The Idler, Volume 1

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T. Davies in Russel-Street, Covent Garden, 1767
 

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Page 95 - ... is to nail dogs to tables and open them alive ; to try how long life may be continued in various degrees of mutilation, or with the excision or laceration of the vital parts; to examine whether burning irons are felt more acutely by the bone or tendon ; and whether the more lasting agonies are produced by poison forced into the mouth, or injected into the veins.
Page 188 - To illustrate one thing by its resemblance to another, has been always the most popular and efficacious art of instruction. There is indeed no other method of teaching that of which any one is ignorant, but by means of something already known...
Page 215 - Surely, he whose debtor has perished in prison, although he may acquit himself of deliberate murder, must at least have his mind clouded with discontent, when he considers how much another has suffered from him; when he thinks on the wife bewailing her husband, or the children begging the bread which their father would have earned. If there are any made so obdurate by avarice or cruelty, as to revolve these consequences without dread or pity, I must leave them to be awakened by some other power,...
Page 241 - He that is carried forward, however swiftly, by a motion equable and easy, perceives not the change of place but by the variation of objects.
Page 231 - These are the great occasions which force the mind to take refuge in religion : when we have no help in ourselves, what can remain but that we look up to a higher and a greater Power ? and to what hope may we not raise our eyes and hearts, when we consider that the greatest POWER is the BEST?' Surely there is no man who, thus afflicted, does not seek succour in the gospel, which has brought life and immortality to light.
Page 249 - ... little need of his own resemblance, nor can desire it, but for the sake of those whom he loves, and by whom he hopes to be remembered. This use of the art is a natural and reasonable consequence of affection; and though, like other human actions, it is often complicated with pride, yet even such pride is more laudable than that by which palaces are covered with pictures, that, however excellent, neither imply the owner's virtue nor excite it.
Page 166 - No species of literary men has lately been so much multiplied as the writers of news. Not many years ago the nation was content with one gazette ; but now we have not only in the metropolis papers for every morning and every evening, but almost every large town has its weekly historian...
Page 232 - Real alleviation of the loss of friends, and rational tranquillity in the prospect of our own dissolution, can be received only from the promises of Him in whose hands are life and death, and from the assurance of another and better state, in which all tears will be wiped from the eyes, and the whole soul shall be filled with joy. Philosophy may infuse stubbornness, but Religion only can give patience.
Page 80 - ... to the loiterer, who makes appointments which he never keeps; to the consulter, who asks advice which he never takes; to the boaster, who blusters only to be praised; to the complainer, who whines only to be pitied; to the projector, whose happiness is to entertain his friends with expectations which all but himself know to be vain; to the...

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