English Prose: From Maundevile to Thackeray

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Arthur Howard Galton
W. Scott, 1888 - English prose literature - 333 pages

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Page 275 - If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession- of Commodus.
Page 256 - My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the effect of force, and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource : for, conciliation failing, force remains ; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left.
Page 273 - Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom ; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.
Page 26 - My loving people, we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery. But I assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear.
Page 262 - These are deep questions, where great names militate against each other, where reason is perplexed, and an appeal to authorities only thickens the confusion. For high and reverend authorities lift up their heads on both sides, and there is no sure footing in the middle. This point is the great Serbonian bog betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, where armies whole have sunk.
Page 257 - ... First, the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas, and on English principles.
Page 298 - I made him a present of - the whole cake! I walked on a little, buoyed up as one is on such occasions with a sweet soothing of self-satisfaction; but before I had got to the end of the bridge my better feelings returned, and I burst into tears, thinking how ungrateful I had been to my good aunt to go and give her good gift away to a stranger that I had never seen before and who might be a bad man for aught I knew; and then I thought of the pleasure my aunt would be taking in...
Page 273 - Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land Tax Act which raises your revenue? that it is the annual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives you your army? or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline? No! surely no! It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution...
Page 256 - First, sir, permit me to observe, that the use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment, but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered.
Page 299 - ... a substance naturally so mild and dulcet as the flesh of young pigs. It looks like refining a violet. Yet we should be cautious, while we condemn the inhumanity how we censure the wisdom of the practice. It might impart a gusto. I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young students when I was at St.

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