Memoirs of Edward Gibbon, Esq |
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Page 14
... weeks at Paris ; I had him every day with me ; he has become gentle , pliant , humble , mod- est to bashfulness . Perpetual witness of the tenderness of my husband , of his genius , and of his happiness , a zealous admirer of opulence ...
... weeks at Paris ; I had him every day with me ; he has become gentle , pliant , humble , mod- est to bashfulness . Perpetual witness of the tenderness of my husband , of his genius , and of his happiness , a zealous admirer of opulence ...
Page 15
... weeks at their house in Geneva , which he afterwards did " most agreeably , " what with " the freedom of the morning , the society of the table and drawing - room in a round of the a private supper of free and friendly conversation ...
... weeks at their house in Geneva , which he afterwards did " most agreeably , " what with " the freedom of the morning , the society of the table and drawing - room in a round of the a private supper of free and friendly conversation ...
Page 24
... weeks ago . He is about twenty , with a hundred and thirty thousand livres a year ; the nephew of Noailles , who is ambassador here . He has bought the Duke of Kingston's yacht , and is gone to join the Americans , " and now " it is ...
... weeks ago . He is about twenty , with a hundred and thirty thousand livres a year ; the nephew of Noailles , who is ambassador here . He has bought the Duke of Kingston's yacht , and is gone to join the Americans , " and now " it is ...
Page 37
... weeks ago , as I was walk- ing on our terrace with M. Tissot , the celebrated phy- sician , M. Mercier , author of the " Tabhan de Paris , " the Abbé Raynal , Monsieur , Madame , and Mademoi- selle Necker , the Abbé de Bourbon , a ...
... weeks ago , as I was walk- ing on our terrace with M. Tissot , the celebrated phy- sician , M. Mercier , author of the " Tabhan de Paris , " the Abbé Raynal , Monsieur , Madame , and Mademoi- selle Necker , the Abbé de Bourbon , a ...
Page 67
... his life or his reason . I can never forget the scene of our first interview some weeks after the fatal event ; the awful silence , the room hung with black , the midday tapers ; his sighs and tears ; his EDWARD GIBBON . 67.
... his life or his reason . I can never forget the scene of our first interview some weeks after the fatal event ; the awful silence , the room hung with black , the midday tapers ; his sighs and tears ; his EDWARD GIBBON . 67.
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Popular passages
Page 174 - It was at .Rome, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter,* that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
Page 33 - I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a summer house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains.
Page 11 - After a painful struggle I yielded to my fate : I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son ; my wound was insensibly healed by time, absence, and the habits of a new life.
Page 59 - Call," is still read as a popular and powerful book of devotion. His precepts are rigid, but they are founded on the gospel ; his satire is sharp, but it is drawn from the knowledge of human life ; and many of his portraits are not unworthy of the pen of La Bruyere. If he finds a spark of piety in his reader's mind he will soon kindle it to a flame...
Page 19 - The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Many experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declamation...
Page 194 - I am at a loss how to describe the success of the work without betraying the vanity of the writer. The first impression was exhausted in a few days ; a second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand ; and the bookseller's property was twice invaded by the pirates of Dublin. My book was on every table, and almost on every toilette ; the historian was crowned by the taste or fashion of the day ; nor was the general voice disturbed by the barking of any profane critic.
Page 92 - To take up half on trust, and half to try, Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry. Both knave and fool the merchant we may call, To pay great sums, and to compound the small: For who would break with Heaven, and would not break for all?
Page 75 - Continuation of Echard's Roman History," which is indeed executed with more skill and taste than the previous work. To me the reigns of the successors of Constantine were absolutely new; and I was immersed in the passage of the Goths over the Danube, when the summons of the dinner-bell reluctantly dragged me from my intellectual feast.
Page 48 - Who builds a church to God, and not to Fame, Will never mark the marble with his name : Go, search it there, where to be born and die, Of rich and poor makes all the history ; Enough, that Virtue fill'd the space between ; Prov'd by the ends of being, to have been.
Page 11 - A rich banker of Paris, a citizen of Geneva, had the good fortune and good sense to discover and possess this inestimable treasure ; and in the capital of taste and luxury she resisted the temptations of wealth, as she had sustained the hardships of indigence. The genius of her husband has exalted him to the most conspicuous station in Europe.