A Reader's History of American Literature |
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Amer Ameri American literature Anne Bradstreet appeared authors became Born in Boston Bret Harte Brown called Cambridge career century Channing Charles Brockden Charles Brockden Brown Charles Lamb Charles Stearns Charlotte Temple Concord Cooper Cotton Mather criticism died early edition editor Emerson Emily Dickinson England English Essays fame Fisher Ames Franklin Fraser's Magazine Freneau genius Graduating Harvard Hawthorne HIGGINSON History Holmes humor Indian Irving James John ladies Lanier later Letters Series lished litera literary lived London Longfellow Lowell Lowell's Madam Magazine Mass mind names nation never novels perhaps period person Philadelphia phrase Poems poet poetic poetry produced Professor prose published Puritan Sartor Resartus says Scott seems Shelley song spirit style Tenny Tennyson thing Thoreau thought tinc tion Transcendentalists ture Uncle Tom's Cabin verse vols volume Whitman Whittier whole William writing written wrote York young
Popular passages
Page 246 - Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, I will compose poetry ! The greatest poet even cannot say it, for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness...
Page 53 - I have been the more particular in this description of my journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you may in your mind compare such unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since made there. I was in my working dress, my best clothes being to come round by sea.
Page 37 - I must declare and avow, that in all my reading and observation— and it has been my favorite study— I have read Thucydides and have studied and admired the master states of the world— that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the general congress at Philadelphia.
Page 18 - The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire...
Page 10 - Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning, Full of Delight...
Page 10 - When I behold the heavens as in their prime, And then the earth, though old, still clad in green, The stones and trees insensible of time, Nor age nor wrinkle on their front are seen; If winter come, and greenness then do fade, A spring returns, and they more youthful made. But man grows old, lies down, remains where once he's laid.
Page 160 - The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?
Page 54 - I asked for a threepenny loaf, and was told they had none such. So, not considering or knowing the difference of money, and the greater cheapness nor the names of his bread, I bade him give me three-penny-worth of any sort.
Page 54 - Street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river water ; and, being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther.
Page 196 - In Heaven a spirit doth dwell Whose heart-strings are a lute; None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars (so legends tell), Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute. Tottering above In her highest noon, The...