Modern English Prose

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George Rice Carpenter, William Tenney Brewster
Macmillan, 1904 - 481 pages
 

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Page 380 - But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
Page 352 - Meek young men grow up in libraries believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books.
Page 351 - Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit this. Yet hence arises a grave mischief. The sacredness which attaches to the act of creation,— the act of thought, — is transferred to the record. The poet chanting, was felt to be a divine man: henceforth the chant is divine also. The writer was a just and wise spirit henceforward it is settled, the book is perfect; as love of the hero corrupts into...
Page 26 - ... a multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered into a long low pyramid of colored light; a treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold, and partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with sculpture of alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as ivory...
Page 373 - I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily...
Page 395 - Secondly, the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits ; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow: without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong.
Page 383 - THE subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity ; but Civil, or Social Liberty : the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.
Page 427 - She was none of your lukewarm gamesters, your half and half players, who have no objection to take a hand, if you want one to make up a rubber ; who affirm that they have no pleasure in winning; that they like to win one game, and lose another...
Page 367 - I AM monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute ; From the centre all round to the sea I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
Page 52 - yes, yes." "You? Impossible! A mason?" "A mason," I replied. "A sign,

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