The Principles of Success in Literature

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Allyn and Bacon, 1891 - Authorship - 163 pages
 

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Page 71 - Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes, When we had given our bodies to the wind, And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still The rapid line of motion, then at once Have I, reclining back upon my heels, Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me — even as if the earth had rolled With visible motion her diurnal round!
Page 76 - He, above the rest In shape and gesture proudly eminent, Stood like a tower. His form had yet not lost All her original brightness, nor appeared Less than archangel ruined, and the excess Of glory obscured...
Page 93 - A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
Page 71 - I heeded not the summons:— happy time It was indeed for all of us ; for me It was a time of rapture !— Clear and loud The village clock tolled six — I wheeled about, Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home. — All shod with steel We hissed along the polished ice, in games Confederate...
Page 71 - And not a voice was idle ; with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud ; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron ; while far distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away.
Page 151 - A succession of nominal sovereigns, sunk in indolence and debauchery, sauntered away life in secluded palaces, chewing bang, fondling concubines, and listening to buffoons.
Page 102 - Some to Conceit alone their taste confine, And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at ev'ry line; Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit; One glaring Chaos and wild heap of wit. Poets, like painters, thus, unskill'd to trace The naked nature and the living grace, With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part, And hide with ornaments their want of art.
Page 139 - The evils produced by his wickedness were felt in lands where the name of Prussia was unknown ; and, in order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the Great Lakes of North America...
Page 151 - The high lands which border on the western sea-coast of India poured forth a yet more formidable race, a race which was long the terror of every native power, and which, after many desperate and doubtful struggles, yielded only to the fortune and genius of England.
Page 150 - And yet people speak in this working age, when they speak from their hearts, as if houses and lands, and food and raiment, were alone useful, and as if Sight, Thought, and Admiration were all profitless, so that men insolently call themselves UtiliRuskiniana.

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