EssaysA. L. Burt, 1860 - 402 pages |
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action animal appears beauty begin to hope behold believe Cæsar cerning character chivalry church conversation dæmon debt of honor divine earth equal Eumenides exist experience express eyes fact faith fancy fashion feel flower force frivolous genius gentleman gift give Goethe hand heart heaven hour human individual intellect labor leave live look Lord Lord Chatham man's manner marriage Mencius ment metamorphosis Midianites mind moral Napoleon nature never NOMINALIST numbers object party persons plant Plato Plutarch poet poetry politics poor present Proclus Pythagoras religion rich secret seems selfish sense sentiment society soul speak speech spirit stand stars symbol talent thee things thought tion true romance truth ture universe vidual virtue whilst whole wise wish wonder words Yunani Zoroaster
Popular passages
Page 163 - The rounded world is fair to see, Nine times folded in mystery: Though baffled seers cannot impart The secret of its laboring heart, Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast, And all is clear from east to west.
Page 212 - ... but the nature of the revolution is not affected by the vices of the revolters ; for this is a purely moral force. It was never adopted by any party in history, neither can be. It separates the individual from all party, and unites him, at the same time, to the race. It promises a recognition of higher rights than those of personal freedom, or the security of property. A man has a right to be employed, to be trusted, to be loved, to be revered. The power of love, as the basis of a State, has...
Page 25 - We are symbols and inhabit symbols; workmen, work, and tools, words and things, birth and death, all are emblems; but we sympathize with the symbols, and being infatuated with the economical uses of things, we do not know that they are thoughts. The poet, by an ulterior intellectual perception, gives them a power which makes their old use forgotten, and puts eyes and a tongue into every dumb and inanimate object. He perceives the independence of the thought on the symbol, the stability of the thought,...
Page 32 - But never can any advantage be taken of nature by a trick. The spirit of the world, the great calm presence of the Creator, comes not forth to the sorceries of opium or of wine. The sublime vision comes to the pure and simple soul in a clean and chaste body.
Page 194 - Ideas, build for eternity ; and that the form of government which 'prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it. The law is only a memorandum. We are superstitious, and esteem the statute somewhat : so much life as it has in the character of living men, is its force.
Page 14 - For we do not speak now of men of poetical talents, or of industry and skill in metre, but of the true poet. I took part in a conversation the other day, concerning a recent writer of lyrics...
Page 11 - The breadth of the problem is great, for the poet is rep'resentative. He stands among partial men for the complete man, and apprises us not of his wealth, but of the common wealth.
Page 145 - As Heaven and Earth are fairer, fairer far Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs; And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth In form and shape compact and beautiful, In will, in action free, companionship, And thousand other signs of purer life; So on our heels a fresh perfection treads, A power more strong in beauty, born of us And fated to excel us, as we pass In glory that old Darkness: nor are we Thereby more conquer'd, than by us the rule Of shapeless Chaos.
Page 20 - Therefore, science always goes abreast with the just elevation of the man, keeping step with religion and metaphysics; or, the state of science is an index of our self-knowledge. Since...
Page 166 - Nature to be the circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her. We have crept out of our close and crowded houses into the night and morning, and we see what majestic beauties daily wrap us in their bosom. How willingly we would escape the barriers which render them comparatively impotent, escape the sophistication and second thought, and suffer nature to intrance us. The tempered light of the woods is like a perpetual morning, and is stimulating...