Читать книгу The Life, Travels, and Literary Career of Bayard Taylor онлайн

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He was soon well acquainted with the history of the world, and had the most interesting events connected with the wars of Europe fresh in his mind. He read about Edinburgh, London, Paris, Berlin, and Dresden; of William the Conqueror, Peter the Great, Charlemagne, and Mahomet; of the adventures of the Crusaders, of the wars of the Roses, the Thirty Years’ War, and Napoleon’s campaigns; and, with each volume, built higher those castles in the air, which many youths construct on the excitement of such themes. It seems astonishing how a boy of fourteen years could appreciate so much of the books he read, when we recall the dulness and dryness which characterized almost every history then extant, and the exceedingly difficult subjects of which they treated. He read, one day, for a few minutes, in Unionville, in 1839, from a book that lay on the mantel-shelf, and although the subject was that of art and the beauty of Raphael’s Madonna and child, he understood it so well, and remembered it so clearly, that, in 1845, when at Dresden, where the picture was exhibited, he was able to recall the words of that description, and the name of the writer.