The Quarterly Review, Volume 166

Front Cover
William Gifford, Sir John Taylor Coleridge, John Gibson Lockhart, Whitwell Elwin, William Macpherson, William Smith, Sir John Murray IV, Rowland Edmund Prothero (Baron Ernle), George Walter Prothero
John Murray, 1888 - English literature

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Page 133 - The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?
Page 323 - The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors : — No — yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair Love's ripening breast To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest ; Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever, — or else swoon to death.
Page 323 - BRIGHT star ! would I were steadfast as thou art— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night. And watching, with eternal lids apart. Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores...
Page 324 - I compare human life to a large Mansion of Many Apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me. The first we step into we call the infant or thoughtless Chamber, in which we remain as long as we do not think.
Page 334 - I leaped headlong into the sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice. I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.
Page 325 - I know nothing I have read nothing and I mean to follow Solomon's directions of 'get Wisdom — get understanding' — I find cavalier days are gone by. I find that I can have no enjoyment in the World but continual drinking of Knowledge...
Page 24 - ... abstract ! Even his terms now stand as heads of my chapters. Please return me the MS., which he does not say he wishes me to publish, but I shall, of course, at once write and offer to send to any journal. So all my originality, whatever it may amount to, will be smashed, though my book, if it will ever have any value, will not be deteriorated ; as all the labour consists in the application of the theory.
Page 8 - Considering how fiercely I have been attacked by the orthodox, it seems ludicrous that I once intended to be a clergyman. Nor was this intention and my father's wish ever formally given up, but died a natural death when, on leaving Cambridge, I joined the Beagle as naturalist. If the phrenologists are IV MODERN E VOL UTION 1 1 9 to be trusted, I was well fitted in one respect to be a clergyman.
Page 20 - Here then I had at last got a theory by which to work ; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it. In June 1842 I first allowed myself the satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract of my theory in pencil in 35 pages ; and this was enlarged during the summer of 1844 into one of 230 pages, which I had fairly copied out and still possess.
Page 320 - What though I leave this dull and earthly mould, Yet shall my spirit lofty converse hold With after times. — The patriot shall feel My stern alarum, and unsheath his steel ; Or in the senate thunder out my numbers, To startle princes from their easy slumbers. The sage will mingle with each...

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