Rousseau and Romanticism

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Houghton Mifflin, 1919 - Idealism in literature - 426 pages

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Page 282 - My soul is an enchanted boat, Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing; And thine doth like an angel sit Beside a helm conducting it; Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing. It seems to float ever, for ever. Upon that many-winding river. Between mountains, woods, abysses, A paradise of wildernesses! Till, like one in slumber bound, Borne to the ocean, I float down, around, Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound: Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its...
Page 303 - O Lady ! we receive but what we give, And in our life alone does Nature live; Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud ! And would we aught behold, of higher worth, Than that inanimate cold world allowed To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd, Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the Earth — And from the soul itself must there be sent A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, Of all sweet sounds the life and element...
Page 13 - This worthless present was designed you long before it was a play; when it was only a confused mass of thoughts, tumbling over one another in the dark; when the fancy was yet in its first work, moving the sleeping images of things towards the light, there to be distinguished, and then either chosen or rejected by the judgment; it was yours, my Lord, before I could call it mine.
Page 12 - ... those that observe their similitudes, in case they be such as are but rarely observed by others, are said to have a good wit ; by which, in this occasion, is meant a good fancy.
Page 303 - Ah! then, if mine had been the Painter's hand, To express what then I saw; and add the gleam The light that never was on sea or land, The consecration and the Poet's dream; I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile! Amid a world how different from this!
Page 184 - The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no ; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes.
Page 316 - She dwells with Beauty — Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee'mouth sips: Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
Page 37 - An Original may be said to be of a vegetable nature; it rises spontaneously from the vital root of genius; it grows, it is not made...
Page 192 - So that in the first place I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.
Page 280 - I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me : and to me, High mountains are a feeling...

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