The history of Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia. With a complete vocabulary compiled by E. Amthor1846 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abyssinia afford afraid amuse answered Imlac Arab astronomer attention Bassa began beugen Cairo cavern CHAPTER choice clouds companions conceal condition considered continued conversation curiosity danger delighted desire dreadful Elend endeavoured enjoy entered envy evil expect eyes fancy father favour favourite fear felicity fest folly happy valley hear heard hermit honour hope human imagination inquiry knowledge labour lady learning less live look machen maids mankind marriage mind misery mountains nature Nekayah never Nile observed once opinion palace passed passions Pekuah Persia pleased pleasure poet possession prince princess Pyramid quiet racters Rasselas reason resolved rest retired retreat returned Ruhe sage schaft schwingen Scrupulosity silent solitude sometimes soon sorrow sound of music steigen suffer suppose surely things thou thought thout tion travelled truth turally virtue weary werfen Widerstand Wohnung wonder youth zwingen
Popular passages
Page 3 - YE who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope ; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow ; attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia.
Page 85 - I will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages, and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among- whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth...
Page 115 - The mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all combinations, and riots in delights which nature and fortune, with all their bounty, cannot bestow.
Page 28 - ... it received by accident at first: or whether, as the province of poetry is to describe Nature and passion, which are always the same, the first writers took possession of the most striking objects for description, and the most probable occurrences for fiction, and left nothing to those that followed them, but transcription of the same events, and new combinations of the same images.
Page 29 - The business of a poet," said Imlac, " is to examine, not the individual, but the species ; to remark general properties and large appearances...
Page 58 - My fancy riots in scenes of folly, and I lament that I have lost so much, and have gained so little. In solitude, if I escape the example of bad men, I want likewise the counsel and conversation of the good. I have been long comparing the evils with the advantages of society, and resolve to return into the world to-morrow. The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout.
Page 29 - Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw everything with a new purpose; my sphere of attention was suddenly magnified : no kind of knowledge was to be overlooked. I ranged mountains and deserts for images and resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of the forest and flower of the valley.
Page 16 - Sir, said he, you have seen but a small part of what the mechanick sciences can perform. I have been long of opinion, that, instead of the tardy conveyance of ships and chariots, man might use the swifter migration of wings ; that the fields of air are open to knowledge, and that only ignorance and idleness need crawl upon the ground.
Page 32 - They are more powerful, Sir, than we, (answered Imlac,) because they are wiser. Knowledge will always predominate over ignorance, as man governs the other animals. But why their knowledge is more than ours, I know not what reason can be given, but the unsearchable will of the Supreme Being.
Page 33 - There is so much infelicity," said the poet, " in the world, that scarce any man has leisure from his own distresses to estimate the comparative happiness of others. Knowledge is certainly one of the means of pleasure, as is confessed by the natural desire which every mind feels of increasing its ideas. Ignorance is mere privation, by which nothing can be produced : it is a vacuity in which the soul sits motionless and torpid for want of attraction ; and, whhout knowing why, we always rejoice when...