English TraitsG. Routledge, 1856 - 176 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
American Bacon beauty better bishop Britain British Celt Chartist church civil common Duke Duke of Wellington England English English nature Englishman Europe existence eyes force foreign French genius gentleman German give Gothic art Greek heart Heimskringla honour horse House of Commons hundred Inigo Jones intellectual island King labour land Landor learned live London look Lord Lord Collingwood Lord Eldon manners ment miles mind modern nation nature never noble opinion Oxford Parliament persons Plato poetry poets politics praise race religion rich Richard of Devizes Saxon scholars Scotland secret sense ship social society steam stone Stonehenge strength talent taste things thought thousand tion told tone trade traits truth walk wealth Wellington whilst Wordsworth write York minster
Popular passages
Page 58 - Lord Clarendon has pluck like a cock and will fight till he dies"; and what I heard first I heard last, and the one thing the English value is pluck. The word is not beautiful, but on the quality they signify by it the nation is unanimous.
Page 99 - Lane; in whose house there was oftentimes six oxen eaten at a breakfast, and every tavern was full of his meat: for he that had any acquaintance in that house might have there so much of sodden and roast meat as he could prick and carry upon a long dagger.
Page 7 - ... commonplaces. As I might have foreseen, the visit was rather a spectacle than a conversation, of no use beyond the satisfaction of my curiosity. He was old and preoccupied, and could not bend to a new companion and think with him.
Page 133 - That it be a receptacle for all such profitable observations and axioms as fall not within the compass of any of the special parts of philosophy or sciences, but are more common and of a higher stage.
Page 82 - Scotch are much handsomer; and that the English are great lovers of themselves, and of everything belonging to them; they think that there are no other men than themselves, and no other world but England; and whenever they see a handsome foreigner, they say that 'he looks like an Englishman...
Page 45 - His person was handsome and gigantic, he had so graceful elocution and noble address, that, had he been dropt out of the clouds in any part of the world, he would have made himself respected : he was skilled in six tongues, and master of arts and arms.
Page 75 - ... and run into absurd frolics with the gravity of the Eumenides. They stoutly carry into every nook and corner of the earth their turbulent sense; leaving no lie uncontradicted ; no pretension unexamined. They chew hasheesh; cut themselves with poisoned creases; swing their hammock in the boughs of the Bohon Upas; taste every poison; buy every secret; at Naples they put St. Januarius's blood in an alembic; they saw a hole into the head of the "winking Virgin...
Page 172 - I see, her not dispirited, not weak, but well remembering that she has seen dark days before ; — indeed with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, and that in storm of battle and calamity she has a secret vigor and a pulse like a cannon.
Page 8 - On my return I came from Glasgow to Dumfries, and being intent on delivering a letter which I had brought from Rome, inquired for Craigenputtock. It was a farm in Nithsdale, in the parish of Dunscore, sixteen miles distant. No public coach passed near it, so I took a private carriage from the inn. I found the house amid desolate heathery hills, where the lonely scholar nourished his mighty...
Page 3 - I found him noble and courteous, living in a cloud of pictures at his Villa Gherardesca, a fine house commanding a beautiful landscape. I had inferred from his books, or magnified from some anecdotes, an impression of Achillean wrath, — an untamable petulance. I do not know whether the imputation were just or not, but certainly on this May day his courtesy veiled that haughty mind and he was the most patient and gentle of hosts.