Books and Reading, Or, What Books Shall I Read and how Shall I Read Them ?Scribner & Company, 1872 - 394 pages |
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admiration aims ancient attractive biography books and reading called character Christ Christian Coleridge conscience criticism culture delight diction earnest elevated eloquence eminent emotions England English language English literature essay ethical evil exciting F. W. Newman facts faith favorite furnish genius George Eliot give Goethe habits History of Greece human imagery imagination impressions individual influence inspiration instructive intellectual intelligent interest J. J. Thomas judge judgment language less litera literary lives Matthew Arnold ment Milton mind modern moral nature newspapers novels opinions passion person personages Philip Schaff Philosophy Plato poem poet poetic poetry political principles reader reason respect Robert Southey rule Sainte Beuve scenes Scott sense sentiment Shakspeare soul spirit story style sympathy taste thought and feeling tion tory treatises true truth ture verse volume W. G. T. SHEDD worth writer written
Popular passages
Page 372 - My days among the Dead are past; Around me I behold, Where'er these casual eyes are cast, The mighty minds of old: My never-failing friends are they, With whom I converse day by day.
Page 116 - There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.
Page 22 - I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth : and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book : who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image ; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself — kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye.
Page 272 - Jonson, which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon, and an English man-of-war ; Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning ; solid, but slow in his performances.
Page 238 - Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge ; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science.
Page 48 - Wise men have said, are wearisome ; who reads Incessantly, and to his reading brings not A spirit and judgment equal or superior, (And what he brings what needs he elsewhere seek?) Uncertain and unsettled still remains, Deep versed in books, and shallow in himself, Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge ; As children gathering pebbles on the shore.
Page 241 - If the time should ever come when what is now called Science, thus familiarized to men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the Poet .will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the Being thus produced, as a dear and genuine inmate of the household of man.
Page 71 - And therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind ; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of things.
Page 71 - Therefore, because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical.
Page 79 - Chose freely what it now so justly rues. Me miserable! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell; And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep Still threatening to devour me opens wide, To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.