The Writings of John Burroughs: Literary values and other papersHoughton, Mifflin, & Company, 1904 |
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Page 11
... mind is not somnolent or stagnant ; the style is specific and direct — no benumbing effects of vague and featureless generalizations . The thoughts move , they make a current , and the reader quickly yields himself to it . How soon we ...
... mind is not somnolent or stagnant ; the style is specific and direct — no benumbing effects of vague and featureless generalizations . The thoughts move , they make a current , and the reader quickly yields himself to it . How soon we ...
Page 12
... minds , so that we may consciously apply it as a test to any piece of writing about the literary character of which we ... mind . Will the definition or description bear turning around upon itself ? Is it a good sample of literary art ...
... minds , so that we may consciously apply it as a test to any piece of writing about the literary character of which we ... mind . Will the definition or description bear turning around upon itself ? Is it a good sample of literary art ...
Page 13
... mind ; it is more suggestive , while as a literary touchstone it is just as available . 66 Good literature may be a much simpler thing than our teachers would lead us to believe . The prattle of a child may have rare literary value ...
... mind ; it is more suggestive , while as a literary touchstone it is just as available . 66 Good literature may be a much simpler thing than our teachers would lead us to believe . The prattle of a child may have rare literary value ...
Page 15
... mind and emotion upon the facts of life and nature as results in our own mental and spiritual enrichment and edification . Another thing is true of the best literature : we cannot separate our pleasure and profit in the sub- ject ...
... mind and emotion upon the facts of life and nature as results in our own mental and spiritual enrichment and edification . Another thing is true of the best literature : we cannot separate our pleasure and profit in the sub- ject ...
Page 16
... mind ; his rela- tion to it is primary and personal , not secondary and mechanical . The secret is not in any prescribed ar- rangement of the words - it is in the quality of mind or spirit that warms the words and shines through them ...
... mind ; his rela- tion to it is primary and personal , not secondary and mechanical . The secret is not in any prescribed ar- rangement of the words - it is in the quality of mind or spirit that warms the words and shines through them ...
Common terms and phrases
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Popular passages
Page 10 - But to speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals and the unimpeachableness of the sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside is the flawless triumph of art.
Page 76 - I will not have in my writing any elegance or effect or originality to hang in the way between me and the rest like curtains. I will have nothing hang in the way not the richest curtains. What I tell I tell for precisely what it is.
Page 77 - Consider the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Page 185 - Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, That beat to battle where he stands; Thy face across his fancy comes, And gives the battle to his hands : A moment, while the trumpets blow, He sees his brood about thy knee ; The next, like fire he meets the foe, And strikes him dead for thine and thee. So Lilia sang: we thought her halfpossess'd, She struck such warbling fury thro...
Page 194 - I saw it distinctly, more than once, put out its short leg while on the wing, and, by a bend of the head, deliver somewhat into its mouth. If it takes any part of its prey with its foot, as I have now the greatest reason to suppose it does these chafers, I no longer wonder at the use of its middle toe, which is curiously furnished with a serrated claw.
Page 182 - The poet, the orator, bred in the woods, whose senses have been nourished by their fair and appeasing changes, year after year, without design and without heed, — shall not lose their lesson altogether, in the roar of cities or the broil of politics.
Page 180 - It is rapid harmony, exactly adjusted to the sense : It is vehement reasoning, without any appearance of art: It is disdain, anger, boldness, freedom, involved in a continued stream of argument : And, of all human productions, the orations of DEMOSTHENES present to us the models which, approach the nearest to perfection.
Page 183 - At the call of a noble sentiment, again the woods wave, the pines murmur, the river rolls and shines, and the cattle low upon the mountains, as he saw and heard them in his infancy. And with these forms, the spells of persuasion, the keys of power are put into his hands.
Page 199 - Spercheusque et virginibus bacchata Lacaenis Taygeta! o qui me gelidis convallibus Haemi sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra!
Page 225 - I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse and a turtle-dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them, describing their tracks, and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud; and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves.