The British Essayists: Rambler

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Alexander Chalmers
C. and J. Rivington, 1823 - English essays
 

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Page 33 - Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree? The Sun to me is dark And silent as the Moon, When she deserts the night Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. Since light so necessary is to life, And almost life itself, if it be true That light is in the Soul, She all in every part; why was the sight To such a tender ball as the eye confined?
Page 175 - The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry 'Hold, hold!
Page 26 - He tugged, he shook, till down they came, and drew The whole roof after them, with burst of thunder Upon the heads of all who sat beneath, Lords, ladies, captains, counsellors...
Page 51 - Venus, take my votive glass, Since I am not what I was ; What from this day I shall be, venus, let me never see.
Page 258 - ... how much its guilt, if we were to inspect the mind of him that committed it, would be extenuated by mistake, precipitance, or negligence; we cannot be certain how much more we feel than was intended to be inflicted, or how much we increase the mischief to ourselves by voluntary aggravations. We may charge to design the effects of accident; we may think the blow violent only because we have made ourselves delicate and tender ; we are on every side in danger of error and of guilt, which we are...
Page 25 - Be of good courage, I begin to feel Some rousing motions in me, which dispose To something extraordinary my thoughts.
Page 106 - Cicero remarks, that not to know what has been transacted in former times, is to continue always a child. If no use is made of the labours of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.
Page 258 - A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows tho true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
Page 50 - And, when I die, be sure you let me know Great Homer died three thousand years ago. Why did I write? what sin to me unknown Dipp'd me in ink, my parents', or my own? As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.
Page 83 - ... which prudence may confer on every state. Seneca has attempted not only to pacify us in misfortune, but almost to allure us to it, by representing it as necessary to the pleasures of the mind. " He that never was acquainted with adversity," says he, " has seen the world but on one side, and is ignorant of half the scenes of nature.

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