The English Familiar Essay: Representative TextsWilliam Frank Bryan, Ronald Salmon Crane |
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Page iii
... pieces of literature do not belong to any single , unified genre . There are , however , a large number of writings commonly called " essays " which have traditionally been felt to consti- tute a distinct type . These are characterized ...
... pieces of literature do not belong to any single , unified genre . There are , however , a large number of writings commonly called " essays " which have traditionally been felt to consti- tute a distinct type . These are characterized ...
Page xiii
... piece entitled " That the Hour of Parley is Dangerous , " were merely brief collections of anecdotes and " sentences , " unified by a common sub- ject ; others , such as " Of the Inequality Amongst Us " and " Of Sorrow , " " 1 had a ...
... piece entitled " That the Hour of Parley is Dangerous , " were merely brief collections of anecdotes and " sentences , " unified by a common sub- ject ; others , such as " Of the Inequality Amongst Us " and " Of Sorrow , " " 1 had a ...
Page xiv
... pieces written between 1578 and 1580.2 Content no longer with a mere compilation of striking passages from his reading , Montaigne now aimed to give primarily his own reflections on moral and psychological subjects . The quotations and ...
... pieces written between 1578 and 1580.2 Content no longer with a mere compilation of striking passages from his reading , Montaigne now aimed to give primarily his own reflections on moral and psychological subjects . The quotations and ...
Page xv
... pieces the traits which had been slowly coming to characterize his writing since about 1574 became still more marked . The individual essays were longer ; the composition was if anything more rambling and discursive ; and , though the ...
... pieces the traits which had been slowly coming to characterize his writing since about 1574 became still more marked . The individual essays were longer ; the composition was if anything more rambling and discursive ; and , though the ...
Page xvi
... piece consisted of a series of brief , pointed maxims relating to the general subject proposed at the beginning ; there was little attempt at order ; and the individual maxims were quite devoid of concrete illustration or development of ...
... piece consisted of a series of brief , pointed maxims relating to the general subject proposed at the beginning ; there was little attempt at order ; and the individual maxims were quite devoid of concrete illustration or development of ...
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९९ acquaintance Addison admired Æneid appeared Aurengzebe Bacon beautiful better called century character cheerful Christ's Hospital coffee-house conversation Cornhill Magazine dear death delight discourse edition England English envy essayists Essays of Elia Eudoxus eyes fancy fear feel fortune Francis Bacon garden gentleman give hand happy hath Hazlitt heart Henri Estienne honour humour imagination kind King lady Lamb Lamb's Leigh Hunt less live London London Magazine look Magazine manner matter mind Montaigne Motto nature never night observed paper Paradise Lost passion person philosopher pleasure poet poor present reader Religio Medici Richard Steele Roman Sir Roger sort Spectator spirit story Tacitus talk taste Tatler tell things thou thought tion town truth turn virtue walk William Hazlitt word writing young youth
Popular passages
Page 31 - It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below; but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors and wanderings and mists and tempests in the vale below; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride.
Page 51 - GOD ALMIGHTY first planted a garden. And, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures ; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without which buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks.
Page 23 - STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring: for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business...
Page 45 - Eat not the heart." Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects : for it redoubleth joys and cutteth griefs in halves.
Page 146 - The valley that thou seest, said he, is the vale of misery, and the tide of water that thou seest is part of the great tide of eternity. What is the reason, said I, that the tide I see rises out of a thick mist at one end, and again loses itself in a thick mist at the other? What thou seest, said he, is that portion of eternity which is called time, measured out by the sun, and reaching from the beginning of the world to its consummation. Examine now, said he, this sea that is thus bounded with darkness...
Page 32 - Men fear Death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes mixture of vanity and of superstition. You shall read in some of the friars...
Page 65 - I found everywhere there (though my understanding had little to do with all this), and by degrees, with the tinkling of the rhyme, and dance of the numbers; so that I think I had read him all over before I was twelve years old, and was thus made a poet as immediately as a child is made an eunuch.
Page 148 - Does life appear miserable that gives thee opportunities of earning such a reward ? Is death to be feared that will convey thee to so happy an existence ? Think not man was made in vain, who has such an eternity reserved for him.
Page 145 - ... the day in meditation and prayer. As I was here airing myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell into a profound contemplation on the vanity of human life ; and passing from one thought to another, Surely, said I, man is but a shadow, and life a dream.
Page 220 - The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend. To these two original diversities may be reduced all those impertinent classifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, black men, red men. All the dwellers upon earth, " Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites," flock hither, and do naturally fall in with one or other of these primary distinctions.