The Great English Letter Writers, Volume 2William James Dawson, Coningsby Dawson Fleming H. Revell Company, 1908 - Letter-writing |
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Common terms and phrases
admiration beautiful believe Boswell Brown called Charles Armitage Brown Charles Dickens Charles Lamb Charlotte Brontë dear delight dull Edward FitzGerald English eyes fancy faults feel genius give gone happy head hear heard heart heaven hope Horace Horace Walpole humour imagination James Smetham Jane John Keats Joseph Severn Lady leave letter letter-writing literary literature live London look Lord Byron Lord Macaulay Mary mind Miss morning nature never Nicholls night pain painting pass Percy Bysshe Shelley perhaps person pleasure poem poet poetry poor quiet Rome Scott seems seen Skiddaw Sophocles soul speak spirits sure swear talk taste tell Tennyson Thackeray things Thomas Carlyle thought tion walk Wentworth Place whole William Makepeace Thackeray wind wish woman word Wordsworth write written
Popular passages
Page 17 - I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Page 227 - Tis in vain that at niggardly caution I scold, 'Tis in vain that I flatter the brave and the bold: All play their own way, and they think me an ass, . . . ' What does Mrs. Bunbury?' . . .
Page 224 - Of his dull life ; then where there hath been thrown Wit able enough to justify the town For three days past : wit that might warrant be For the whole city to talk foolishly, Till that were cancelled ; and when that was gone, We left an air behind us, which alone Was able to make the two next companies Right witty ; though but downright fools, mere wise...
Page 54 - God ! God ! God ! Everything I have in my trunks that reminds me of her goes through me like a spear.
Page 156 - Its touches of beauty should never be half-way, thereby making the reader breathless, instead of content. The rise, the progress, the setting of Imagery should, like the sun, come natural to him, shine over him, and set soberly, although in magnificence, leaving him in the luxury of twilight. But it is easier to think what poetry should be, than to write it. And this leads me to Another axiom — That if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all.
Page 153 - It is impossible that any expectations can be lower than mine concerning the immediate effect of this little work upon what is called the public. I do not here take into consideration the envy and malevolence, and all the bad passions, which always stand in the way of a work of any merit from a living poet ; but merely think of the pure, absolute, honest ignorance in which all worldlings of every rank and situation must be enveloped, with respect to the thoughts, feelings, and images on which the...
Page 233 - Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods, The sweeping vales, and foaming floods, Are free alike to all.
Page 178 - Well, you should be happy yourself, for you may be sure you have done more good, and not only fastened more kindly feelings, but prompted more positive acts of beneficence, by this little publication, than can be traced to all the pulpits and confessionals in Christendom, since Christmas 1842.
Page 34 - I have just passed part of this summer at an old romantic seat of my Lord Harcourt's, which he lent me. It overlooks a common field, where, under the shade of a haycock, sat two lovers, as constant as ever were found in Romance, beneath a spreading beech. The name of the one (let it sound as it will) was John Hewet ; of the other, Sarah Drew. John was a well-set man about five and twenty, Sarah a brown woman of eighteen.
Page 150 - Keep to your bank, and the bank will keep you. Trust not to the public : you may hang, starve, drown yourself for anything that worthy personage cares. I bless every star that Providence, not seeing good to make me independent, has seen it next good to settle me upon the stable foundation of Leadenhall.