Letters to My Grandson on the Glory of English ProseMills & Boon, 1922 - 128 pages |
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admiration Æsop aristocracy of England battle beautiful Bible blessed born century character Chatham Christian church connexion DEAR ANTONY death delighted displayed Dr Johnson dream earth eloquence emotion Empire England English prose expression faith fame father firmament freedom G. P. MY DEAR glorious glory Grattan greatest hand harmony hath heart heaven honour hope House humble Jeremy Taylor Joseph King labours language letters liberty light literature living look Lord Lord Chatham lost loving old G. P. majesty Matthew Arnold memory mind nation never noble Parliament passage passed Peninsular War perfect perhaps quote race reverence seems Sir Walter Ralegh sorrow speech spirit splendid splendour St Paul's Cathedral STEPHEN COLERIDGE style sure sweet thee things thou hast thought tions toil true unto utterances valour voice Walter Ralegh whole wonderful words writers written wrote
Popular passages
Page 68 - I STROVE with none, for none was worth my strife; Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; I warmed both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
Page 45 - It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles, and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision.
Page 22 - I have of late — but wherefore I know not — lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
Page 28 - ... books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are ; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.
Page 44 - Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation, My Lord, Your Lordship's most humble Most obedient servant, SAM. JOHNSON.
Page 105 - 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 50 - Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty: Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
Page 46 - ... little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.
Page 31 - For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards, singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven and climb above the clouds ; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest, than it could recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings, till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant and stay till the storm was over ; and then...
Page 37 - So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do, till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, He hath given me rest by His sorrow, and life by His death.