Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, Volume 5Chapman and Hall, 1891 |
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Abbé Abbotsford Bar-sur-Aube become behold better biography Boehmer brave Buffière Cagliostro centuries Chartism Countess de Lamotte Deutsch-Wagram Earth Eminence England English eyes fact faculty feeling Fils Adoptif fire fixed-idea forever formulas France French Revolution friends Gabriel Honoré genius Georgel Goethe hand head heart Heaven honour hope human Isle of Rhé Jean Paul kind King labour Laissez-faire Lettre de Cachet Liddesdale living look Madame man's manner Manosque Marquis Mirabeau matter means Mémoires ment Misc Monseigneur Nature Necklace never noble old Marquis once Pailly Palais Royal Paris Parliament perhaps Pontarlier poor Poor-Law Queen question Rahel reader Richard Arkwright Riquetti Rohan Romance Royal Saverne seems sort soul speak strong struggling thee things thou thought tion true truth Varnhagen Versailles Volumes Walter Scott Waverley Novels whole wife withal word worth write
Popular passages
Page 47 - Sorrow,' for thee and all the wretched ! Thy path of thorns is nigh ended. One long last look at the Tuileries, where thy step was once so light, — where thy children shall not dwell The head is on the block ; the axe rushes — Dumb lies the World ; that wild-yelling World, and all its madness, is behind thee.
Page 270 - We might say in a short word, which means a long matter, that your Shakspeare fashions his characters from the heart outwards ; your Scott fashions them from the skin inwards, never getting near the heart of them...
Page 258 - A something of imposing and mysterious ' — to lament the obscurity, in which his illustrious but too modest correspondent still chose to conceal himself from the plaudits of the world; to thank the company for the manner in which the nominis umbra had been received; and to assure them that the Author of Waverley would, when informed of the circumstance, feel highly delighted — ' The proudest hour of his life,
Page 270 - Queen Elizabeth ! It is the utterance of a man of open soul ; of a brave, large, free-seeing man, who has a true brotherhood with all men. In joyous picturesqueness and fellow-feeling, freedom of eye and heart; or to say it in a word, in general healthiness of mind, these Novels prove Scott to have been amongst the foremost writers.
Page 352 - ... no home, but a dingy prison-house, of reckless unthrift, rebellion, rancour, indignation against themselves and against all men. Is it a green flowery world, with azure everlasting sky stretched over it, the work and government of a God ; or a murky-simmering Tophet, of copperas-fumes, cotton-fuzz, gin-riot, wrath and toil, created by a Demon, governed by a Demon?
Page 248 - The candid judge will, in general, require that a speaker, in so extremely serious a Universe as this of ours, have something to speak about. In the heart of the speaker there ought to be some kind of gospel-tidings, burning till it be uttered ; otherwise it were better for him that he altogether held his peace. A gospel somewhat more decisive than this of Scott's, — except to an age altogether languid, without either scepticism or faith!
Page 46 - Mean weeds, which her own hand has mended, attire the Queen of the World. The death-hurdle, where thou sittest pale motionless, which only curses environ, has to stop: a people, drunk with vengeance, will drink it again in full draught, looking at thee there. Far as the eye reaches, a multitudinous sea of maniac heads ; the air deaf with their triumph-yell...
Page 266 - ... at Abbotsford, or the quiet circle of the cottage. When his guests were few and friendly, he often made them come over and meet him at Chiefswood in a body towards evening ; and surely he never appeared to more amiable advantage than when helping his young people with their little arrangements upon such occasions. He was ready with all sorts of devices to supply the wants of a narrow establishment ; he used to delight particularly in sinking the wine in a well under the brae ere he went out,...
Page 266 - I spent this summer and autumn of 1821 ; — the first of several seasons which will ever dwell on my memory as the happiest of my life. We •were near enough Abbotsford to partake as often as we liked of its brilliant...
Page 324 - Chartism means the bitter discontent grown fierce and mad, the wrong condition therefore or the wrong disposition, of the Working Classes of England. It is a new name for a thing which has had many names, which will yet have many.X The matter of Chartism is weighty, deep-rooted, far-extending ; did not begin yesterday ; will by no means end this day or tomorrow.