The Cambridge History of American Literature: Early national literature: pt. II. Later national literature: pt. IWilliam Peterfield Trent, John Erskine, Stuart Pratt Sherman, Carl Van Doren G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1918 - American literature |
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American literature appeared Atlantic Atlantic Monthly Bibliography biography Book Boston century Chap character Charles Civil College criticism Daniel Webster dialect doctrine early Edgar Allan Poe edition editor Emerson England English essays friends George Georgia Graham's Magazine Hawthorne Henry Holmes Horace Greeley humour ibid interest James James Russell Lowell Joel Chandler Harris John Greenleaf Whittier Journal later Leaves of Grass letters literary lived London Longfellow Lowell Lowell's Magazine Massachusetts Monthly moral Motley nature negro never newspapers North American Review orator papers period Philadelphia Poe's poems poet poetic poetry political popular Prescott prose published reader Reprinted Romance Rptd sentiment Sept short story Sketches slavery song South Southern speech spirit style Thoreau thought tion Uncle Remus Unitarian verse vols volume Walt Whitman Washington Whittier-Land William words writing written wrote York
Popular passages
Page 58 - A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents ; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents — he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect.
Page 362 - If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one preestablished design.
Page 92 - He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstance to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must...
Page 93 - You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget The nobler and the manlier one?
Page 302 - Sleep sweetly in your humble graves, Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause; Though yet no marble column craves The pilgrim here to pause. In seeds of laurel in the earth The blossom of your fame is blown, And somewhere, waiting for its birth, The shaft is in the stone!
Page x - It is for no particular item in the tax-bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually.
Page 302 - Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years Which keep in trust your storied tombs, Behold, your sisters bring their tears, And these memorial blooms.
Page 242 - There is Lowell, who's striving Parnassus to climb With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme, He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders, But he can't with that bundle he has on his shoulders, The top of the hill he will ne'er come nigh reaching Till he learns the distinction 'twixt singing and preaching...
Page 90 - Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining; Though equal to all things, for all things unfit, Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit: For a patriot, too cool; for a drudge, disobedient; And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient.
Page 92 - A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every circumstance connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper ; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery.