Letters ... written between the years 1784 and 1807 [ed. by A. Constable].

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Page 79 - How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Page 239 - And put it to the foil : But you, O you, So perfect, and so peerless, are created Of every creature's best.
Page 325 - How could communities, Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores The primogenitive and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, But by degree, stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string And hark! what discord follows; each thing meets In mere oppugnancy...
Page 325 - Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead: Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong, (Between whose endless jar justice resides,) Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Page 325 - Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong, Between whose endless jar justice resides, Should lose their names, and so should justice too. Then everything includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite, an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce an universal prey, And last eat up himself.
Page 150 - Hail wedded Love, mysterious law, true source Of human offspring, sole propriety In Paradise of all things common else. By thee adulterous lust was driven from men Among the bestial herds to range; by thee, Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure, Relations dear, and all the charities Of father, son, and brother first were known.
Page 252 - Pleasant are the words of the song, said Cuchullin, and lovely are the tales of other times. They are like the calm dew of the morning on the hill of roes, when the sun is faint on its side, and, the lake is settled and blue in the vale.
Page 26 - July 1, 1790. Yes, my kind friend, Heaven has at length deprived me of that dear parent to whom I was ever most tenderly attached ; and whose infirmities, exciting my hourly pity, increased the pangs of final separation. It was in vain that my reason reproached the selfishness of my sorrow. I cannot receive, as my due, the praise you lavish upon my filial attentions.
Page 196 - I was prepared to expect extraordinary colloquial powers, but they exceeded every description I had received of them. He is styled the Johnson of the present day. In strength of thought, in promptness and plenteousness of allusion ; in wit and humour, in that high-coloured eloquence | which results from poetic imagination — there is a very striking similarity to the departed despot. That, when irritated, he he can chastise with the same overwhelming force, I can believe ; but unprovoked, Dr.
Page 117 - It has, by turns, pleased and displeased, startled and half-convinced me that its author is oftener right than wrong. Though the ideas of absolute equality in the sexes are carried too far, and though they certainly militate against St. Paul's maxims concerning that important compact, yet do they expose a train of mischievous mistakes in the education of females...

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