Instead of men endowed with divine authority and directly guided by the will of God,
modern history has given us either heroes endowed with extraordinary, superhuman capacities, or simply men of very various kinds, from monarchs to journalists, who lead the masses.
The place of manufacture was taken by the giant,
Modern Industry, the place of the industrial middle class, by industrial millionaires, the leaders of whole industrial armies, the
modern bourgeois.
In my time, the encouragers of
modern painting were limited in number to a few noblemen and gentlemen of ancient lineage, who, in matters of taste, at least, never presumed to think for themselves.
The men and women who live and move in that new world of his creation are as varied as life itself; they are kings and beggars, saints and lovers, great captains, poets, painters, musicians, priests and Popes, Jews, gipsies and dervishes, street-girls, princesses, dancers with the wicked [44] witchery of the daughter of Herodias, wives with the devotion of the wife of Brutus, joyous girls and malevolent grey-beards, statesmen, cavaliers, soldiers of humanity, tyrants and bigots, ancient sages and
modern spiritualists, heretics, scholars, scoundrels, devotees, rabbis, persons of quality and men of low estate--men and women as multiform as nature or society has made them.
I am a noble preserver," said the
Modern Swain, thoughtfully moving away; "the life that I have saved is indeed mine.
It is I, the
modern, who look back across the centuries and weigh and analyze the emotions and motives of Big-Tooth, my other self.
What Nietzsche strives to combat and to overthrow is the
modern democratic tendency which is slowly labouring to level all things--even the sexes.
After having made a few preparatory experiments, he concluded with a panegyric upon
modern chemistry, the terms of which I shall never forget: "The ancient teachers of this science," said he, "promised impossibilities and performed nothing.
In a word, a child of the
modern time--with the merits of the age we live in, and the failings of the age we live in--and a substance of sincerity and truth and feeling underlying it all.
I had the curiosity to inquire in a particular manner, by what methods great numbers had procured to themselves high titles of honour, and prodigious estates; and I confined my inquiry to a very
modern period: however, without grating upon present times, because I would be sure to give no offence even to foreigners
The name of Robin Hood, if duly conjured with, should raise a spirit as soon as that of Rob Roy; and the patriots of England deserve no less their renown in our
modern circles, than the Bruces and Wallaces of Caledonia.
The different elements contributed to the
modern English character by the latest stocks which have been united in it have been indicated by Matthew Arnold in a famous passage ('On the Study of Celtic Literature'): 'The Germanic [Anglo-Saxon and 'Danish'] genius has steadiness as its main basis, with commonness and humdrum for its defect, fidelity to nature for its excellence.
