Literary Books

CHAPTER I. EARLY YEARS. It will be necessary, for several reasons, to give this short sketch the form rather of a critical essay than of a biography. The data for a life of Nathaniel Hawthorne are the reverse of copious, and even if they were abundant they would serve but in a limited measure the purpose of the biographer. Hawthorne's career was probably as tranquil and uneventful a one as ever... more...

CHAPTER I The Unlucky Day of the Fool's Month—High Street, WestBromwich—My First Pedestrian Triumph—The Common EnglishBracken—The Sense of Beauty. I remember that in a fit of petulance at some childish misdemeanour, my mother once told me that I came into the world on the unlucky day of the fool's month. It was her picturesque way of saying that I was born on the thirteenth of April.... more...

OUR FRIEND JOHN BURROUGHS We all claim John Burroughs as our friend. He is inextricably blended with our love for the birds and the flowers, and for all out of doors; but he is much more to us than a charming writer of books about nature, and we welcome familiar glimpses of him as one welcomes anything which brings him in closer touch with a friend. A clever essayist, in speaking of the "obituary... more...

Chapter I. Shelley and His Age In the case of most great writers our interest in them as persons is derived from out interest in them as writers; we are not very curious about them except for reasons that have something to do with their art. With Shelley it is different. During his life he aroused fears and hatreds, loves and adorations, that were quite irrelevant to literature; and even now, when he... more...

Chapter I. 1789-1820. In one of the interior counties of New York, less than one hundred and fifty miles in a direct line from the commercial capital of the Union, lies the village of Cooperstown. The place is not and probably never will be an important one; but in its situation and surroundings nature has given it much that wealth cannot furnish or art create. It stands on the southeastern shore of... more...

INTRODUCTION Francis Bacon, in one of his prose fragments, draws a memorable distinction between "arts mechanical" and "sciences of conceit." "In arts mechanical," he says, "the first device comes shortest, and time addeth and perfecteth. But in sciences of conceit the first author goeth farthest, and time leeseth and corrupteth.... In the former, many wits and industries... more...

George Borrow. 1 Man of the Book, thou Pilgrim of the Road,  The love of travelDrave thee on ever with pursuing goad;Trust was thy burning light, Truth was thy load—  Sweet riddles for the weary to unravel,      Within thy breast      Glowed the pure fire of an Eternal Quest. 2 The Bible was thy chart, the open sky  Thy roof and rafterOften, and thou didst learn night’s mystery;Learning... more...

CHAPTER I JOHNSON AS A NATIONAL INSTITUTION The name of Samuel Johnson is, of course, not the greatest in English prose, but even to-day, when he has been dead more than a century and a quarter, it is still the most familiar. We live in an age of newspapers. Where all can read, the newspaper press, taken as a whole, will be a fairly accurate reflection of what is in the mind of a people. Nothing will... more...

CHAPTER I. I LEAVE MY FARM "Is it so small a thingTo have enjoyed the sun,To have lived light in spring?" It is eight o'clock of a sunny spring morning. I have been on the road for almost three hours. At five I left the town of Holt, before six I had crossed the railroad at a place called Martin's Landing, and an hour ago, at seven, I could see in the distance the spires of... more...

CHAPTER I Richard Harding Davis was born in Philadelphia on April 18, 1864, but, so far as memory serves me, his life and mine began together several years later in the three-story brick house on South Twenty-first Street, to which we had just moved. For more than forty years this was our home in all that the word implies, and I do not believe that there was ever a moment when it was not the... more...