Solitude, Volume 2J. & B. Williams, 1836 - Solitude |
Common terms and phrases
Abelard afford amidst ancholy anchorites Argenteuil Avignon beauty bosom Callistratus calm capable celebrated character charms cheerful choly cial comfort corrupted dangerous degree dejection delight Demosthenes Dioclesian disordered disposition divine dreadful effects elegant Eloisa endeavored enjoy enjoyment entertained envy exer exercise extraordinary eyes faculties fame fancy feelings fellow creatures follies frequently friends habits happiness heart highest holy human idea idle imagination incapable inclination indolence indulge intellectual intercourse irrational solitude joys lence lively lonely grove Lord George Gordon mankind manners melan melancholy melioration ment merit mind misanthropy misery monastic monks moral nature ness noble object observation pain Parma passions peace Petrarch philosopher pious Plato pleasures Plutarch powers prevailed prince produce pursuits quietude rational reason religion render repose retirement retreat rience Salona scenes sense sentiments sion social society solitary sorrows soul species spirit taste temper Tibur tion tranquillity truth tumults Vaucluse vices violence virtue virtuous wild
Popular passages
Page 172 - God loves from whole to parts : but human soul Must rise from individual to the whole. Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake ; The centre mov'd, a circle straight succeeds, Another still, and still another spreads ; Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace ; His country next, and next all human race ; Wide and more wide, th...
Page 90 - Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings ; And still new beauties meet his lonely walk, And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze Flies o'er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes The setting sun's effulgence, not a strain From all the tenants of the warbling shade Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake Fresh pleasure unreproved.
Page 74 - He who has nothing external that can divert him, must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is pleased with what he is'? He then expatiates in boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present moment he should most desire, amuses his desires with impossible enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion.
Page 74 - In time, some particular train of ideas fixes the attention; all other intellectual gratifications are rejected ; the mind, in weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favourite conception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is offended with the bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious and in time despotic.
Page 74 - ... will sometimes give way to idleness or satiety. He who has nothing external that can divert him, must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is pleased with what he is?
Page 167 - But such is the constitution of man, that labour may be styled its own reward ; nor will any external incitements be requisite, if it be considered how much happiness is gained, and how much misery escaped, by frequent and violent agitation of the body.
Page 90 - For him, the Spring Distils her dews, and from the silken gem Its lucid leaves unfolds : for him, the hand Of Autumn tinges every fertile branch With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn.
Page 27 - To cure the mind's wrong bias, Spleen, Some recommend the bowling-green ; Some, hilly walks ; all, exercise ; Fling but a stone, the giant dies. Laugh and be well. Monkeys have been Extreme good doctors for the Spleen ; And kitten, if the humour hit, Has harlequin'd away the fit.
Page 74 - 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 25 - It consisted only of six rooms, four of them in the form of friars' cells, with naked walls ; the other two, each twenty feet square, were hung with brown cloth, and furnished in the most simple manner. They were all on a level with the ground ; with a door on one side into a garden, of which Charles himself had given the plan, and had filled it with various plants, which he proposed to cultivate with his own hands.