The Writer's Handbook, a Guide to the Art of Composition, Embracing a General Treatise on Composition and Style: Instruction in English Composition, with Exercises for Paraphrasing; and an Elaborate Letter-writer's Vademecum, in which are Numerous Rules and Suggestions Relating to the Epistolary Art, Volumes 1-3 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
adverb allegory ancient appear Aristotle arrangement beauty Beggar's Opera blank verse character Cicero circumstances city of York composition connexion death degree discourse effect elegance employed English English language Essays examples expression eyes fancy figure frequently genius give grace hand happy hath heart heaven Homer honour human humour idea imagination imitation instances introduced kind Koreish labour language learned letters literary living Mahomet manner meaning ment metaphor mind musical nature never object observed ornament passage passion past period person personification perspicuity pleasure poet poetry possessed precision produce proper propriety prose qualities reader remarkable resemblance Roger Ascham Roman Roman Empire Roman Republic rule seems sense sentence sentiments simile simplicity Sir William Temple soul sound speak strength style taste things thou thought tion tragedy trope truth verb verse Virgil virtue words writer
Popular passages
Page 160 - Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt : Thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it. Thou preparedst room before it, And didst cause it to take deep root, And it filled the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, And the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the sea, And her branches unto the river.
Page 84 - Yet he was kind; or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault; The village all declared how much he knew; 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too; Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, And even the story ran that he could gauge...
Page 31 - Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison...
Page 231 - He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too.
Page 35 - By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord ! Thou great first Cause, least understood, Who all my sense confined To know but this, that Thou art good, And that myself am blind ; Yet gave me, in this dark estate, To see the good from ill ; And binding nature fast in fate, Left free the human will.
Page 109 - The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around: It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, Like noises in a swound!
Page 232 - Catiline. But he has done his robberies so openly that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him.
Page 238 - I passed some time in the contemplation of this wonderful structure, and the great variety of objects which it presented. My heart was filled with a deep melancholy to see several dropping unexpectedly in the midst of mirth and jollity, and catching at everything that stood by them to save themselves.
Page 85 - To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been ; To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, With the wild flock that never needs a fold ; Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean ; This is not solitude ; 'tis but to hold Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unroll'd.
Page 144 - Our two souls, therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two ; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th