Essays in IdlenessHoughton, Mifflin, 1921 - 224 pages |
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admirable Agrippina amid amusing animal artist battle beast beautiful bore boys brave Charles Lamb charming child childish creatures dear delicate delight ears English enjoy enjoyment ennui evil eyes fancy fashion favorite feel fight fire forever gentle girl grace grave happiness hear heart Homer Horace Walpole human humor idle King kitten Lady language laugh laughter Leigh Hunt leisure less letters lines literature living Lord Lord Byron Macaulay Madame Maurice de Guérin Miss nature ness never night noble Old Mortality Oscar Wilde Pambesa pastime perhaps play pleasant pleasure poems poetry poets poor praise pretty prose Prue Quentin Durward readers Rudyard Kipling Sainte-Beuve Saintsbury says Schopenhauer Scott sentiment sing Sir Thomas Browne Sir Walter Sir Walter Scott song soul spirit story sweet sympathy things thought tion verses Walpole wandering weary woman words writes young
Popular passages
Page 46 - And say besides, that in Aleppo once, Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk Beat a Venetian and traduced the state, I took by the throat the circumcised dog, And smote him, thus.
Page 75 - Gloster, that duke so good, Next of the royal blood, For famous England stood With his brave brother; Clarence, in steel so bright, Though but a maiden knight, Yet in that furious fight Scarce such another. Warwick...
Page 39 - She left the web, she left the- loom, She made three paces thro' the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She look'd down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror cracked from side to side; ' The curse is come upon me !
Page 116 - But man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of his nature.
Page 39 - Tirra lirra,' by the river Sang Sir Lancelot. She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces thro...
Page 117 - I will compose poetry." The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness...
Page 84 - Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet. Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat...
Page 67 - Spilt blood enough to swim in : We orphaned many children, And widowed many women. The eagles and the ravens We glutted with our foemen : The heroes and the cravens, The spearmen and the bowmen. ~ We brought away from battle, And much their land bemoaned them, Two thousand head of cattle, And the head of him who owned them : Ednyfed, King of Dyfed, His head was borne before us ; His wine and beasts supplied our feasts, And his overthrow, our chorus.
Page 75 - With Spanish yew so strong, Arrows a cloth-yard long, That like to serpents stung, Piercing the weather; None from his fellow starts, But playing manly parts, And like true English hearts, Stuck close together.
Page 119 - Our Lady of Sighs. She never scales the clouds, nor walks abroad upon the winds. She wears no diadem. And her eyes, if they were ever seen, would be neither sweet nor subtle; no man could read their story; they would be found filled with perishing dreams, and with wrecks of forgotten delirium. But she raises not her eyes; her head, on which sits a dilapidated turban, droops for ever, for ever fastens on the dust.