...last, and in some ways the noblest, humanist of them all, John Milton, would write, "Fame is the spur which the clear spirit doth raise ... To scorn delights and live laborious days." That it was also for Milton "That last infirmity of noble mind" is simply a reminder of the precariousness...

...still be true that in the greatest number of cases, and of the highest quality, Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise, To scorn delights, and live laborious days. That mysterious joy — incomprehensible if man were wholly mortal — which accompanies the hope of...

...or twice, went to a couple of parties among his inner circle, ran into him. "Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise ... To scorn delights, and live laborious days," Milton says, lamenting a friend lost at sea — a much different idea of fame from ours now. Maybe...

...down on fame as " That last infirmity of noble mind," had not forgotten that it was " The spur that the clear spirit doth raise, To scorn delights, and live laborious days *." The natural bent of character is perhaps better ascertained from the undisturbed and unconscious...

...crowning work by making the poetry of it a stalking-horse for his theological convictions. What was that Fame " Which the clear spirit doth raise To scorn delights and live laborious days," to the crown of a good preacher who sets " The hearts of men on fire To scorn the sordid world and...

...outraged people to the dread arbitrament of the God of battles. Fame was not to him "the spur that the clear spirit doth raise To scorn delights and live laborious days." The highest honors and the richest rewards in the power of a sovereign to bestow were his if he would...