to make good their claims, made a great show of intellectuality, and cultivated most persistently a dilletante dabbling into all sorts of scientific and artistic matters. Because of Marguerite's high credit in Royal blood she was courted by "purists" by whom I was only tolerated on her account.
It was a source of much pleasure to Moscheles that his brilliant scholar, who played much at private soirées, was not only recognized by the dilletante public generally, but by such veteran artists as Clementi and Cramer. Moscheles, in his diary, speaks of the wonderful brilliancy of a grand fancy dress ball given by Thalberg's princely father at Covent Garden Theatre.
This was the time of the great excavations about Rome; treasures of ancient art were daily being rescued from the soil, and Cardinal Sforza-Riario was a great dilletante and collector of the antique. With pride of possession, he conducted the young sculptor through his gallery, and, displaying his statuary to him, inquired could he do anything that might compare with it.
"I hope that you discovered something to interest you," he said. "I was reading a poem," Lettice answered, rather guiltily. "Oh Alan Walcott's 'Sorrow'? Very well done, isn't it? but a trifle morbid, all the same." "It is very sad. Is he has he had much trouble?" "I'm sure I couldn't tell you. Probably not, as he writes about it," said Graham, grimly. "He's a pessimist and a bit of a dilletante.
Word Of The Day