The English Novel: A Study in the Development of Personality

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Scribner, 1914 - English fiction - 302 pages
 

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Page 91 - Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Page 293 - When he made a decree for the rain, And a way for the lightning of the thunder : Then did he see it, and declare it ; He prepared it, yea, and searched it out. And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; And to depart from evil is understanding.
Page 61 - Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly long'd for death. " Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, Oh life, not death, for which we pant ; More life, and fuller, that I want.
Page 98 - I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, Singing at dawn on the alder bough ; I brought him home, in his nest, at even; He sings the song, but it pleases not now, For I did not bring home the river and sky; — He sang to my ear, — they sang to my eye.
Page 98 - Fresh pearls to their enamel gave, And the bellowing of the savage sea Greeted their safe escape to me. I wiped away the weeds and foam, I fetched my sea-born treasures home; But the poor, unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.
Page 121 - I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
Page 43 - What is she, cut from love and faith, But some wild Pallas from the brain Of Demons ? fiery-hot to burst All barriers in her onward race For power. Let her know her place ; She is the second, not the first.
Page 40 - If thou survive my well-contented day, When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, And shalt by fortune once more re-survey These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, Compare them with the bettering of the time, And though they be outstripp'd by every pen, Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, Exceeded by the height of happier men.
Page 283 - O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Page 55 - And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disabled, And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly doctor-like controlling skill, And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill.

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