Late Seventeenth Century

Famous quotes containing the words seventeenth century, late and/or seventeenth:

    The general feeling was, and for a long time remained, that one had several children in order to keep just a few. As late as the seventeenth century . . . people could not allow themselves to become too attached to something that was regarded as a probable loss. This is the reason for certain remarks which shock our present-day sensibility, such as Montaigne’s observation, “I have lost two or three children in their infancy, not without regret, but without great sorrow.”
    Philippe Ariés (20th century)

    Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned,
    And where the fieldfare followed in the rear,
    When all the fields around lay bound and hoar
    Beneath a thick integument of snow.
    So by God’s cheap economy made rich
    To go upon my winter’s task again.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The general feeling was, and for a long time remained, that one had several children in order to keep just a few. As late as the seventeenth century . . . people could not allow themselves to become too attached to something that was regarded as a probable loss. This is the reason for certain remarks which shock our present-day sensibility, such as Montaigne’s observation, “I have lost two or three children in their infancy, not without regret, but without great sorrow.”
    Philippe Ariés (20th century)