A Manual of English Prose Literature: Biographical and Critical, Designed Mainly to Show Characteristics of StyleW. Blackwood, 1881 - 548 pages |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 82
Page 2
... Perhaps no one has an equal abundance of words for all purposes . From the in- evitable limitation of human faculties , no man , however " myriad- minded , " can give his attention to everything . Inevitably every man falls into special ...
... Perhaps no one has an equal abundance of words for all purposes . From the in- evitable limitation of human faculties , no man , however " myriad- minded , " can give his attention to everything . Inevitably every man falls into special ...
Page 6
... perhaps a dozen lines are occupied with expanding the condi- tions under which something is affirmed or denied . Here you cannot dismiss and have done with the ideas as you go along ; for as yet all is hypothetic - all is suspended in ...
... perhaps a dozen lines are occupied with expanding the condi- tions under which something is affirmed or denied . Here you cannot dismiss and have done with the ideas as you go along ; for as yet all is hypothetic - all is suspended in ...
Page 11
... perhaps the most exemplary . Bacon and Temple , from their legal and diplomatic education , are much more meth- odical than the generality . Johnson is also entitled to praise . But none of them can be recommended as a model . FIGURES ...
... perhaps the most exemplary . Bacon and Temple , from their legal and diplomatic education , are much more meth- odical than the generality . Johnson is also entitled to praise . But none of them can be recommended as a model . FIGURES ...
Page 16
... perhaps , is of the known and familiar kind ; and we are in no hazard of mistaking the sense of the author , though every word which he uses be not precise and exact . Few authors , for instance , in the English language , are more ...
... perhaps , is of the known and familiar kind ; and we are in no hazard of mistaking the sense of the author , though every word which he uses be not precise and exact . Few authors , for instance , in the English language , are more ...
Page 18
... perhaps to the generality , but still familiar to him . In point of fact , the two classes of readers use the word perspicuous with the same meaning . Both have in view , not the familiarity of the language or the structure , but the ...
... perhaps to the generality , but still familiar to him . In point of fact , the two classes of readers use the word perspicuous with the same meaning . Both have in view , not the familiarity of the language or the structure , but the ...
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Other editions - View all
A Manual of English Prose Literature, Biographical and Critical, Designed ... William Minto No preview available - 2015 |
A Manual of English Prose Literature, Biographical and Critical, Designed ... William 1845-1893 Minto No preview available - 2023 |
Common terms and phrases
abstruse Addison admiration antithesis appeared Ben Jonson Bishop Blackwood's Magazine called Carlyle Carlyle's character Chartism Church Church of England clear criticism death diction doctrine Edinburgh Edinburgh Review effect ELEMENTS OF STYLE England English Essays Euphuism example exposition expression favour favourite feelings figures figures of speech French French Revolution give Grasmere honour Hooker human humour intellectual Jeremy Taylor Johnson King labour language Latin less literary literature living London Lord Macaulay Macaulay's manner matter means ment mind moral narrative nature never objects opinion opium original Oxford paragraph particular passage pathos peculiar perhaps period periodic sentence person perspicuous Philosophy pleasure poet poetry political popular prose published QUALITIES OF STYLE Quincey Quincey's quoted reader regards says sense sentences sermons similitudes simplicity sometimes speech statement sublimity Tatler things tion translation Whig Wicliffe words writer wrote
Popular passages
Page 242 - Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
Page 242 - Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested ; that is, some books are to be read only in parts ; others to be read, but not curiously ; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
Page 353 - A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish...
Page 221 - Of law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world ; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power...
Page 300 - Yet no writer has said more exactly what he meant to say. For magnificence, for pathos, for vehement exhortation, for subtle disquisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the divine, this homely dialect, the dialect of plain working-men, was perfectly sufficient. There is no book in our literature on which we would so readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted English language — no book which shows so well how rich that language is in its own proper wealth, and how little it has...
Page 433 - ... the true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.
Page 243 - All practice is to discover or to work. Men discover themselves in trust, in passion, at unawares, and of necessity, when they would have somewhat done and cannot find an apt pretext. If you would work any man, you must either know his nature and fashions, and so lead him; or his ends, and so persuade him; or his weakness and disadvantages, and so awe him; or those that have interest in him, and so govern him.
Page 282 - ... when a ruder breath had forced open its virgin modesty, and dismantled its too youthful and unripe retirements, it began to put on darkness, and to decline to softness and the symptoms of a sickly age; it bowed the head, and broke its stalk, and at night having lost some of its leaves and all its beauty, it fell into the portion of weeds and outworn faces.
Page 352 - I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.
Page 284 - For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards, singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven, and climb above the clouds ; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest, than it could recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings.; till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm was over ; and then...