Eloisa;: A Series of Original Letters, Volume 1John Harding, ... Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme; and Sherwood, Neely and Jones, 1810 - 323 pages |
Common terms and phrases
admire affected afflicted agreeable beauty Besançon cause cern charming chimerical Clara Clarens Claud Anet confess cousin crime cruel danger dare dear friend delightful deprived deserve despair discourse Eloisa endeavour esteem expression eyes father fear feel felicity flatter fortune French language friendship girl give happiness hath heart Heaven honour hope human imagination innocence Jean Jacques Rousseau least leave lence less letter live Lord lover mankind manner marriage maxims ment Metastasio mind misfortunes Moliere mother musick nature never object obliged observe once opinion Orbe passion perceive perhaps philosopher pleased pleasure Plutarch Pompey possible present racters raptures reason receive reproach sacred sensation sensible sentiments shame sions situation sophism sorrow soul speak sublime suffer sure surprized talk taste tears tell tence tender thing thou thought tion transports true unhappy Valais Vevai virtue virtuous word wretched
Popular passages
Page 85 - I wondered," says Rousseau, describing his first experience of this, " I wondered to find that inanimate beings should over-rule our most violent passions, and despised the impotence of philosophy for having less power over the soul than a succession of lifeless objects." It is not the prerogative of a few. Ask any man who has accustomed himself to commune with nature, and he will testify that apart from the intellectual culture attained by scientific acquaintance with its objects — and apart from...
Page 86 - Upon the tops of mountains, the air being subtle and pure, we respire with greater freedom, our bodies are more active, our minds more serene, our pleasures less ardent, and our passions much more moderate. Our meditations acquire a degree of sublimity from the grandeur of the objects around us.
Page 181 - ... of friendship moderates the extravagance of love ; and I can hardly conceive any kind of attachment which does not unite me to you. O, my charming mistress ! my wife, my sister, my friend ! By what name shall I express what I feel, after having...
Page 110 - I alone am the author of my own misfortunes, and fhould, therefore, be the only obje£t of anger and refentment. But vice, new as it is to me, has already infected my very foul ; and the firft difmal effect of it is difplayed in reviling the innocent. No, no, he never was capable of being falfe to his vows. His virtuous...
Page 8 - When the passion of love is at its height," says Rousseau, " it arrays the beloved object in every possible perfection ; makes it an idol, places it in heaven ; and as the enthusiasm of devotion borrows the language of love, the enthusiasm of love also borrows the language of devotion : — the lover beholds nothing but paradise, angels, the virtues of saints, and the felicities of heaven.
Page 100 - Eloisa ! too much sensibility, too much tenderness, proves the bitterest curse instead of the most fruitful blessing ; vexation and disappointment are its certain consequences. The temperature of the air, the change of the seasons, the brilliancy of the sun, or thickness of the fogs, are so many moving springs to the unhappy possessor, and he becomes the wanton sport of their arbitration ; his thoughts, his satisfaction, his happiness depend on the blowing of the winds.
Page 288 - ... appearances of politenefs, and that external flattery, which the cuftoms of the world require. I am -not a little afraid that he, who treats me at firft fight as if I was a friend of twenty years...
Page 35 - A hundred times a day I am tempted to throw myself at your feet, bathe them with my tears, and to implore your pardon, or receive my death : but a sudden terror damps my resolution ; my trembling knees want power to bend ; my words expire upon my lips, and my soul finds no support against the dread of offending you.
Page 84 - One moment I beheld stupendous rocks hanging ruinous over my head ; the next, I was enveloped in a drizzling cloud, which arose from a vast cascade that, dashing, thundered against the rocks below my feet. On one side a perpetual torrent opened to my view a yawning abyss, which my eyes could hardly fathom with safety ; sometimes I was lost in the obscurity of a hanging wood, and then was greatly astonished with the sudden opening of a flowery plain.
Page 7 - The perceptions of persons in retirement are very different from those of people in the great world: Their passions, being differently modified, are differently expressed; their imaginations, constantly impressed by the same objects, are more violently affected. The same small number of images continually return, mix with every idea, and create those strange and false notions, so remarkable in people who spend their lives in solitude.