Lectures on English Literature: From Chaucer to TennysonJ.B. Lippincott & Company, 1867 - 387 pages |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 100
Page 24
... hearts have sorrowfully ponder'd , " Shall we behold his gentle face no more ? " The silent Sea no glad response returning , We cry , " O Sun ! that lightest nature's face , Dost thou not shine upon some favour'd place Where he is tost ...
... hearts have sorrowfully ponder'd , " Shall we behold his gentle face no more ? " The silent Sea no glad response returning , We cry , " O Sun ! that lightest nature's face , Dost thou not shine upon some favour'd place Where he is tost ...
Page 31
... heart . It is this , and this alone - this universality - which places a book in a Nation's literature . It matters not what the subject , or what the mode of treating - be there but one touch of nature to make the whole world kin - it ...
... heart . It is this , and this alone - this universality - which places a book in a Nation's literature . It matters not what the subject , or what the mode of treating - be there but one touch of nature to make the whole world kin - it ...
Page 32
... heart . The books that are not literature have the professional , the technical , but not the human stamp : some ... hearts of men , if but for a season ; and it is more last- ingly true of the higher literature - for instance , our ...
... heart . The books that are not literature have the professional , the technical , but not the human stamp : some ... hearts of men , if but for a season ; and it is more last- ingly true of the higher literature - for instance , our ...
Page 40
... heart may beat all the truer for it ; the mind's eye may see all the clearer for it . As you close a book , ask yourself what it has done for you ; and better , perhaps , than criticism or any outer counsel , shall the silent communings ...
... heart may beat all the truer for it ; the mind's eye may see all the clearer for it . As you close a book , ask yourself what it has done for you ; and better , perhaps , than criticism or any outer counsel , shall the silent communings ...
Page 41
... heart as friends , and friends for life : it will give also that confidence , most valuable in the days of multitudinous publications , the confidence in deter- mining what books , and they are very many , it is good to be immutably ...
... heart as friends , and friends for life : it will give also that confidence , most valuable in the days of multitudinous publications , the confidence in deter- mining what books , and they are very many , it is good to be immutably ...
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
admirable beauty Byron century character Charles Lamb Chaucer Christian Cowper criticism dark death deep discipline divine duty earnest earth England English language English literature English poetry expression Faery Queen familiar French Revolution genial genius gentle give glory guage habit happy hath heart honour Horace Walpole human imagination influence intellectual Jeremy Taylor Lady language lecture letters litera literary living look Lord Lord Byron Lord Chatham memory Milton mind moral nature never Paradise Lost pass passage passion philosophy poem poet poet's poetic prose racter reading remarkable sacred Saxon Scott sense Shakspeare song sorrow soul sound Southey Southey's speak speech Spenser spirit stanzas style sympathy Tenterden thing thou thought and feeling tion true truth uncon utterance verse wisdom wise wit and humour womanly words Wordsworth writings
Popular passages
Page 267 - They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs, which had been rent asunder; A dreary sea now flows between; But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once hath been.
Page 307 - Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, The young birds are chirping in the nest, The young fawns are playing with the shadows, The young flowers are blowing toward the west But the young, young children, O my brothers, They are weeping bitterly ! They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free.
Page 314 - Yet, even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols : and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.
Page 36 - Dreams, books, are each a world ; and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good : Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
Page 276 - I see before me the gladiator lie : He leans upon his hand ; his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his drooped head sinks gradually low ; And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now The arena swims around him ; he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
Page 116 - WE watched her breathing through the night, Her breathing soft and low, As in her breast the wave of life . Kept heaving to and fro. So silently we...
Page 207 - gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long : And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
Page 305 - 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 322 - He is made one with Nature: there is heard His voice in all her music, from the moan Of thunder to the song of night's sweet bird; He is a presence to be felt and known In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, Spreading itself where'er that Power may move Which has withdrawn his being to its own; Which wields the world with never-wearied love, Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.
Page 224 - Camoens soothed an exile's grief ; The sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp, It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The thing became a trumpet ; whence he blew Soul-animating strains — alas, too few...