The Great English Essayists: With Introductory Essays and Notes

Front Cover
Harper & brothers, 1909 - Authors, English - 351 pages

From inside the book

Contents

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 330 - 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 290 - And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling us nearer to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection, — to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from another side?
Page 319 - English man-ofwar, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention.
Page 337 - Its loveliness increases ; it will never Pass into nothingness ; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth...
Page 29 - It is a strange thing to note the excess of this passion, and how it braves the nature and value of things by this, that the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole, is comely in nothing but in love : neither is it merely in the phrase; for whereas it hath been well said, " That the arch " flatterer, with whom all the petty flatterers have " intelligence, is a man's self...
Page 41 - Truth, indeed, came once into the world with her divine Master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on...
Page 291 - Every moment some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive to us, - for that moment only.
Page 237 - And the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, And as the hasty fruit before the summer; Which when he that looketh upon it seeth, While it is yet in his hand he eateth it up.
Page 183 - I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers Could not with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum.
Page 289 - Beautiful city ! so venerable, so lovely, so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our century, so serene ! " There are our young barbarians, all at play ! " And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling us nearer to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection...

Bibliographic information