Men, Women, and Books: A Selection of Sketches, Essays, and Critical Memoirs, from His Uncollected Prose Writings, Volume 2Harper and brothers, 1847 - 303 pages |
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acquainted admired afterwards agreeable Aphra Behn appears Auld Robin Gray beauty Ben Jonson Bussy character charming court cousin Cowley curious daughter dear death delight doubt Duchess Duke Earl eyes fancy fashion father favour favourite feeling fond genius gentleman give grace Grignan happy heart honour Horace Walpole Hôtel de Carnavalet husband king Lady Mary Lady Mary's laugh Lavinia Fenton letters live look Lord Lord Peterborough lover Madame de Montespan Madame de Sévigné Mademoiselle marriage married melancholy mind Miss mistress Montagu mother nature never Ninon de l'Enclos noble nuns passage passion Pepys perhaps person pleasure poems poet poor Pope reputation respect sense Shakspeare sister sort speak spirit style talk Tangier tell things Thomson thou thought tion told Tory truth Ver-Vert verses virtue Whig whole wife woman words Wortley writing young
Popular passages
Page 36 - JENNY kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in; Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in! Say I'm weary, say I'm sad, Say that health and wealth have missed me, Say I'm growing old, but add, Jenny kissed me.
Page 123 - Seasons" does not contain a single new image of external nature; and scarcely presents a familiar one from which it can be .inferred that the eye of the Poet had been steadily fixed upon his object, much less that his feelings had urged him to work upon it in the spirit of genuine imagination.
Page 258 - I called a white staff a stick of wood, a gold key gilded brass, and the ensigns of illustrious orders coloured strings, this may be philosophically true^ but would be very ill received. We have all our playthings; happy are they that can be contented with those they can obtain : those hours are spent in the wisest manner that can easiest shade the ills of life, and are the least productive of ill consequences. I think my time better employed in. reading...
Page 151 - I have been writing a ballad, my dear ; I am oppressing my heroine with many misfortunes: I have already sent her Jamie to sea, and broken her father's arm, and made her mother fall sick, and given her auld Robin Gray for a lover, but I wish to load her with a fifth sorrow in the four lines, poor thing! help me to one, I pray.' — 'Steal the cow, sister Anne, said the little Elizabeth.
Page 209 - The company consisting of some of the most eminent men in England, she went from the lap of one poet, or patriot, or statesman, to the arms of another, was feasted with sweetmeats, overwhelmed with caresses, and, what perhaps already pleased her better than either, heard her wit and beauty loudly extolled on every side. Pleasure, she said, was too poor a word to express her sensations, — they amounted to ecstasy. Never again throughout her whole future life did she pass so happy a day.
Page 133 - Nor ease, nor peace, that heart can know, That, like the needle true, Turns at the touch of joy or woe; But, turning, trembles too.
Page 125 - When a sedate content the spirit feels, And no fierce light disturbs, whilst it reveals; But silent musings urge the mind to seek Something, too high for syllables to speak; Till the free soul to a composedness charmed, Finding the elements of rage disarmed, O'er all below a solemn quiet grown, Joys in th...
Page 240 - What lady's that, to whom he gently bends ? Who knows her not ? ah ! those are Wortley's eyes ! How art thou honour'd, number'd with her friends, For she distinguishes the good and wise.
Page 28 - To eat Westphalia ham in a morning, ride over hedges and ditches on borrowed hacks, come home in the heat of the day with a fever, and (what is worse a hundred times) with a red mark on the forehead from an uneasy hat; all this may qualify them to make excellent wives for foxhunters and bear abundance of ruddy complexioned children. As soon as they can wipe off...
Page 153 - My father urged me sair: my mother didna speak; But she looked in my face till my heart was like to break...