The Idler, a treasury of essay, criticism and general literature [ed. by E. Wilberforce].Houlston and Stoneman, 1856 - 372 pages |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 100
Page
... reader will bear comparison with works of greater weight perhaps , and more ambitious pretensions . Remembering , however , that " brevity is the soul of wit , " and that a short Preface is more likely to be read than a long one , the ...
... reader will bear comparison with works of greater weight perhaps , and more ambitious pretensions . Remembering , however , that " brevity is the soul of wit , " and that a short Preface is more likely to be read than a long one , the ...
Page 6
... reader , that this is to be a story rather of intellectual than of dramatic interest - an attempt rather to describe the inner than the outer life of our times . So that he who does not like the business proposed , must carry his ...
... reader , that this is to be a story rather of intellectual than of dramatic interest - an attempt rather to describe the inner than the outer life of our times . So that he who does not like the business proposed , must carry his ...
Page 9
... reading . He shrank from nothing , at least from attempting nothing , in those days ; and was only prevented from reading Spinoza by the happy discovery that he could not understand three pages of the Ethics . first impulse is not ...
... reading . He shrank from nothing , at least from attempting nothing , in those days ; and was only prevented from reading Spinoza by the happy discovery that he could not understand three pages of the Ethics . first impulse is not ...
Page 27
... reading with private tutors should look forward with tremulous sensibility to fearful pains and penalties awaiting their entrance on college life - lest young ladies who , in the natural course of things , will not go to Oxford as ...
... reading with private tutors should look forward with tremulous sensibility to fearful pains and penalties awaiting their entrance on college life - lest young ladies who , in the natural course of things , will not go to Oxford as ...
Page 28
... readers like tales without plot , epigrams without point , stale jokes , and hackneyed quotations , here they are in abundance . Down with your shilling : άποδος τὸν ναῦλον . Motley is undoubtedly the worst of the three . Bear and ...
... readers like tales without plot , epigrams without point , stale jokes , and hackneyed quotations , here they are in abundance . Down with your shilling : άποδος τὸν ναῦλον . Motley is undoubtedly the worst of the three . Bear and ...
Common terms and phrases
admire amused appeared asked Bagot beautiful believe Belle-Poule Bolingbroke called Captain Bagot character Chesterfield church course Crimea Cuthbert Bede Douglas endeavour England English Eustace eyes fact father favour France Fulke genius gentleman give Goethe hand head heart honour hope Jacobite John journal king knew lady letters literary literature live London look Lord Lord John Russell Macaulay Malta Manchester Massinger matter means milreis mind morning nature Nedepe never noble Oakham once opinion paper party peace Philip Massinger pleasant poem poet poetry Polheim political poor present Queen readers remarks Richard Cromwell Russia satire Sebastopol seemed ship Song of Hiawatha story style Swedenborg talk tell thing thought tion Toby Tory town turned Ufford volume Whigs words write young youth
Popular passages
Page 125 - NEVER stoops the soaring vulture On his quarry in the desert, On the sick or wounded bison, But another vulture, watching From his high aerial look-out, Sees the downward plunge, and follows ; And a third pursues the second, Coming from the invisible ether, First a speck, and then a vulture, Till the air is dark with pinions.
Page 97 - To HELEN Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome.
Page 43 - appear to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, officers, and dockyard men. The commodities chiefly exposed for sale in the public streets are marine stores, hardbake, apples, flat-fish, and oysters. The streets present a lively and animated appearance, occasioned chiefly by the conviviality of the military. It is truly delightful to a philanthropic mind, to see these gallant men staggering along under the influence of an overflow, both of animal and ardent spirits; more...
Page 118 - Man alone seems to be the only creature who has arrived to the natural size in this poor soil. Every part of the country presents the same dismal landscape. No grove nor brook lend their music to cheer the stranger, or make the inhabitants forget their poverty.
Page 157 - Seen him, uneumber'd with the venal tribe, Smile without art, and win without a bribe. Would he oblige me? let me only find, He does not think me what he thinks mankind.
Page 361 - He left the name, at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
Page 139 - WHEN, loved by poet and painter The sunrise fills the sky, When night's gold urns grow fainter, And in depths of amber die — When the morn-breeze stirs the curtain, Bearing an odorous freight — Then visions strange, uncertain, Pour thick through the Ivory Gate.
Page 13 - London' — and perhaps even now it remains unsurpassed — his spacious and beautiful library, looking on the finest private garden in London. The walls are covered half way up with rich and classical stores of literature ; above the cases are in close series the portraits of eminent authors, French and English, with most of whom he had conversed — over these, and immediately under the massive cornice, extend all round in foot-long capitals the Horatian lines...
Page 335 - Tuesday morning the royal courier arrived at the governor's with the melancholy intelligence of the fire, of the loss which it had occasioned, and of the houses it had damaged and ruined, not in the least differing from that which Swedenborg had given immediately after it had ceased, for the fire was extinguished at eight o'clock.
Page 30 - But when wit is combined with sense and information ; -when it is softened by benevolence, and restrained by strong principle ; when it is in the hands of a man who can use it and despise it, who can be witty, and something much better than witty, who loves honour, justice, decency, good-nature, morality, and religion ten thousand times better than wit ; wit is then a beautiful and delightful part of our nature.