The British Essayists: With Prefaces, Historical and Biographical, Volume 29

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Little, Brown, 1856 - English essays

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Page 181 - Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendant world; or to be worse than worst Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible!
Page 181 - tis too horrible ! The weariest and most loathed worldly life, ^ That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment Can lay on nature, is a paradise To what we fear of death.
Page 114 - Umphraville's early acquaintance, who continues to reside in this city, and of whom he still retains some resemblance. That gentleman, in his youth, had applied to the study of the law, and was admitted to the bar ; but having soon after succeeded to a tolerable fortune, he derives no other benefit from his profession than an apology for residing part of the year in town, and such a general acquaintance there, as enables him to spend his time in that society -which is suited to his disposition.
Page 264 - The time is out of joint : — 0, cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right ! — Nay, come, let 's go together.
Page 147 - I; and at last, after completing his seventh year, was seized with a fever, which, in a few days, put an end to his life, and transferred to me the inheritance of my ancestors.
Page 264 - The spirit that I have seen May be the devil : and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, — As he is very potent with such spirits, — Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds More relative than this: — the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Page 262 - O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword; The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
Page 135 - And wisdom's self Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude, Where with her best nurse, contemplation, She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings, That in the various bustle of resort Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd. He that has light within his own clear breast May sit i...
Page 102 - One of the finest moral tales I ever read, is an account of a dream in the Tatler, which, though it has every appearance of a real dream, comprehends a moral so sublime and so interesting, that I question whether any man who attends to it can ever forget it ; and, if he remembers, whether he can ever cease to be the better for it. Addison is the author of the paper ; and I shall give the story in his own elegant words : — * I was once...
Page 96 - The phantom flies me, as unkind as you. I call aloud; it hears not what I say: I stretch my empty arms; it glides away. To dream once more I close my willing eyes; Ye soft illusions, dear deceits, arise!

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