Essays: On the Following Subjects: Celibacy, Wedlock, Seduction, Pride, Duelling, Self-murder, Lying, Detraction, Avarice, Justice, Generosity, Temperance, Excess, Death

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Smart and Cowslade, 1806 - Conduct of life - 190 pages

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Page 113 - tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die: to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life...
Page 189 - Hark ! they whisper ; angels say, Sister Spirit, come away. . What is this absorbs me quite ! Steals my senses, shuts my sight, Drowns my spirits, draws my breath ? Tell me, my soul!
Page 92 - Wednesday. Doth he feel it ? No. Doth he hear it ? No. Is it insensible then ? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living ? No. Why? Detraction will, not suffer it: — therefore I'll none of it: Honour is a mere scutcheon, and so ends my catechism.
Page 190 - The world recedes; it disappears! Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears With sounds seraphic ring: Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O Grave! where is thy victory? O Death ! where is thy sting ? The Universal Prayer FATHER of all!
Page 172 - Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
Page 132 - tis slander, Whose edge is sharper than the sword ; whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile ; whose breath Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie All corners of the world : kings, queens, and states, Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave This viperous slander enters.
Page 171 - God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!
Page 92 - tis no matter; Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on, how then ? Can honour set to a leg ? No. Or an arm ? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then ? No. What is honour? A word. What is in that word, honour ? What is that honour ? Air. A trim reckoning ! — Who hath it ? He that died o
Page 47 - These violent delights have violent ends, And in their triumph die : like fire and powder, Which as they kiss consume.
Page 151 - HEAVEN eternal fountain of our feelings! 'tis here I trace thee and this is thy divinity which stirs within me not that, in some sad and sickening moments, my soul shrinks back upon herself, and startles at destruction mere pomp of words!

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