Little Masterpieces of Autobiography, Volume 4Doubleday, Page, 1908 |
From inside the book
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Page 45
... born a very poor man's son . For the first six or seven years of my life , my father was gardener to a worthy gentleman of small estate in the neighbourhood of Ayr . Had he continued in that station , I must have marched off to be one ...
... born a very poor man's son . For the first six or seven years of my life , my father was gardener to a worthy gentleman of small estate in the neighbourhood of Ayr . Had he continued in that station , I must have marched off to be one ...
Page 48
... born in the same village . My young superiors never insulted the clouterly appearance of my plough - boy carcase , the two extremes of which were often exposed to all the inclemencies of all the seasons . They would give me stray ...
... born in the same village . My young superiors never insulted the clouterly appearance of my plough - boy carcase , the two extremes of which were often exposed to all the inclemencies of all the seasons . They would give me stray ...
Page 74
... AS A BOY I WAS born in the town of Salem , Massa- chusetts [ July 4 , 1804 ] in a house built by my grandfather , who was a maritime personage . The old household estate was in another part of the 74 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
... AS A BOY I WAS born in the town of Salem , Massa- chusetts [ July 4 , 1804 ] in a house built by my grandfather , who was a maritime personage . The old household estate was in another part of the 74 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
Page 75
... born . One of the peculiarities of my boyhood was a grievous disinclination to go to school , and ( Providence favouring me in this natural repugnance ) I never did go half as much as other boys , partly owing to delicate health ( which ...
... born . One of the peculiarities of my boyhood was a grievous disinclination to go to school , and ( Providence favouring me in this natural repugnance ) I never did go half as much as other boys , partly owing to delicate health ( which ...
Page 79
... born to vegetate forever in one place , and to live and die as tranquil as a puddle of water . As to lawyers , there are so many of them already that one half of them ( upon a moderate calculation ) are in a state of actual starvation ...
... born to vegetate forever in one place , and to live and die as tranquil as a puddle of water . As to lawyers , there are so many of them already that one half of them ( upon a moderate calculation ) are in a state of actual starvation ...
Common terms and phrases
Adam Bede afterward B. J. Stanza beautiful believe Bob Fagin Boston called character Charlotte Brontë child comfort copies critic dear Dickens dream Edinburgh edition Excelsior expression eyes fancy father feel fiction gave George Eliot GEORGE HENRY LEWES give hand happy Hawthorne heart Henry George Horatio Bridge human Hyères idea imagination Jane Eyre kind labour learned literary lived Longfellow look mind morning mother nature never night novel paper passion perhaps Philosophy of Composition pleasure poem poet poetic poetry Progress and Poverty published reader remember rhyme Robert Louis Stevenson romance Salem San Francisco SARANAC LAKE Scarlet Letter scenes Scott second draft sometimes song sorrow soul spirit story strong sure sweet tell thank thing thought tion truth Twice-Told Tales verse wife wild words write written wrote young youth
Popular passages
Page 50 - I loved her. Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening from our labours ; why the tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill like an /Eolian harp ; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious rattan when I looked and fingered over her little hand, to pick out the cruel nettlestings and thistles.
Page 5 - I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature; my whole soul burns most ardently for it, and every earthly thought centres in it.
Page 102 - The deep remembrance of the sense I had of being utterly neglected and hopeless; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that, day by day, what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, was passing away from me, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written.
Page 43 - Let a man but speak forth with genuine earnestness the thought, the emotion, the actual condition of his own heart; and other men, so strangely are we all knit together by the tie of sympathy, must and will give heed to him.
Page 46 - I am in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle terrors. The earliest composition that I recollect taking pleasure in was the Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's, beginning, How are thy servants blest, O Lord!
Page 11 - ... gentle face — the face of one long dead — Looks at me from the wall, where round its head The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light. Here in this room she died ; and soul more white Never through martyrdom of fire was led To its repose ; nor can in books be read The legend of a life more benedight. There is a mountain in the distant West That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines Displays a cross of snow upon its side. Such is the cross I wear upon my breast These eighteen years, through all...
Page 46 - Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar; and by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles.
Page 49 - In short, she, altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys, our dearest blessing here below...
Page 108 - I do not write resentfully or angrily: for I know how all these things have worked together to make me what I am : but I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back.
Page 52 - The collection of songs was my vade mecum. I pored over them, driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by song, verse by verse ; carefully noting the true, tender, or sublime, from affectation and fustian. I am convinced I owe to this practice much of my critic-craft, such as it is.