English for Secondary Schools

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Houghton, Mifflin, 1912 - 352 pages
 

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Page 128 - DURING THE WHOLE OF a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.
Page 117 - The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread...
Page 296 - Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.
Page 61 - Let our conceptions be enlarged to the circle of our duties. Let us extend our ideas over the whole of the vast field in which we are called to act. Let our object be, our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country.
Page 335 - Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of, forgotten lore, — While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. '"Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door: Only this and nothing more.
Page 47 - ... village, too, used to employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not do for them. In a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business but his own ; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible. In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm ; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country ; everything about it went wrong, and would go wrong, in spite of him.
Page 296 - They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?
Page 333 - Meanwhile we did our nightly chores— Brought in the wood from out of doors, Littered the stalls, and from the mows Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows; Heard the horse whinnying for his corn; And, sharply clashing horn on horn, Impatient down the stanchion rows The cattle shake their walnut bows...
Page 319 - But pleasures are like poppies spread — You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed ; Or like the snow falls in the river — A moment white, then melts for ever; Or like the borealis race, That flit ere you can point their place ; Or like the rainbow's lovely form Evanishing amid the storm. Nae man can tether time or tide ; The hour approaches Tam maun ride; That hour, o...
Page 122 - tis, to cast one's eyes so low! The crows and choughs that wing the midway air Show scarce so gross as beetles: halfway down Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!

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