Word: balzacs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Gesualdo is a village-eye view of the drama that fascinated other 19th century novelists, including Balzac: the drama of a society in which the aristocracy is withering, while the middle class and even the peasantry are elbowing their way into the mirrored halls. The book's hero is a harddriving, shrewd peasant who grows rich, to the dismay of the seedy local gentry. The story is chiefly concerned with the battle between tough, energetic Mastro-don Gesualdo and that gentry-with the rich ones who connive to block his designs on their dwindling lands, with the impoverished ones...
After their solitary confinement ended, they had the use of a library (Balzac, Hugo, etc.). and were allowed to play tennis with crude rackets and a thin rubber ball. Lieut. Cameron, a handy man with an accordion, wangled a cheap Russian model and taught the others to play. They got a daily Communist newssheet, full of propaganda, but saw only one American periodical in all their months of imprisonment: every week, Lieut. Cameron received from his brother, Bob, 21, a copy of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED which the Chinese passed on after inspecting it carefully and clipping out some of the articles...
Aneurin Bevan, Engineer Herbert Hoover, Philosopher Bertrand Russell, Actress Lillian Gish. The books and authors discussed were and continue to be uncompromisingly first class, from Aeschylus and Aristotle to Balzac and Brillat-Savarin, from Dante and Dostoevsky to Thucydides and Thackeray. Invitation to Learning is the only network program in the U.S. to devote full half-hour discussions consistently to such books as Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Aquinas' Being and Essence, and Agricola's De Re Metallica...
Preparing the Dossier. But more serious critics assailed the French judicial system itself. Under French law. there is no grand jury; instead, there is the juge d'instruction, whom Balzac called the most powerful man in the Republic. He performs the role of investigating magistrate. His great power is that, on his decision, and his alone, he can put any suspect in jail under "preventive detention'' while he investigates the case and prepares a dossier for the trial. Such "preventive detentions" can last for years...
...Ellenborough (1807-81) was a superb horsewoman and "the greatest beauty of her day." Jane thought that she could find salvation in "romantic relationships." Divorced by her husband for adultery with an Austrian prince, Jane moved to Paris, bore her princely lover two children, took up briefly with Novelist Balzac ("I have since noted," said he dryly, "that most women who sit a horse well are lacking in tenderness"). From Paris, Jane rode on to Bavaria, became the mistress of King Ludwig I, married a Bavarian baron and bore two more children. Swept off her feet by a Greek count...