Initial Studies in American LettersChautauqua Press, 1891 - 282 pages This volume is intended as a companion to the historical sketch of English literature entitled From Chaucer to Tennyson published last year for the Chautauqua Circle. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 26
Page 15
... passing under his name . Smith was a man of a restless and daring spirit , full of resource , impatient of con ... passed into the realm of legend . Captain Smith's writings have small literary value apart from the interest of the ...
... passing under his name . Smith was a man of a restless and daring spirit , full of resource , impatient of con ... passed into the realm of legend . Captain Smith's writings have small literary value apart from the interest of the ...
Page 36
... passing from Mather to Edwards we step from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century . There is the same difference between them in style and turn of thought as between Milton and Locke , or between Fuller and Dryden . The learned ...
... passing from Mather to Edwards we step from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century . There is the same difference between them in style and turn of thought as between Milton and Locke , or between Fuller and Dryden . The learned ...
Page 38
... passing his future wife , standing on her father's doorstep , has become almost as familiar as the anecdote about Whittington and his cat . It was in the practical sphere that Franklin was greatest , as an originator and executor of ...
... passing his future wife , standing on her father's doorstep , has become almost as familiar as the anecdote about Whittington and his cat . It was in the practical sphere that Franklin was greatest , as an originator and executor of ...
Page 52
... passed from hand to hand in many a rural tavern or store , where the village atheist wrestled in debate with the deacon or the school- master . Paine rested his argument against Christianity upon the familiar grounds of the ...
... passed from hand to hand in many a rural tavern or store , where the village atheist wrestled in debate with the deacon or the school- master . Paine rested his argument against Christianity upon the familiar grounds of the ...
Page 54
... passed into currency as proverbs , are gen- erally attributed to Butler . For example : Or this : " No man e'er felt the halter draw With good opinion of the law . " " For any man with half an eye What stands before him may espy ; But ...
... passed into currency as proverbs , are gen- erally attributed to Butler . For example : Or this : " No man e'er felt the halter draw With good opinion of the law . " " For any man with half an eye What stands before him may espy ; But ...
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
afterward American literature ballad beauty Blithedale Romance Boston Bret Harte Bryant captain Channing character Church cities civil colony Concord Cotton Mather death Deerslayer divine Edgar Poe Emerson England English essays eyes famous feeling fiction frog G. P. Putnam's Sons Hartford Harvard College Hawthorne Hawthorne's heart Henry Holmes humor imagination Indian Irving Irving's John kind letters literary living Longfellow Lowell magazines Marble Faun Margaret Fuller Massachusetts Mather ment N. P. Willis narrative Nathaniel Hawthorne nature never night novels o'er orator passage passion Philadelphia philosophy pieces Poe's poems poet poetic poetry political popular prose published Puritan river romance satire says ship side sketches slavery Smiley song soul speech spirit story thee thing Thoreau thou thought tion took town transcendentalism transcendentalists Unitarian verse Virginia volume Whittier Winthrop words writings written wrote York young
Popular passages
Page 231 - midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way ? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.
Page 223 - When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!
Page 249 - But now his nose is thin, And it rests upon his chin Like a staff, And a crook is in his back, And a melancholy crack In his laugh. I know it is a sin For me to sit and grin At him here; But the old three-cornered hat, And the breeches, and all that, Are so queer!
Page 45 - He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.
Page 147 - I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation.
Page 154 - Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; The eternal years of God are hers; But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, And dies among his worshippers.
Page 232 - The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.
Page 234 - 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 thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
Page 232 - Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood ? Alas ! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.
Page 235 - In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods is perpetual youth.