English Composition: Eight Lectures Given at the Lowell InstituteC. Scribner's Sons, 1894 - 316 pages |
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English Composition: Eight Lectures Given at the Lowell Institute Barrett Wendell No preview available - 2016 |
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Agrippina beginning Ben Jonson better catch the eye chapter chief chiefly clause clear commonplace composed composition of sentences consider construction course definite deliberate distinct effect elements of style English English language example express fact figures Fisher Ames George Eliot give glance grammar graph Harvard College human impression Impropriety Jefferson Davis language Latin less literature marks matter Maud Watson means mind modern Nero never notable number of words order of words palpable passage perhaps periodic periodic sentences phrase piece of style precisely pretty principle of Coherence principle of Mass principle of Unity principles of composition Publius Crassus purpose question reader relation remember Saxon secret Sejanus sense Shakspere short simple single Sir Thomas Browne Solecism speech subtile suggest tell tences thing thought and emotion tion trait truth usage whoever whole compositions wish to produce writing
Popular passages
Page 286 - There is a willow grows aslant 'a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream ; There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them...
Page 276 - True wit is nature to advantage dress'd ; What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd ; Something, whose truth convinc'd at sight we find, That gives us back the image of our mind.
Page 275 - If all the pens that ever poets held Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts, And every sweetness that inspired their hearts, Their minds, and muses on admired themes ; If all the heavenly quintessence they still From their immortal flowers of poesy, Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive The highest reaches of a human wit ; If these had made one poem's period, And all combined in beauty's worthiness, Yet should there hover in their restless heads One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least,...
Page 59 - Tu-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doth blow And coughing drowns the parson's saw And birds sit brooding in the snow And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When...
Page 253 - When all is done, (he concludes,) human life is at the greatest and the best but like a froward child, that must be played with and humoured a little to keep it quiet, till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.
Page 253 - Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness ! This is the state of man ; to-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him : The third day comes a frost, a killing frost ; And,— when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a ripening, — nips his root, And then he falls, as I do.
Page 285 - Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
Page 92 - O eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded ; . . . what none hath dared, thou hast done ; and whom all the world hath nattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou hast drawn together all the farstretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, hie j'acet!
Page 53 - Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy! when I fall, I shall arise"; and with that, gave him a deadly thrust, which made him give back, as one that had received his mortal wound: Christian perceiving that, made at him again, saying, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us.
Page 172 - No more firing was heard at Brussels — the pursuit rolled miles away. Darkness came down on the field and city : and Amelia was praying for George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his heart.