Philosophy of the Waverley Novels

Front Cover
Smith, Elder & Company, 1879 - 362 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 66 - Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them; Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun And descant on mine own deformity; And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Page 67 - And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Page 144 - Secondly, however, we may say, these Historical Novels have taught all men this truth, which looks like a truism, and yet was as good as unknown to writers of history and others, till so taught: that the bygone ages of the world were actually filled by living men, not by protocols, statepapers, controversies and abstractions of men.
Page 11 - Implored your highness' pardon and set forth A deep repentance : nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it ; he died As one that had been studied in his death, To throw away the dearest thing he owed* As 'twere a careless trifle.
Page 308 - We all willingly yield the palm of sovereignty to your unrivalled ability and virtue, except the few among us, who, either ambitious of honours which they have not the capacity to sustain, or who envy those which are conferred on one more worthy than themselves, or else who do not know that nothing in the world is more pleasing to God, more agreeable to reason, more politically just, or more generally useful, than that the supreme power should be vested in the best and the wisest of men.
Page 40 - It was indeed a dreadful evening. The howling of the storm mingled with the shrieks of the sea-fowl, and sounded like the dirge of the three devoted beings who, pent between two of the most magnificent yet most dreadful objects of nature — a raging tide and an insurmountable precipice — toiled along their painful and dangerous path, often lashed by the spray of some giant billow which threw itself...
Page 69 - When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be, When the devil was well, the devil a monk was he.
Page 124 - About my moneys and my usances ; Still have I borne it with a patient shrug, For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe : You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine, And all for use of that which is mine own.
Page 29 - Cervantes had so much kindness for Don Quixote, that, however he embarrasses him with absurd distresses, he gives him so much sense and virtue as may preserve our esteem ; wherever he is, or whatever he does, he is made, by matchless dexterity, commonly ridiculous, but never contemptible.
Page 235 - I had read of thieves by scores ; seductive fellows (amiable for the most part), faultless in dress, plump in pocket, choice in horse-flesh, bold in bearing, fortunate in gallantry, great at a song, a bottle, pack of cards or dice-box, and fit companions for the bravest. But I had never met (except in HOGARTH) with the miserable reality.

Bibliographic information