The British essayists; with prefaces by A. Chalmers, Volume 22

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Page 245 - I have been animated by the rewards of the liberal, the caresses of the great, or the praises of the eminent. But I have no design to gratify pride by submission, or malice by lamentation ; nor think it reasonable to complain of neglect from those whose regard I never solicited. If I have not been distinguished by the distributors of literary honours, I have seldom descended to the arts by which favour is obtained.
Page 130 - Resentment is an union of sorrow with malignity, a combination of a passion which all endeavour to avoid, with a passion which all concur to detest. The man who retires to meditate mischief and to exasperate his own rage; whose thoughts are employed only on means of distress and contrivances of ruin; whose mind never pauses from the remembrance of his own sufferings, but to indulge some hope of enjoying the calamities of another, may justly be numbered among the most miserable of human beings, among...
Page 44 - Words become low by the occasions to which they are applied, or the general character of them who use them ; and the disgust which they produce, arises from the revival of those images with which they are commonly united...
Page 132 - Of him that hopes to be forgiven, it is indispensably required that he forgive. It is therefore superfluous to urge any other motive. On this great duty eternity is suspended, and to him that refuses to practise it, the Throne of mercy is inaccessible, and the Saviour of the world has been born in vain.
Page 133 - One of the great arts of escaping superfluous uneasiness, is to free our minds from the habit of comparing our condition with that of others on whom the blessings of life are more bountifully bestowed, or with imaginary states of delight and security, perhaps unattainable by mortals.
Page 242 - ... conclude that no more is to be done. All attraction is increased by the approach of the attracting body. We never find ourselves so desirous to finish as in the latter part of our work, or so impatient of delay, as when we know that delay cannot be long.
Page 45 - Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry " Hold, hold !
Page 120 - The frequency of envy makes it so familiar, that it escapes our notice ; nor do we often reflect upon its turpitude or malignity, till we happen to feel its influence. When he that has given no provocation to malice, but by attempting to excel, finds himself pursued by multitudes whom he never saw, with all the implacability of personal resentment...
Page 247 - I have always thought it the duty of an anonymous author to write, as if he expected to be hereafter known. I am willing to flatter myself with hopes, that by collecting these papers, I am not preparing, for my future life, either shame or repentance.
Page 249 - The Essays professedly serious, if I have been able to execute my own intentions, will be found exactly conformable to the precepts of Christianity, without any accommodation to the licentiousness and levity of the present age.

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