Life of Lord Jeffrey: LettersA. and C. Black, 1852 |
Common terms and phrases
admirable affection affectionately afraid amiable amused Andrew Rutherfurd beautiful believe bless Brougham Charles Dickens Charles Wilkes Charley Charlotte cheerful Clermiston comfort courts Craigcrook daresay deal dear Horner dear John delight Dickens dined dinner doubt duty Edinburgh Empson fancy fear feel Francis Horner friends give glad Glasgow happy hear heart honour hope hour House idle income indulge interest Inverary John Jeffrey John Wylde kind Lady late least leisure less letter live Loch Lomond London look Lord Cockburn mean ment Miss Moray Place Morehead morning Murray never night o'clock obliged party pleasure political poor pretty privilege recollection Review Rutherfurd scarcely Scotch Scotland society soon sort spirit Strachur sure sweet talk tell thank thing thought tion to-day to-morrow Tommy Moore trachea walk weather week Whigs whole wish write yesterday
Popular passages
Page 338 - I often run over and sit an hour tete a tete, or take a long walk in the park with him — the only way really to know or be known by either man or woman. Taken in this way I think him very amiable and agreeable. In mixed company, where he is now much sought after as a lion, he is rather reserved, &c. He has dined here (for Charlotte has taken to giving quiet parties), and we with him, at rather too sumptuous a dinner for a man with a family, and only beginning to be rich, though selling 44,000 copies...
Page 380 - Dickens ! and may it always be as light and full as it is kind, and a fountain of kindness to all within reach of its beatings ! We are all charmed with your Carol, chiefly, I think, for the genuine goodness which breathes all through it, and is the true inspiring angel by which its genius has been awakened. The whole scene of the Cratchetts is like the dream of a beneficent angel in spite of its broad reality, and little Tiny Tim, in life and death almost as sweet and as touching as Nelly.
Page 205 - I saw nobody so sociable, kind, and happy; so resigned, or rather so triumphant over fortune, by the buoyancy of his spirits, and the inward light of his mind. He told me a great deal about Lord Byron, with whom he had lived very much abroad, and of whose heart and temper, with all his partiality to him, he cannot say anything very favourable. There is nothing gloomy or bitter, however, in his ordinary talk, but rather a wild, rough, boyish pleasantry, much more like nature than his poetry.
Page 207 - Grey grown church towers, cathedrals, ruined abbeys, castles of all sizes and descriptions, in all stages of decay, from those that are inhabited to those in whose moats ancient trees are growing, and ivy mantling over their mouldered fragments. Within sight of this house, for instance, there are the remains of the palace of Hunsden, where Queen Elizabeth passed her childhood, and Theobalds, where King James had his...
Page 406 - Oh, my dear dear Dickens ! what a No. 5 you have now given us ! I have so cried and sobbed over it last night, and again this morning ; and felt my heart purified by those tears, and blessed and loved you for making me shed them ; and I never can bless and love you enough.
Page 272 - Memoirs. but read it ever since. The richness of his mind intoxicates me ; and yet, do not you think he would have been a happier man, and quite as useful and respectable, if he had not fancied it a duty to write a great book ? And is not this question an answer to your exhortation to me to write a little one ? Perpend.
Page 381 - You should be happy yourself, for you may be sure you have done more good by this little publication, fostered more kindly feelings, and prompted more positive acts of beneficence, than can be traced to all the pulpits and confessionals in Christendom since Christmas 1842.
Page 372 - You have been very tender to our sensitive friends beyond sea, and really said nothing which should give any serious offence to any moderately rational patriot among them.
Page 465 - ... that I may hear of the first honours attained by my nameboy. God bless him, and all of you ! We are all tolerably well here, I thank you; Mrs. Jeffrey, I am happy to say, has been really quite well for many months, and, in fact, by much the most robust of the two. My fairy grandchild, too, is bright and radiant through all the glooms of winter and age, and fills the house with sunshine and music. I am old and vulnerable, but still able for my work, and not a bit morose or querulous ; " and by...