The Writer's Art by Those who Have Practiced itHarvard University Press, 1921 - 357 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
admire ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH artist Author of Beltraffio Bailey Saunders beautiful Besant called character colour composition consciousness convey course critic dénouement effect emotion English essay experience expression eyes fact fancy feel fiction force FRANK NORRIS genius GEORGE ELIOT give heart Henry James idea images imagination impression incident insincerity intellectual interest John Milton L'Assommoir language less literary Literature living look Madame Bovary manner matter means ment mind moral nature never Nevermore novel novelist object observed once opinion organology original paint passion perhaps person phrases picture poem poet poetical poetry principle prose question reader reason rience ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON seen sense sentence Sincerity sion soul speak speech story style success taste tell things thought tion tone true truth utter vision Walter Besant WILLIAM HAZLITT words write written
Popular passages
Page 179 - To hear the lark begin his flight And singing startle the dull night From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise; Then to come, in spite of sorrow, And at my window bid good-morrow Through the sweetbriar, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine: While the cock with lively din Scatters the rear of darkness thin, And to the stack, or the barn-door, Stoutly struts his dames before: Oft listening how the hounds and horn Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn, From the side of some hoar...
Page 143 - And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
Page 180 - When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn That ten day-labourers could not end ; Then lies him down, the lubber fiend, And, stretched out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength, And crop-full out of doors he flings, Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Page 63 - A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
Page 253 - ... the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity — the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.
Page 180 - And the mower whets his scythe, And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale.
Page 182 - And if I give thee honour due, Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free...
Page 102 - The border slogan rent the sky ! A Home ! a Gordon ! was the cry : Loud were the clanging blows ; Advanced, — forced back, — now low, now high, The pennon sunk and rose ; As bends the bark's mast in the gale, When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail, It wavered 'mid the foes.
Page 78 - If there be, what I believe there is, in every nation, a style which never becomes obsolete, a certain mode of phraseology so consonant and congenial to the analogy and principles of its respective language, as to remain settled and unaltered ; this style is probably to be sought in the common intercourse of life, among those who speak only to be understood, without ambition of elegance.
Page 210 - A novel is in its broadest definition a personal, a direct impression of life : that, to begin with, constitutes its value, which is greater or less according to the intensity of the impression.