Studies in American LiteratureMacmillan, 1907 - 387 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
alliteration American Literature Anapest antislavery appeared assonance ballad beautiful bells Boston Bryant called career Catharine Maria Sedgwick character characteristic College colony critical death died dramatic effect Emerson England English essays example expression famous feeling fiction Frances Sargent Osgood Give some account Golden Legend Hawthorne heart Henry Holmes humor iambic iambic pentameter important influence interest Irving James James Russell Lowell John John S. C. Abbott Josiah Gilbert Holland later lines literary lived Longfellow Lowell Lowell's lyric Magazine ment mind musical narrative nature never Notice novels Oliver Wendell Holmes orator oratory passage peculiar period poem poet poetic poetry political popular prose published qualities rime romance sentence setts song soul sound spirit stanza story strong style sweet thee thou thought tion trimeter Trochee verse Virginia volume Washington Irving William words writings written wrote York
Popular passages
Page 361 - Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
Page 206 - Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: — Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll!
Page 109 - To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware.
Page 111 - So live that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of Death, Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach...
Page 110 - Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, - the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods - rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste, Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man.
Page 206 - Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Page 170 - I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion to see whether with my short sight I can fathom the depth of the abyss below...
Page 52 - The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome Insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked ; his wrath towards you burns like fire ; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire...
Page 110 - Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there ! And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone.
Page 194 - Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb, like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts after his will, Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all...