A century of English essays

I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not for criticising hedge-rows and black cattle...

"To be obliged to wear a long wig, when I liked a short one, or a black coat, when I generally dressed in brown, I thought was such a restraint upon my liberty, that I absolutel...

The fire in the open air is indeed joy perpetual, and there is no surer way of renewing one's youth than by kindling and tending it, whether it be a rubbish fire for potatoes, o...

It is an unreasonable thing some Men expect of their Acquaintance. They are ever complaining that they are out of Order, or displeas'd, or they know not how; and are so far from...

The French give a different turn to things, less _sombre_ and less edifying. A common and also a very pleasing ornament to a clock, in Paris, is a figure of Time seated in a boa...

Our claim that nonsense is a new literature (we might almost say a new sense) would be quite indefensible if nonsense were nothing more than a mere aesthetic fancy. Nothing subl...

We entered the lower door, which ever seemed to lie most hospitably open; and I began to ascend an old and creaking stair-case, when, as he mounted to show me the way, he demand...

But that our Society may not appear a Set of Humourists unacquainted with the Gallantries and Pleasures of the Age, we have among us the gallant WILL. HONEYCOMB, a Gentleman who...

_Jeems's_ face was so extensive, and met you so formidably and at once, that it mainly composed his whole; and such a face! Sydney Smith used to say of a certain quarrelsome man...

to traverse desert wildernesses, to listen to the midnight choir, to visit lighted halls, or plunge into the dungeon's gloom, or sit in crowded theatres and see life itself mock...

But the same genealogy cannot always be admitted for political lying; I shall therefore desire to refine upon it, by adding some circumstances of its birth and parents. A politi...

Lady G. in a letter to Miss Harriet Byron, assures her that "her brother Sir Charles lived to himself:" and Lady L. soon after (for Richardson was never tired of a good thing) r...

But now, there were driven cattle on the high road near, wanting (as cattle always do) to turn into the midst of stone walls, and squeeze themselves through six inches' width of...

For the heath, which was the third part of our plot, I wish it to be framed, as much as may be, to a natural wildness. Trees I would have none in it; but some thickets, made onl...

"There was pleasure in eating strawberries, before they became quite common--in the first dish of peas, while they were yet dear--to have them for a nice supper, a treat. What t...

"I came to my Estate in my Twenty second Year, and resolved to follow the Steps of the most worthy of my Ancestors, who have inhabited this spot of Earth before me, in all the M...

Whether therefore the gatherers of the publique or private Play-house stand to receive the afternoones rent, let our Gallant (having paid it) presently advance himselfe up to th...

As I look up from my desk, I see Tunbridge Wells Common and the rocks, the strange familiar place which I remember forty years ago. Boys saunter over the green with stumps and c...

Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when _they_ were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle or grandame, whom...

"I will not dwell upon the Recital of the innumerable Cures I have performed within Twenty Days last past; but rather proceed to exhort all Persons, of whatever Age, Complexion...

Here I pause for one moment to exhort the reader never to pay any attention to his understanding when it stands in opposition to any other faculty of his mind. The mere understa...

In this course of even propensity, I was one day persuaded to buy a ticket in the lottery. The sum was inconsiderable, part was to be repaid though fortune might fail to favour...

He had scarcely had time to congratulate himself on the veneration which this narrative must have procured him from the company, when one of the ladies having reached out for a...

Richard Amlet, Esq., in the play, is a noticeable instance of the disadvantages, to which this chimerical notion of _affinity constituting a claim to an acquaintance_, may subje...

One great step of progress, for example, we should say, in actual circumstances, was this same; the clear ascertainment that we are in progress. About the grand Course of Provid...

As I was Yesterday riding out in the Fields with my Friend Sir ROGER, we saw at a little Distance from us a Troop of Gypsies. Upon the first Discovery of them, my Friend was in...

The said noble gentlemen instantly required me for to imprint the history of the said noble king and conqueror, King Arthur, and of his knights, with the history of the Sancgrea...

It was an high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics): _That the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity...

The Captain, who did not fail to meet me there at the appointed Hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put on the same Sword which he made use of at the Battel of _St...

In those days, Society was what we name healthy, sound at heart. Not indeed without suffering enough; not without perplexities, difficulty on every side: for such is the appoint...

It reads, it admires, it extols only because it is the fashion, not from any love of the subject or the man. It cries you up or runs you down out of mere caprice and levity. If...

These solemn pageantries were not played off so often as to spoil the general mirth of the community. We had plenty of exercise and recreation _after_ school hours; and, for mys...

As we said at the beginning, the complaint is an old one--most complaints are. When Montaigne was in Rome in 1580 he complained bitterly that he was always knocking up against h...

I could here pause with pleasure, and invite the Reader to indulge with me in contemplation of the advantages which must have attended such a practice. We might ruminate upon th...

The women of this time troubled our author by their loudness of speech. There seems some reason to believe that with the Restoration, and in opposition to the affected whisperin...

If the Old Lady is a widow and lives alone, the manners of her condition and time of life are so much the more apparent. She generally dresses in plain silks, that make a gentle...

Thus if our eldest system of Metaphysics is as old as the _Book of Genesis_, our latest is that of Mr. Thomas Hope, published only within the current year. It is a chronic malad...

The Captain was so little out of Humour, and our Company was so far from being sowered by this little Ruffle, that _Ephraim_ and he took a particular Delight in being agreeable...

I was this Morning walking in the Gallery, when Sir ROGER enter'd at the end opposite to me, and advancing towards me, said, he was glad to meet me among his Relations the DE CO...

Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, is an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the wonder of our being. We are struck with...

However, without venturing into the abstruse, or too eagerly asking Why and How, in things where our answer must needs prove, in great part, an echo of the question, let us be c...

James White is extinct, and with him these suppers have long ceased. He carried away with him half the fun of the world when he died--of my world at least. His old clients look...

The works of Walking Stewart must be read with some indulgence; the titles are generally too lofty and pretending and somewhat extravagant; the composition is lax and unprecise,...

After a pause of silence: "Even thus," said he, "like two strangers that have fled to the same shelter from the same storm, not seldom do despair and hope meet for the first tim...

Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name was received with the greatest enthusiasm, who was proposed by J. F----. He presently superseded both Hogarth and Handel, who ha...

From my childhood I was extremely inquisitive about witches and witch-stories. My maid, and more legendary aunt, supplied me with good store. But I shall mention the accident wh...

An Italian author--Giulio Cordara, a Jesuit--has written a poem upon insects, which he begins by insisting, that those troublesome and abominable little animals were created for...

This is No. 653 of _Everyman's Library_. The publishers will be pleased to send freely to all applicants a list of the published and projected volumes arranged under the followi...

The decent vale consists of square green fields and park-like slopes, dark pine and light beech: but beyond that the trees gather together in low ridge after ridge so that the S...