The Art of Speaking: Containing, an Essay, in which are Given Rules for Expressing Properly the Principal Passions and Humours, which Occur in Reading, Or Public Speaking, and Lessons, Taken from the Ancients and Moderns ...

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Samuel Butler, 1804 - 291 pages
 

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Page 157 - Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal* vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
Page 139 - Cassius, now Leap in with me into this angry flood, And swim to yonder point?' Upon the word, Accoutred as I was, I plunged in, And bade him follow; so, indeed, he did. The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it With lusty sinews, throwing it aside, And stemming it with hearts of controversy. But ere we could arrive the point propos'd, Caesar cried,
Page 124 - Omnipotent. Ay me ! they little know How dearly I abide that boast so vain, Under what torments inwardly I groan, While they adore me on the throne of Hell. With diadem and sceptre high advanced, The lower still I fall, only supreme In misery ; such joy ambition finds.
Page 218 - To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity, To perish rather, swallowed up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated Night, Devoid of sense and motion?
Page 169 - Pray can I not, Though inclination be as sharp as will. My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, And, like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both neglect. What if this cursed hand Were thicker than itself with brother's blood, Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy But to confront the visage of offence?
Page 89 - How much of other each is sure to cost ; How each for other oft is wholly lost ; How inconsistent greater goods with these ; How sometimes life is...
Page 124 - So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear, Farewell remorse : all good to me is lost ; Evil, be thou my good ; by thee at least Divided empire with heav'n's King I hold; By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign ; As man ere long and this new world shall know.
Page 124 - And heavier fall ; so should I purchase dear Short intermission bought with double smart. This knows my punisher ; therefore as far From granting he, as I from begging peace...
Page 162 - It must not be; there is no power in Venice Can alter a decree established: 'Twill be recorded for a precedent; And many an error, by the same example, Will rush into the state: it cannot be.
Page 192 - With eyes darting fury, and a countenance distorted with cruelty, he orders the helpless victim of his rage to be stripped, and rods to be brought ; accusing him, but without the least shadow of evidence, or even of suspicion, of having come to Sicily as a spy.

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