Characteristics of Literature: Illustrated by the Genius of Distinguished Men |
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admiration Akenside appears beautiful Burke Channing Channing's character characteristic Charles Lamb charm consciousness delight desire destiny Drapier's Letters earnest effective Elia eloquence English essayist essays essays of Elia essential experience expression facts faith fancy feeling French Revolution genius genuine gifted grace habits happy heart Hence history of Egypt honour humour idea illustration imagination impression individual influence instinct intellectual interest John Sterling kind labours lative letters literary literature Macaulay manner MARK AKENSIDE ment mental mind moral muse ness never noble opinion passion pathies peculiar philosophical pleasure poem poet poetical poetry political principle racter realized reason recognised refined reflection regard Religio Medici remarkable rendered rhetoric rienced Roscoe satire says seems sense sentiment Shenstone sion Sir Thomas Browne social society soul spirit style Swift sympathy taste things thought tion tone traits true truth utterance verse William Roscoe wisdom writings
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Page 224 - All the pleasing illusions which made power gentle and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the super-added ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns, and the understanding ratifies,...
Page 132 - Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days ! None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise.
Page 224 - But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions which made power gentle and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off.
Page 213 - I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.
Page 126 - But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Are yet a master light of all our seeing ; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence : truths that wake To perish never...
Page 221 - ... a cabinet so variously inlaid; such a piece of diversified mosaic; such a tessellated pavement without cement; here a bit of black stone and there a bit of white; patriots and courtiers; king's friends and republicans; Whigs and Tories; treacherous friends and open enemies; that it was indeed a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand on.
Page 221 - Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine, that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field ; tha£ of course, they are many in number ; or that, after all, they are other than the little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.
Page 33 - ... the mists of hell, the clouds of horror, fear, sorrow, despair ; and preserves the region of the mind in serenity : whosoever feels not the warm gale, and gentle ventilation of this spirit, (though I feel his pulse,) I dare not say he lives; for truly without this, to me there is no heat under the tropic ; nor any light, though I dwelt in the body of the sun.
Page 23 - The severe Schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible, wherein, as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in equivocal shapes and as they counterfeit some more real substance in that invisible fabric.
Page 122 - As one who, destined from his friends to part, Regrets his loss, but hopes again erewhile To share their converse and enjoy their smile, And tempers as he may affliction's dart; Thus, loved associates, chiefs of elder art, Teachers of wisdom, who could once beguile My tedious hours, and lighten every toil, I now resign you; nor with fainting heart; For pass a few short years, or days, or hours, And happier seasons may their dawn unfold, And all your sacred fellowship restore: When, freed from earth,...