Classical English Letter-writer, Or, Epistolary Selections: Designed to Improve Young Persons in the Art of Letter-writing and in the Principles of Virtue and Piety : with Introductory Rules and Observations on Epistolary Composition, and Biographical Notices of the Writers from Whom the Letters are Selected |
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Common terms and phrases
acquaintance affection affectionate affliction ALEXANDER POPE Almighty amiable ANNA SEWARD attended beautiful bishop blessing CATHERINE TALBOT cheerful comfort conversation Conyers Middleton dear sir death delight desire diligent Doddridge duty ELIZABETH ROWE endeavour epistolary esteem eternal Eyam faithful father favour friendship give grace hand happiness hear heart Heaven honour hope James Boswell James Hervey kind labour lady LETTER Lichfield live lord madam means ment mercy mind Mompesson moral nature ness never observed occasion passions perhaps person Peterhead PHILIP DODDRIDGE piety pious pleased pleasure Pope pray prayers racter reason religion remember RICHARD HURD SAMUEL JOHNSON servant sickness sincere sion Sir Matthew Hale sorrow soul Southampton speak spirit suffer sure tell temper tender thank thing thought tion trust truth village virtue WILLIAM WARBURTON wisdom wish words write young youth
Popular passages
Page 123 - ... the world recedes it disappears heaven opens on my eyes my ears with sounds seraphic ring lend lend your wings i mount i fly o grave where is thy victory o death where is thy sting.
Page 304 - Friend ! may each domestic bliss be thine ! Be no unpleasing melancholy mine : Me, let the tender office long engage, To rock the cradle of reposing age, With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death, Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep awhile one parent from the sky...
Page 124 - Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood Stand dressed in living green: So to the Jews old Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between.
Page 227 - Poverty, my dear friend, is so great an evil, and pregnant with so much temptation, and so much misery, that I cannot but earnestly enjoin you to avoid it. Live on what you have, live if you can on less ; do not borrow either for vanity or pleasure; the vanity will end in shame, and the pleasure in regret: stay therefore at home, till you have saved money for your journey hither. The Beauties of Johnson are said to have got money to the collector; if the 'Deformities' have the same success, I shall...
Page 294 - I shall never envy the honours which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if I can be numbered among the writers who have given ardour to virtue, and confidence to truth.
Page 199 - This exhibition has filled the heads of the artists and lovers of art. Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, since we are forced to call in the assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our time, of that time which never can return.
Page 105 - When I reflect what an inconsiderable little atom every single man is, with respect to the whole creation, methiuks it is a shame to be concerned at the removal of such a trivial animal as I am. The morning after my exit the sun will rise as bright as ever, the flowers smell as sweet, the plants spring as green, the world will proceed in its old course, people will laugh as heartily and marry as fast as they were used to da
Page 104 - Sickness is a sort of early old age : it teaches us a diffidence in our earthly state, and inspires us with the thoughts of a future, better than a thousand volumes of philosophers and divines. It gives so warning a concussion to those props of our vanity, our strength and youth, that we think of fortifying ourselves within, when there is so little dependence upon our outworks.
Page 223 - No death, since that of my wife, has ever oppressed me like this. But let us remember, that we are in the hands of him who knows when to give and when to take away; who will look upon us, with mercy, through all our variations of existence, and who invites us to call on him in the day of trouble. Call upon him in this great revolution of life, and call with confidence.
Page 236 - Visitors are no proper companions in the chamber of sickness. They come when I could sleep or read, they stay till I am weary, they force me to attend when my mind calls for relaxation, and to speak when my powers will hardly actuate my tongue. The amusements and consolations of languor and depression are conferred by familiar and...