The Oxford Book of American Essays |
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Page vii
... present generation , perhaps Heine is the sole German writer either of prose or of verse who has established his reputation broadly among the readers of other tongues than his own . And not more than one or two Spanish or Italian ...
... present generation , perhaps Heine is the sole German writer either of prose or of verse who has established his reputation broadly among the readers of other tongues than his own . And not more than one or two Spanish or Italian ...
Page viii
... present us with the results of their browsings among books and of their own dispersed meditations . In their hands the essay lacks cohesion and unity ; it is essentially discursive . Montaigne never stuck to his text , when he had one ...
... present us with the results of their browsings among books and of their own dispersed meditations . In their hands the essay lacks cohesion and unity ; it is essentially discursive . Montaigne never stuck to his text , when he had one ...
Page x
... present editor has excluded purely literary criticism , as not quite falling within the boundaries of the essay , properly so- called . Then he has avoided all set orations , although he has not hesitated to include more than one paper ...
... present editor has excluded purely literary criticism , as not quite falling within the boundaries of the essay , properly so- called . Then he has avoided all set orations , although he has not hesitated to include more than one paper ...
Page 2
... present friends are the children and grandchildren of the friends of my youth , who are now , alas , no more ! And I must soon follow them ; for , by the course of nature , though still in health , I cannot expect to live above seven or ...
... present friends are the children and grandchildren of the friends of my youth , who are now , alas , no more ! And I must soon follow them ; for , by the course of nature , though still in health , I cannot expect to live above seven or ...
Page 20
... present to your Old Bachelor , in hopes it may abate his choler , and reconcile him to a single life . But , if this opiate should not be sufficient to give him some ease , I may , perhaps , send him a stronger dose hereafter . " 6 JOHN ...
... present to your Old Bachelor , in hopes it may abate his choler , and reconcile him to a single life . But , if this opiate should not be sufficient to give him some ease , I may , perhaps , send him a stronger dose hereafter . " 6 JOHN ...
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Common terms and phrases
American artist beauty bees Cape Cod century character charm civilization colonial spirit comb honey Comédie Française Dante delight door dreams effect England English essay Europe fact fancy feel foreign FRANKLIN French friends genius George William Curtis give GOUT habit hand heroes honey Horace human imagination individual intellectual John Bull Kean kind Lapierre House less literary literature live look Massachusetts mediæval ment mind Molière moral nation nature never Nevermore night once Paris pass passion perhaps persons play poem poet poetic politics present race rendering rich Sarah Bernhardt Sarcey seems sense Sicily society soul speak stanza struggle sure Théâtre Français Theocritus things thought tion tone tree true turn universal suffrage W. D. Howells walk whole wild woods word writing young
Popular passages
Page 112 - Get thee back into the tempest and the night's Plutonian shore ! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken ! — Leave my loneliness unbroken ! — quit the bust above my door ! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door...
Page 141 - He touched the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, And now was dropt into the western bay. At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue : To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
Page 158 - Knowledge before — a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.
Page 128 - I WISH to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil, — to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society.
Page 34 - I know that all beneath the moon decays. And what by mortals in this world is brought, In time's great period shall return to nought. l know that all the muse's heavenly lays, With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought, As idle sounds, of few or none are sought, That there is nothing lighter than mere praise.
Page 21 - AN old song made by an aged old pate, Of an old worshipful gentleman, who had a great estate, That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate, And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate ; Like an old courtier of the queen's, And the queen's old courtier.
Page 1 - We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little fly, called an ephemera, whose successive generations, we were told, were bred and expired within the day. I happened to see a living company of them on a leaf, who appeared to be engaged in conversation.
Page 205 - The poets of the kosmos advance through all interpositions and coverings and turmoils and stratagems to first principles. They are of use — they dissolve poverty from its need, and riches from its conceit. You large proprietor, they say, shall not realize or perceive more than any one else. The owner of the library is not he who holds a legal title to it, having bought and paid for it. Any one and every one is owner of the library...
Page 100 - I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view — for he is false to himself who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest — I say to myself, in the first place, "Of the innumerable effects, or impressions, of which the heart, the intellect or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, choose?
Page 103 - Now the object, Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although attainable, to a certain extent, in poetry, far more readily attainable in prose. Truth, in fact, demands a precision, and Passion a homeliness (the truly passionate will comprehend me), which are absolutely antagonistic to that Beauty which, I maintain, is the excitement, or pleasurable elevation, of the soul.