United States or Uzbekistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I carried with me some promethean matches, which I ignited by biting; it was thought so wonderful that a man should strike fire with his teeth, that it was usual to collect the whole family to see it: I was once offered a dollar for a single one.
For, the former has his Promethean strokes, all unpremeditated, compelled by the inner sequence, as when Beethoven strikes the prophetic drum in the grim Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony; or in the Eroica when the horn sounds sheer ahead, out of line with the sustaining chorus; or when Bach leaps to his harmonic heights in organ fantasy and toccata; or Mozart sings his exquisite clashes in the G Minor Symphony.
All this is admirably expressed in the Promethean title of the book. We do not think that it can be profitably read, or with an intelligent respect for its great author, unless we recall the period, the state of politics, religion, domestic life, the new German age of thought which was rising, with ferment, amid uncouth gambolling shapes of jovial horn-blowing fellows, from the waves.
Who can forget Othello's soliloquy as he prepares to darken his marriage chamber before the murder of his wife? "Put out the light, and then put out the light. If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, I can again thy former light restore, Should I repent me; but once put out thy light, Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat, That can thy light relume.
The processes of our industries, in what is now their daily artisan routine, include, repeat, condense, what were yesterday or longer ago living inventions, each instinct with Promethean fire. The hackneyed ornament of our homes was once glowing with beauty, radiant or dark with symbolism.
On the mantel-piece was a massive bronze clock, with a figure of Prometheus chained to a rock on the top, and the vulture digging into his ribs. And Buller, as he noticed this, remembered, with the clearness afforded by funk spoken of above, that an uncle of his, who was an ardent homeopathist, had an explanation of his own of the old Promethean myth.
Then, with a Promethean or convex glass condensing the sun's rays, he kindled the flame which consumed the records containing the hated Yazoo Act. Jackson was a man of ordinary height, slender, very erect in his carriage, with red hair and intensely blue eyes. His manners were courteous, affable, and remarkable for a natural dignity which added greatly to his influence with the people.
As in this interesting occupation the heads of the hostess and the guest approached each other, the glowing light playing cheerily on the countenance of each, there was an honest simplicity in the picture that would have merited the racy and vigorous genius of a Cruikshank. As soon as the Promethean spark had been fully communicated to the lady's tube, Mrs.
But the daring rebel, the defiant Titan, comes creeping back to the shelter of morality with a headache or something worse, and discovers that his Promethean boldness was but childish petulance; that it is futile and foolish to try to escape the inexorable laws of human life.
There are decisive moments in life when, just as the electric lights suddenly flash out in the darkness of a great city, so the eternal fires flare up in the darkness of the soul. A spark darting from another soul is enough to transmit the Promethean fire to the waiting soul.
Word Of The Day