Essay on Language |
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abstraction action advance appear apply associations authority beautiful benevolence Bible Brown University cause Channing character common consciousness cultivation divine duty effect efforts elevated emotions energy ennobling error ethereal evil exalted excited exer exert existence expression faculties feelings finer feelings finite free agency give glowing happiness heart heaven hence higher hope human ical ideas imagination important improvement infallibility infinite influence inspiration intel intellectual intelligence interest Job Durfee knowledge labor language of ideality laws lence less lofty manifested mankind material means ment mental metaphysical mind minister of religion mode moral nature ness noble object observe perceive perceptions perfect perhaps philosophy physical poet poetic poetry portion present principles processes of ideality progress pure purity pursuits quires reasoning religion revelation Rhode Island Samuel Eddy sense sentiment society soul sphere spirit sublime supposed thought tion truth universal universal proposition vated views virtue words
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Page 244 - Its great tendency and purpose is, to carry the mind beyond and above the beaten, dusty, weary walks of ordinary life; to lift it into a purer element, and to breathe into it more profound and generous emotion.
Page 21 - Appals the gazing mourner's heart, As if to him it could impart The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon ; — Yes, but for these, and these alone, Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour, He still might doubt the tyrant's power. So fair, so calm, so softly sealed, The first, last look by death revealed ! Such is the aspect of this shore ; 'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more ! So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, We start, for soul is wanting there...
Page 242 - Christians than that of man's immortality ; but it is not so generally understood, that the germs or principles of his whole future being are now wrapped up in his soul, as the rudiments of the future plant in the seed. As a necessary result of this constitution, the soul, possessed and moved by these mighty though infant energies, is perpetually stretching beyond what is present and visible, struggling against the bounds of its earthly prisonhouse, and seeking relief and joy in imaginings of unseen...
Page 21 - HE who hath bent him o'er the dead Ere the first day of death is fled, The first dark day of nothingness, The last of danger and distress, (Before Decay's effacing fingers Have swept the lines where beauty lingers), And marked the mild angelic air, The rapture of repose that's there...
Page 244 - ... refinement and exaltation. It lifts the mind above ordinary life, gives it a respite from depressing cares, and awakens the consciousness of its affinity with what is pure and noble. In its legitimate and highest efforts, it has the same tendency and aim with Christianity ; that is, to spiritualize our nature. True, poetry has been made the instrument of vice, the pander of bad passions ; but when genius thus stoops, it dims its fires, and...
Page 14 - It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision.
Page 21 - Greece, but living Greece no more ! So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, We start, for soul is wanting there. Hers is the loveliness in death, That parts not quite with parting breath ; But beauty with that fearful bloom, That hue which haunts it to the tomb — Expression's last receding ray, A gilded halo hovering round decay, The farewell beam of Feeling past away ! Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth, Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth...
Page 246 - ... exist. He only extracts and concentrates, as it were, life's ethereal essence, arrests and condenses its volatile fragrance, brings together its scattered beauties, and prolongs its more refined but evanescent joys. And in this he does well; for it is good to feel that life is not wholly usurped by cares for subsistence, and physical gratifications, but admits, in measures which may be indefinitely enlarged, sentiments and delights worthy of a higher being.
Page 366 - ... years To push eternity from human thought, And smother souls immortal in the dust ? A soul immortal, spending all her fires, Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, Thrown into tumult, raptur'd or alarm'd, At aught this scene can threaten or indulge, Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.
Page 129 - TO him who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware.