Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Lothrop Motley: Two Memoirs

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Houghton, Mifflin, 1892 - 542 pages
 

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Page 470 - The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland : with a View of the Primary Causes and Movements of " The Thirty Years
Page 87 - They did not yet see, and thousands of young men as hopeful now crowding to the barriers for the career do not yet see, that if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.
Page 83 - Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The millions, that around us are rushing into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests.
Page 80 - A subtle chain of countless rings The next unto the farthest brings, The eye reads omens where it goes, And speaks all languages the rose; And, striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form.
Page 90 - Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb; honey and milk are under thy tongue ; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
Page 71 - Paradise, and groves Elysian, Fortunate Fields — like those of old Sought in the Atlantic Main — why should they be A history only of departed things, Or a mere fiction of what never was ? For the discerning intellect of Man, When wedded to this goodly universe In love and holy passion, shall find these A simple produce of the common day.
Page 85 - There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world.
Page 94 - The stationariness of religion; the assumption that the age of inspiration is past, that the Bible is closed; the fear of degrading the character of Jesus by representing him as a man; indicate with sufficient clearness the falsehood of our theology. It is the office of a true teacher to show us that God is, not was; that He speaketh, not spake.
Page 306 - The sky is changed ! — and such a change ! O night, And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman ! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, Leaps the live thunder ! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to...
Page 88 - We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds. The study of letters shall be no longer a name for pity, for doubt, and for sensual indulgence. The dread of man and the love of man shall be a wall of defence and a wreath of joy around all. A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.

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