Nineteenth Century English Prose: Critical Essays

Front Cover
Thomas H. Dickinson, Frederick William Roe
American book Company, 1908 - 495 pages
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 112 - The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.
Page 112 - Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help ? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind ; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it.
Page 296 - Earth has not anything to show more fair : Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers,, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Page 306 - The blaze upon the waters to the east ; The blaze upon his island overhead ; The blaze upon the waters to the west ; Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven, The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again The scarlet shafts of sunrise — but no sail.
Page 363 - She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary...
Page 450 - Who could resist the charm of that spiritual apparition, gliding in the dim afternoon light through the aisles of St Mary's, rising into the pulpit, and then, in the most entrancing of voices, breaking the silence with words and thoughts which were a religious music - subtle, sweet, mournful?
Page 112 - Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less ; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation. My Lord, your lordship's most humble, most obedient servant,
Page 301 - To be no more : sad cure! for who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity., To perish rather, swallow'd up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night, Devoid of sense and motion?
Page 222 - Then he instructed a young nobleman, that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into English verse, for which he must have them all subscribe. "For," says he, "the author shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for him.
Page 457 - Though love repine and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply : ' 'Tis man's perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die.

Bibliographic information