Recollections of Eminent Men: With Other Papers

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Ticknor, 1886 - Biography - 397 pages
 

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Page 67 - Come, wander with me," she said, "Into regions yet untrod; And read what is still unread In the manuscripts of God. And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old nurse, Who sang to him night and day The rhymes of the universe. And whenever the way seemed long, Or his heart began to fail, She would sing a more wonderful song, Or tell a more marvellous tale.
Page 79 - How pure at heart and sound in head, With what divine affections bold Should be the man whose thought would hold An hour's communion with the dead. In vain shalt thou, or any, call The spirits from their golden day, Except, like them, thou too canst say, My spirit is at peace with all.
Page 77 - Seldom seen by wishful eyes, But all her shows did Nature yield, To please and win this pilgrim wise. He saw the partridge drum in the woods ; He heard the woodcock's evening hymn ; He found the tawny thrushes...
Page 162 - ... are against me. I do not here stand before you accused of venality or of neglect of duty. It is not said, that, in the long period of my service, I have in a single instance sacrificed the slightest of your interests to my ambition or to my fortune. It is not alleged, that, to gratify any anger or revenge of my own or of my party, I have had a share in wronging or oppressing any description of men, or any one man in any description.
Page 203 - Homer should above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author — that he is eminently rapid ', that he is eminently plain and direct, both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words ; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that is, in his matter and ideas ; and, finally that he is eminently noble ; I probably seem to be saying what is too general to be of much service to anybody.
Page 162 - The charges against me, are all of one kind, that I have pushed the principles of general justice and benevolence too far ; further than a cautious policy would warrant ; and further than the opinions of many would go along with me. In every accident which may happen through life, in pain, in sorrow, in depression, and distress — I will call to mind this accusation ; and be comforted.
Page 198 - Too fast we live, too much are tried, Too harass'd, to attain Wordsworth's sweet calm, or Goethe's wide And luminous view to gain.
Page 75 - ... very superior pyrotechny this evening!' Are the agents of nature, and the power to understand them, worth no more than a street serenade, or the breath of a cigar? One remembers again the trumpet-text in the Koran, — 'The heavens and the earth, and all that is between them, think ye we have created them in jest?
Page 197 - Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born, With nowhere yet to rest my head, Like these, on earth I wait forlorn. Their faith, my tears, the world deride ; I come to shed them at their side.
Page 275 - People are very good to me. Mr. Lewes, especially, is kind and attentive, and has quite won my regard, after having had a good deal of my vituperation. Like a few other people in the world, he is much better than he seems. A man of heart and conscience, wearing a mask of flippancy.

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