The Genius of America: Studies in Behalf of the Younger GenerationC. Scribner's sons, 1923 - 267 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
activities æsthetic American artist arts average beauty become cerned character church civilization Cotton Mather Creon critical culture declared democracy democratic desire discipline Dreiser emancipation Emerson England English expression eyes feel Franklin friends GENIUS OF AMERICA Gerould give Gopher Prairie hand happy heart heroes high school human ideal imagination intellectual Jacksonian democracy John Quincy Adams John Winthrop letters literary literature living Mark Twain matter means ment merely mind Miss Lulu Bett modern spirit moral national genius nature one's passion perhaps person philosophy pleasure poet point of view political popular practical present Puritan recognize religion religious replied revolt Roman sense social society Sophocles soul standards subjunctive mood Taoist things THOREAU Thorpe thought tion tradition truth virtue vision Whitman wife William Vaughn Moody women word writers young
Popular passages
Page 33 - I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Page 70 - Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report, if there be any virtue, or any praise, think on these things.
Page 41 - They went through the world, like Sir Artegal's iron man Talus with his flail, crushing and trampling down oppressors, mingling with human beings, but having neither part nor lot in human infirmities, insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain, not to be pierced by any weapon, not to be withstood by any barrier.
Page 4 - It is a secret which every intellectual man quickly learns, that, beyond the energy of his possessed and conscious intellect, he is capable of a new energy (as of an intellect doubled on itself), by abandonment to the nature of things ; that, beside his privacy of power as an individual man, there is a THE POET.
Page 69 - Good," which, I think, was written by your father. It had been so little regarded by a former possessor that several leaves of it were torn out, but the remainder gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influence on my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good than on any other kind of reputation ; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owes the advantage of it to that book.
Page 72 - Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness.
Page 71 - It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time, and to conquer all that either natural inclination, custom or company, might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other.
Page 149 - They have doubled their population every twenty years. They have begotten, with a rapidity beyond recorded example, Eighteen Millions of the greatest bores ever seen in this world before, — that hitherto is their feat in History!
Page 252 - I thank God, there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years. For learning has brought disobedience and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both"!
Page 4 - If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost ; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.