N the course of relating the incidents I have undertaken to report, _i

[Popovic]

Al favorite, the _cause celebre_, what pulpit, bar, peasant and beau,
doctor and lady _a la mode_ do, say, and are, then and there, must
coalesce with the battle, the legislation, and the treaty,--or these
last are but technical landmarks, instead of human interests. Even our
most generalized historical ideas are made emphatic only through
association and observation. How the vague sense of Roman dominion is
deepened as we trace the outline of a camp, the massive ranges of a
theatre, or the mouldy effigy on a coin, in some region far distant from
the Imperial centre,--as at Nismes or Chester! How complete becomes the
idea of mediaeval life, contemplated from the ramparts of a castle, in
the "dim, religious light" of an old monastic chapel, or amid the
obsolete trappings and weapons of an armory! What a distinct and
memorable revelation of ancient Greece is the Venus or Apollo, a
Parthenon frieze or a fateful drama! The best political essays on the
French Revolution are based on the economical and social facts recorded
in the Travels of Arthur Young. The equivocal action of Massena, when he
commanded Paris against the Allies, is explained in the recently
published letter of Joseph Bonaparte, wherein we learn his deficiency of
muskets. Humboldt accounted for the defects of Prescott's "Conquest of
Mexico" by the fact that the historian had never visited that country.
Napoleon gave a key to the misfortunes of Italy, when he said, "It is a
peninsula too long for its breadth." And the significance of the Seven
Years' War is expressed in a single phrase by Milton's last biographer,
when he defines it as the "consummation politically and the attenuation
spirit
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: gemmates.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 15040 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-voip-maintainers/attachments/20090817/d11e68f0/attachment-0001.jpg>