Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey ...

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Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1856 - Authors, English - 431 pages
 

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Page 146 - They sin who tell us Love can die. With life all other passions fly, All others are but vanity. In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell, Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell; Earthly these passions of the Earth, They perish where they have their birth ; But Love is indestructible. Its holy flame for ever burneth, From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth...
Page 147 - Oh ! when a mother meets on high The babe she lost in infancy, Hath she not then, for pains and fears, The day of woe, the watchful night, For all her sorrow, all her tears, An over-payment of delight ? THE HOLLY TREE.
Page 157 - Welsh triad might comprehend all the rules of style. Say what you have to say as perspicuously as possible, as "briefly as possible, and as rememberably as possible, and take no other thought about it. Omit none of those little circumstances which give life to narration, and bring old manners, old feelings, and old times before your eyes.
Page 156 - Make your writing books in foolscap quarto, and write on only one side of a leaf; draw a line down the margin, marking off space enough for your references, which should be given at the end of every paragraph ; — noting page, book, or chapter of the author referred to. This minuteness is now demanded, and you will yourself find it useful ; for in transcribing or in correcting proofs, it is often requisite to turn to the original authorities. Take the best author, that is to say the one that has...
Page 160 - I have a strong and lively faith in a state of continued consciousness from this stage of existence; and that we shall recover the consciousness of other stages through which we previously may have passed, seems to me not improbable.
Page 372 - ... so, because I possess the will as well as the power of employing myself for the support of my family, and value riches exactly at what they are worth. I have store of books, and pass my life among them, finding no enjoyment equal to that of accumulating knowledge. In worldly affairs the world must consider me as unfortunate, for I have been deprived of a good property, which, by the common laws of inheritance, should have been mine; and this through no fault, error, or action of my own. But my...
Page 212 - I was perfectly aware that I was planting acorns, while my contemporaries were setting Turkey beans. The oak will grow, and though I may never sit under its shade, my children will.
Page 168 - How does the water Come down at Lodore?" My little boy asked me Thus, once on a time; And moreover he tasked me To tell him in rhyme. Anon, at the word, There first came one daughter, And then came another, To second and third The request of their brother, And to hear how the water Comes down at Lodore, With its rush and its roar, As many a time They had seen it before. So I told them in rhyme, For...
Page 119 - more than any of the gods of all my mythologies, for his very ' words are thunder and lightning, such is the power and the ' splendour with which they burst out. But all is perfectly ' natural ; there is no trick about him, no preaching, no parade,
Page 189 - I heard the same things repeated, — repeated to every fresh company, seven times in the week if we were in seven parties, — still I was silent, in great measure from depression of spirits at perceiving those vices in his nature which soon appeared to be incurable. When he provoked me into an argument, I made the most of my time; and, as it was not easy to get in more than a few words, took care to make up in weight for what they wanted in measure.

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