The Great English Letter Writers, Volume 2

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William James Dawson, Coningsby Dawson
Fleming H. Revell Company, 1908 - Letter-writing

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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 239 - O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake, Would all their colours from the sunset take: From something of material sublime, Rather than shadow our own soul's day-time In the dark void of night.
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 240 - Lost in a sort of Purgatory blind, Cannot refer to any standard law Of either earth or heaven ? It is a flaw In happiness, to see beyond our bourn, — It forces us in summer skies to mourn, It spoils the singing of the Nightingale.
Page 227 - Round and round go the cards, while I inwardly damn At never once finding a visit from Pam. I lay down my stake, apparently cool, While the harpies about me all pocket the pool. I fret in my gizzard, yet, cautious and sly, I wish all my friends may be bolder than I: Yet still they sit snugg, not a creature will aim By losing their money to venture at fame.
Page 230 - ... play, of the modern day ; and, though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a tittering air, 'tis only her plan to catch, if she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that way, by a production on...
Page 133 - Hyperion,' the composition of which was checked by the Review in question. The great proportion of this piece is surely in the very highest style of poetry. I speak impartially, for the canons of taste to which Keats has conformed in his other compositions, are the very reverse of my own.

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