The Modern British Essayists: Carlyle, Thomas. Critical and miscellaneous essaysA. Hart, 1852 |
Common terms and phrases
already appears beauty become believe better Book called century character clear comes consider continued critics dark death deep Earth existence eyes fact fair father feeling figure force German give given Goethe hand head heart higher highest History hope human kind King known learned least less lies light Literature living look man's manner matter means mind moral nature never noble object once original passed perhaps persons Philosopher Poet poetic Poetry poor present question readers reason regard Religion rest round seems seen sense shape side sort soul speak spirit stand strange strength things thou thought tion true truth turn understand universal whole wise wonderful worth writing written
Popular passages
Page 331 - Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less ; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation. My Lord, your lordship's most humble, most obedient servant,
Page 101 - Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the .¿Eolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident; or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? I own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important realities: a God that made all things, man's immaterial and immortal nature, and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave.
Page 108 - There was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments ; the eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time.
Page 105 - A wish (I mind its power), A wish, that to my latest hour Shall strongly heave my breast, — That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake, Some usefu' plan or book could make, Or sing a sang at least.
Page 12 - True humour springs not more from the head than from the heart ; it is not contempt, its essence is love ; it issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.
Page 32 - The cold, colossal, adamantine spirit, standing erect and clear, like a Cato Major among degenerate men ; fit to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and to have discoursed of Beauty and Virtue in the groves of Academe...
Page 25 - Let some beneficent divinity snatch him, when a suckling, from the breast of his mother, and nurse him with the milk of a better time, that he may ripen to his full stature beneath a distant Grecian sky. And having grown to manhood, let him return, a foreign shape, into his century ; not, however, to delight it by his presence, but dreadful, like the Son of Agamemnon, to purify it.
Page 106 - Manhood begins when we have in any way made truce with necessity ; begins even when we have surrendered to necessity, as the most part only do; but begins joyfully and hopefully only when we have reconciled ourselves to necessity, and thus in reality triumphed over it, and felt that in necessity we are free.
Page 130 - Nemesis visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation...
Page 108 - I never saw a man in company with his superiors in station or information more perfectly free from either the reality or the affectation of embarrassment. I was told, but did not observe it, that his address to females was extremely deferential, and always with a turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their attention particularly. I have heard the late Duchess of Gordon remark this. — I do not know anything I can add to these recollections of forty years since.
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Modern British Essayists: Carlyle, Thomas. Critical and miscellaneous essays Volume 5 of The Modern British Essayists |
| Publisher | A. Hart, 1852 |
| Original from | the New York Public Library |
| Digitized | 4 Jan 2007 |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |