The pursuit of knowledge under difficulties [by G.L. Craik]. Continuation

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Page 113 - Yet, instead of the simplicity of style and narrative which wins our belief, an elaborate affectation of rhetoric and science betrays in every page the vanity of a female author. The genuine character of Alexius is lost in a vague constellation of virtues : and the perpetual strain of panegyric and apology awakens our jealousy to question the veracity of the historian and the merit of the hero.
Page 393 - Your dear self can best witness the manner, being done in loose sheets of paper, most of it in your presence, the rest by sheets l sent unto you, as fast as they were done.
Page 48 - Queen, the King having been with her yesterday, to make her a visit since her coming to town. The whole story of this lady is a romance, and all she does is romantic. Her footmen in velvet coats, and herself in an antique dress, as they say ; and was the other day at her own play,
Page 53 - Thence home, and there, in favour to my eyes, staid at home, reading the ridiculous History of my Lord Newcastle,' wrote by his wife, which shows her to be a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman, and he an asse to suffer her to write what she writes to him, and of him.
Page 357 - It will be a delightful occupation for me to make you more acquainted with my husband's poem. Nobody can do it better than I, being the person who knows the most of that which is not...
Page 103 - Curchod were embellished by the virtues and talents of the mind. Her fortune was humble, but her family was respectable.
Page 356 - You will know all what concerns me. Love, dear Sir, is all what me concerns, and love shall be all what I will tell you in this letter.
Page 347 - As you are an example of every virtue, and as you tenderly loved your excellent brother, whose daughter (to whom you supplied the place of both parents) you considered as your own, I doubt not but you will rejoice to learn, that she proves worthy of her father, worthy of you, and worthy of her grandfather. She has great talents; she is an admirable economist ; and she loves me with an entire affection.
Page 103 - I saw and loved. I found her learned without pedantry, lively in conversation, pure in sentiment, and elegant in manners ; and the first sudden emotion was fortified by the habits and knowledge of a more familiar acquaintance. She permitted me to make her two or three visits at her father's house. I passed some happy days there, in the mountains of Burgundy, and her parents honourably encouraged the connection. In a calm retirement the gay vanity of youth no longer fluttered in her bosom ; she listened...
Page 362 - Ligonier ; and had been trained rather to the accomplishments which adorn a court, than to those which are useful in domestic life. She was. however, a person of great natural acuteness, and of very lively wit; and her conversation, original though desultory, had no doubt considerable influence in rousing her daughter's mind. She was assiduous, too, in conveying the accomplishments which she herself retained ; and Mary became, under her mother's care, a considerable proficient in music, and an excellent...

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