The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray, Volume 22

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Smith, Elder, & Company, 1885 - English literature
 

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Page 227 - Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep. All these with ceaseless praise his works behold Both day and night : how often from the steep Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard Celestial voices to the midnight air, Sole, or responsive each to other's note, Singing their great Creator...
Page 216 - Here are two literary men gone to their account, and, laus Deo, as far as we know, it is fair, and open, and clean. Here is no need of apologies for shortcomings, or explanations of vices which would have been virtues but for unavoidable &c.
Page 210 - Tradition in the United States still fondly retains the history of the feasts and rejoicings which awaited Irving on his return to his native country from Europe. He had a national welcome ; he stammered in his speeches, hid himself in confusion, and the people loved him all the better. He had worthily represented America in Europe. In that young community a man who brings home with him abundant European testimonials is still treated with respect (I have found American writers, of...
Page 208 - ALMOST the last words which Sir Walter spoke to Lockhart, his biographer, were, " Be a good man, my dear ! " and with the last flicker of breath on his dying lips, he sighed a farewell to his family, and passed away blessing them. Two men, famous, admired, beloved, have just left us, the Goldsmith and the Gibbon of our...
Page 211 - Does not th« very cheerfulness of his after life add to the pathos of that untold story? To grieve always was not in his nature : or, when he had his sorrow, to bring all the world in to condole with him and bemoan it. Deep and quiet he lays the love of his heart, and buries it ; and grass and flowers grow over the scarred ground in due time.
Page 261 - Of course he spoke with an Irish brogue. Of course he had been in the army. In ten minutes he pulled out an Army Agent's account, whereon his name was written. A few months after we read of him in a police court. How had I come to know him, to divine him ? Nothing shall convince me that I have not seen that man in the world of spirits. In the world of spirits and water I know I did : but that is a mere quibble of words.
Page 215 - Harlowe and her misfortunes, and her scoundrelly Lovelace ! The Governor's wife seized the book, and the Secretary waited for it, and the Chief Justice could not read it for tears ! " He acted the whole scene : he paced up and down the "Athenaeum" library: I dare say he could have spoken pages of the book — of that book, and of what countless piles of others ! In this little paper let us keep to the text of nil nisi bonum. One paper I have read regarding Lord Macaulay says "he had no heart." Why,...
Page 209 - States, honest and otherwise, who preach that kind of doctrine. But the good Irving, the peaceful, the friendly, had no place for bitterness in his heart, and no scheme but kindness. Received in England with extraordinary tenderness and friendship (Scott, Southey, Byron, a hundred others have borne witness to their liking for him), he was a messenger of goodwill and peace between his country and ours.
Page 209 - He was born almost with the republic ; the pater patrios had laid his hand on the child's head. He bore Washington's name ; he came amongst us bringing the kindest sympathy, the most artless, smiling good-will. His new country (which some people here might be disposed to regard rather superciliously) could send us, as he showed in his own person, a gentleman who, though himself born in no very high sphere, was most finished, polished, easy, witty, quiet ; and, socially, the equal of the most refined...
Page 256 - Brown, who is dead, is brought to life. Aghast, and months after the number was printed, I saw that I had called Philip Firmin, Clive Newcome. Now Clive Newcome is the hero of another story by the reader's most obedient writer. The two men are as different, in my mind's eye, as — as Lord Palmerston and Mr. Disraeli let us say. But there is that blunder at page 990, line 76, volume 84 of the Cornhill Magazine, and it is past mending ; and I wish in my life I had made no worse blunders or errors...

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