The Foundations of Rhetoric |
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Common terms and phrases
adjective adverbs American Annie Jones authors barks belongs Bennet Beware brother called Chanticleer clause clear colon comma common conjunction connected construction correct Darcy Darcy's dependent clause ease Elizabeth English examples expression fact fault feel FITZEDWARD HALL force girl give grammatical Gulliver Hero horse important James Fenimore Cooper John lady language last sentence letter look meaning mind Miss misused never noun obscure Ole Bull omitted originally written Orlando paragraph participle party passage as originally periodic sentence persons or things phrase plural poems preposition present principle pronoun punctuation question reader refer rule seems semicolon sense sentence as originally short sentences singular sometimes speak speech style subjunctive mood Sydney Carton tell tence thought tion tween unity verb vulgar whole Williams wish writer young
Popular passages
Page 344 - In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties ; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections ; keeping inseparable, and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.
Page 251 - But a woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures; she sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection, and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless, for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.
Page 195 - Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
Page 190 - Shook beam and rafter as it passed, The merrier up its roaring draught The great throat of the chimney laughed, The house-dog on his paws outspread Laid to the fire his drowsy head, The cat's dark silhouette on the wall A couchant tiger's seemed to fall; And, for the winter fireside meet, Between the andirons...
Page 195 - Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Page 345 - Unhappily this pernicious failure is that which an author is least able to discover. We are seldom tiresome to ourselves ; and the act of composition fills and delights the mind with change of language and succession of images ; every couplet, when produced, is new, and novelty is the great source of pleasure. Perhaps no man ever thought a line superfluous when he first wrote it, or contracted his work till his ebullitions of invention had subsided.
Page 358 - ... of their prosperity and safety, and the security of liberty itself. He regarded the union of these States less as one of our blessings, than as the great treasurehouse which contained them all. Here, in his judgment, was the great magazine of all our means of prosperity ; here, as he thought, and as every true American still thinks, are deposited all our animating prospects, all our solid hopes for future greatness.
Page 341 - On the best lines of communication the ruts were deep, the descents precipitous, and the way often such as it was hardly possible to distinguish, in the dusk, from the unenclosed heath and fen which lay on both sides.
Page 30 - In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
Page 343 - He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of the Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet...