[Milton-L] A Milton quote

[jonnyangel]

That is from ³The Life of Friedrich Schiller² by Thomas Carlyle.

Yet among these men are to be found the brightest specimens and the chief
benefactors of mankind! It is they that keep awake the finer parts of our
souls; that give us better aims than power or pleasure, and withstand the
total sovereignty of Mammon in this earth. They are the vanguard in the
march of mind; the intellectual Backwoodsmen, reclaiming from the idle
wilderness new territories for the thought and the activity of their happier
brethren. Pity that from all their conquests, so rich in benefit to others,
themselves should reap so little! But it is vain to murmur. They are
volunteers in this cause; they weighed the charms[54] of it against the
perils: and they must abide the results of their decision, as all must. The
hardships of the course they follow are formidable, but not all inevitable;
and to such as pursue it rightly, it is not without its great rewards. If an
author's life is more agitated and more painful than that of others, it may
also be made more spirit-stirring and exalted: fortune may render him
unhappy; it is only himself that can make him despicable. The history of
genius has, in fact, its bright side as well as its dark. And if it is
distressing to survey the misery, and what is worse, the debasement of so
many gifted men, it is doubly cheering on the other hand to reflect on the
few, who, amid the temptations and sorrows to which life in all its
provinces and most in theirs is liable, have travelled through it in calm
and virtuous majesty, and are now hallowed in our memories, not less for
their conduct than their writings. Such men are the flower of this lower
world: to such alone can the epithet of great be applied with its true
emphasis. There is a congruity in their proceedings which one loves to
contemplate: 'he who would write heroic poems, should make his whole life a
heroic poem.'

So thought our Milton; and, what was more difficult, he acted so. To Milton,
the moral king of authors, a heroic multitude, out of many ages and
countries, might be joined; a 'cloud of witnesses,' that encompass the true
literary man throughout his pilgrimage, inspiring him to lofty emulation,
cheering his solitary thoughts with hope, teaching him to struggle, to
endure, to conquer difficulties, or, in failure and heavy sufferings, to
'arm th' obdured breast
With stubborn patience as with triple steel.'

Peace, 

J





On 11/30/08 1:12 AM, "Nancy Charlton" <pastorale55 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> "Dr Mardy's Quotes of the Week" just came in, and I find a Milton quotation in
> it:
> 
>  "Let him who would write heroic poems make his life a heroic poem."
>           John Milton
> 
> I have no convenient way to find out where in Milton's oeuvre this is found. I
> find the idea intriguing though. Very Renaissance, echo of Jonson's poem where
> he dubs his son his best poem.
> 
> Nancy Charlton
> http://groups.google.com/group/paradiselostdaily
> 
> . . . Till old experience do attain
> To something like prophetic strain.  (Il Penseroso)
> 
> 
>  
> 
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