The Works of Lord Morley ...Macmillan and Company, limited, 1921 |
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Popular passages
Page 226 - Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently ; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.
Page 133 - This was a trifling business in comparison to other circumstances; for, in speaking of the preservation of the game in these capitaineries, it must be observed that by game it must be understood whole droves of wild boars and herds of deer not confined by any wall or pale, but wandering at pleasure over the whole country to the destruction of crops, and to the peopling of the gallies by the wretched peasants who presumed to kill them in order to save that food which was to support their helpless...
Page 224 - Are you, Sir, one of those enthusiasts who believe yourself transformed into the very character you represent ?' Upon Mr. Kemble's answering that he had never felt so strong a persuasion himself ; 'To be sure not, Sir, (said Johnson ; ) the thing is impossible. And if Garrick really believed himself to be that monster, Richard the Third, he deserved to be hanged every time he performed it...
Page 205 - Our opinions, our fashions, even our games, were adopted in France ; a ray of national glory illuminated each individual, and every Englishman was supposed to be born a patriot and a philosopher.
Page 148 - Christian religion," he says, "is to my mind the most absurd and atrocious in its dogmas ; the most unintelligible, the most metaphysical, the most intertwisted and obscure, and consequently the most subject to divisions, sects, schisms, heresies ; the most mischievous for the public tranquillity, the most dangerous to sovereigns by its hierarchic order, its persecutions, its discipline ; the most flat, the most dreary, the most Gothic, and...
Page 218 - Waverley) — and one may congratulate you upon having effected what many have tried to do, and nobody yet succeeded in, making the perfectly good character the most interesting. Of late days, especially since it has been the fashion to write moral and even religious novels, one might almost say of some of the wise good heroines, what a lively girl once said of her well-meaning aunt — ' Upon my word she is enough to make anybody wicked.
Page 205 - They are so overbearing and underbred. ... I sometimes go to Baron d'Holbach's, but I have left off his dinners, as there was no bearing the authors and philosophers and savants of which he has a pigeon-house full. They soon turned my head with a system of antediluvian deluges which they have invented to prove the eternity of matter. ... In short, nonsense for nonsense, I liked the Jesuits better than the philosophers.
Page 52 - ... as we shall see, cost him very dear. As he could not witness the experiment, he began to meditate upon the subject, and the result was the Letter on the Blind for the Use of Those who See...
Page 226 - Is it to show things exactly as they are in nature ? By no means. The true in that sense would only be the common. The really true is the conformity of action, speech, countenance, voice, movement, gesture, with an ideal model imagined by the poet, and often exaggerated by the player. And the marvel is that this model influences not only the tone, but the whole carriage and gait. Again, what is the aim of multiplied rehearsals ? To establish a balance among the different talents of the actors. The...
Page 77 - Their first meeting after Diderot's imprisonment has been described by Rousseau himself, in terms at which the phlegmatic will smile — not wisely, for the manner of expressing emotion, like all else, is relative. " After three or four centuries of impatience, I flew into the arms of my friend. O indescribable moment ! He was not alone ; D'Alembert and the treasurer of the Sainte Chapelle were with him. As I went in, I saw no one but himself. With a single bound and a cry, I pressed his face close...