The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table: Every Man His Own BoswellHoughton, Mifflin, 1882 - 411 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
American elm asked asphyxia beauty beneath Benjamin Franklin better brain call John chair cheroot comes commonly conversation Cotton Mather course dandyism dear divinity-student Doctors of Divinity doubt dream England England town English elm eyes face fact falchion fancy feel feet flowers give green grow hand head hear heard heart horse Houyhnhnm human intellectual kind lady landlady's daughter laugh lecture lips literary living long path look man's mean meerschaum ment mind morning Nature never Note o'er old age once Paper Nautilus perhaps person poem poets poor porringer Profes Professor remarks remember round rowlocks schoolmistress seen smile sometimes soul speak spring stone story suppose sweet talk tell things thought tion told trees true truth turn uttered verses voice walk waves woman words write young fellow youth
Popular passages
Page 116 - Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: — Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll!
Page 310 - Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, Steel of the finest, bright and blue ; Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide ; Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide Found in the pit when the tanner died. That was the way he
Page 115 - This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main, — The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Page 312 - The parson was working his Sunday's text,— Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed At what the— Moses— was coming next. All at once the horse stood still, Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.
Page 327 - LITTLE I ask ; my wants are few : I only wish a hut of stone (A very plain brown stone will do) That I may call my own ; — And close at hand is such a one, In yonder street that fronts the sun. Plain food is quite enough for me ; Three courses are as good as ten ; — If Nature can subsist on three, Thank Heaven for three. Amen ! I always thought cold victual nice ; — My choice would be vanilla-ice.
Page 110 - I find the great thing in this world is, not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.
Page 310 - So the Deacon inquired of the village folk Where he could find the strongest oak, That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke, — That was for spokes and floor and sills; He sent for lancewood to make the thills; The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees, The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese, But lasts like iron for things like these; The hubs...
Page 309 - DEACON'S MASTERPIECE; OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-Hoss SHAY." A LOGICAL STORY. HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, That was built in such a logical way It ran a hundred years to a day, » And then, of a sudden, it — ah, but stay...
Page 310 - n' all the kentry raoun'; It should be so built that it couldn' break daown: — "Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain Thut the weakes' place mus' Stan' the strain; 'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, Is only jest T' make that place uz strong uz the rest.
Page 311 - Little of all we value here Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year Without both feeling and looking queer. In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, So far as I know, but a tree and truth. (This is a moral, that runs at...