Chats about Books: Poets and Novelists

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Scribner, 1883 - 360 pages

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Page 186 - Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his tongue would have spoken. Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling beside him, Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom. Sweet was the light of his eyes; but it suddenly sank into darkness, As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a casement.
Page 112 - All is best, though we oft doubt, What the unsearchable dispose Of highest wisdom brings about, And ever best found in the close.
Page 105 - Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves, Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke.
Page 104 - Retiring from the popular noise, I seek This unfrequented place to find some ease, Ease to the body some, none to the mind From restless thoughts, that, like a deadly swarm Of hornets arm'd, no sooner found alone, But rush upon me thronging, and present Times past, what once
Page 115 - Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught In Chorus or Iambic, teachers best Of moral prudence, with delight received In brief sententious precepts, while they treat Of fate, and chance, and change in human life; High actions, and high passions best describing. Thence to the famous orators repair, Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence Wielded at will that fierce democratic, Shook the Arsenal and fulmined over Greece, To Macedon, and Artaxerxes...
Page 344 - In mathematics he was greater Than Tycho Brahe or Erra Pater ; For he, by geometric scale, Could take the size of pots of ale ; Resolve by sines and tangents straight, If bread or butter wanted weight ; And wisely tell what hour o' th' day The clock does strike by algebra.
Page 308 - Perchance the gods have need of help themselves Being so feeble that when sad lips cry They cannot save ! I would not let one cry Whom I could save! How can it be that Brahm Would make a world and keep it miserable, Since, if all-powerful, he leaves it so, He is not good, and if not powerful, He is not God...
Page 296 - 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 309 - From victory to victory, till earth Wears the red record of my name. I choose To tread its paths with patient, stainless feet, Making its dust my bed, its loneliest wastes My dwelling, and its meanest things my mates: Clad in no prouder garb than outcasts wear, Fed with no meats save what the charitable Give of their will, sheltered by no more pomp Than the dim cave lends or the jungle-bush.
Page 187 - Father, I thank thee!' Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow, Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping. Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard, In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed. Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them, Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever, Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy, Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have...

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