Men, Women, and Books: A Selection of Sketches, Essays, and Critical Memoirs, from His Uncollected Prose Writings, Volume 2

Front Cover
Smith, Elder and Company, 1847 - Beauty, Personal
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 36 - JENNY kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in; Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in! Say I'm weary, say I'm sad, Say that health and wealth have missed me, Say I'm growing old, but add, Jenny kissed me.
Page 148 - But are they silent all ? or is there not A tongue in every star, that talks with man, And woos him to be wise ? nor woos in vain : This dead of midnight is the noon of thought, And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars. At this still hour the self-collected soul Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there Of high descent, and more than mortal rank ; An embryo God ; a spark of fire divine, Which must burn on for ages, when the sun, — Fair transitory creature of a day ! — Has closed his golden...
Page 125 - Seasons" does not contain a single new image of external nature; and scarcely presents a familiar one from which it can be .inferred that the eye of the Poet had been steadily fixed upon his object, much less that his feelings had urged him to work upon it in the spirit of genuine imagination.
Page 154 - Rob maintain'd them baith, and, wi' tears in his ee, Said, " Jenny, oh ! for their sakes, will you marry me !" My heart it said na, and I look'd for Jamie back : But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack : His ship it was a wrack ! Why didna Jamie dee ? Or...
Page 260 - I called a white staff a stick of wood, a gold key gilded brass, and the ensigns of illustrious orders coloured strings, this may be philosophically true^ but would be very ill received. We have all our playthings; happy are they that can be contented with those they can obtain : those hours are spent in the wisest manner that can easiest shade the ills of life, and are the least productive of ill consequences. I think my time better employed in. reading...
Page 211 - The company consisting of some of the most eminent men in England, she went from the lap of one poet, or patriot, or statesman, to the arms of another, was feasted with sweetmeats, overwhelmed with caresses, and, what perhaps already pleased her better than either, heard her wit and beauty loudly extolled on every side. Pleasure, she said, was too poor a word to express her sensations, — they amounted to ecstasy. Never again throughout her whole future life did she pass so happy a day.
Page 126 - Comes slowly grazing through the adjoining meads, Whose stealing pace and lengthened shade we fear, Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear; When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food, And unmolested kine rechew the cud; When curlews cry beneath the village walls, And to her straggling brood the partridge calls...
Page 12 - I shall raise the despised head of poetry again, and stripping her out of those rotten and base rags wherewith the times have adulterated her form, restore her to her primitive habit, feature, and majesty, and render her worthy to be embraced and kist of all the great and master-spirits of our world.
Page 154 - Gray came a-courtin' me. My father couldna work, and my mother couldna spin; I toil'd day and night, but their bread I couldna win; Auld Rob maintain'd them baith, and wi' tears in his e'e Said, 'Jennie, for their sakes, O, marry me!
Page 262 - MEMOIRS OF SAMUEL PEPYS, ESQ., FRS Secretary to the Admiralty in the Reigns of Charles II. and James II.; comprising his Diary from 1659 to 1669, deciphered by the Rev.

Bibliographic information