The American Whig Review, Volume 11Wiley and Putnam, 1850 - Periodicals |
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American answered appear beautiful become believe better British California called cause character claim common Congress considered Constitution continued course direct doubt duty effect England entire equal established existence eyes fact father feel force give hand head heart human important interest kind King land leave less light living look manner matter means measure ment mind Mosquito nature never North object once opinion party passed perhaps person political possession present principles question reason received regard respect seems Senate side slave slavery Somers soon South speak spirit stand sure taken territory thing thought tion true truth turned Union United vote whole writer York young
Popular passages
Page 288 - DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.
Page 296 - In the greenest of our valleys, By good angels tenanted, Once a fair and stately palace — Radiant palace — reared its head. In the monarch Thought's dominion — It stood there ! Never seraph spread a pinion Over fabric half so fair. Banners yellow, glorious, golden, On its roof did float and flow ; (This — all this — was in the olden Time long ago) And every gentle air that dallied, In that sweet day.
Page 288 - I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible.
Page 288 - ... upon opium, the bitter lapse into everyday life, the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it, I paused to think, what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher...
Page 292 - Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he ; not...
Page 293 - As when far off at sea a fleet descried Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring Their spicy drugs ; they on the trading flood, Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape, Ply stemming nightly toward the pole : so seem'd Far off the flying fiend.
Page 291 - Lyrical Ballads", in which it was agreed that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment which constitutes...
Page 291 - ... the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought, at the true purposes seized only at the last moment, at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view, at the fully matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable, at the cautious selections and rejections, at the painful erasures and interpolations...
Page 286 - Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart: one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to...
Page 288 - I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth.
Bibliographic information
| Title | The American Whig Review, Volume 11 Selected Americana from Sabin's Dictionary of books relating to America |
| Contributors | George Hooker Colton, Making of America Project, James Davenport Whelpley |
| Publisher | Wiley and Putnam, 1850 |
| Original from | Harvard University |
| Digitized | 22 Feb 2007 |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |