Word: books
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Dates: during 1873-1873
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...over our heads that some philanthropic gentleman does not try to cultivate our taste for art by thrusting upon us poor engravings and cheap chromos; or that some gentleman, fresh from the Divinity School, and with its odor of sanctity about him, does not try to sell us a book which is the very thing to turn the hardened student from his evil ways, and give him the true view of life. The disappointment they show when refused can surely result from nothing but their sorrow at our blindness to our own interests, and is enough to make a tenderhearted...
...blanket, fiercely stroking his mustaches, and pointing with a gleaming knife at an open volume of poems. This was Joaquin Miller. "I give you my honor, sir, that he was born of a half-breed and a Mexican cattle-thief, sir. Until his seventeenth year, he never saw a book, sir, nor a page, nor a line, sir. He was brought up in the deepest dirt, sir, and degradation, sir." Could Mr. Bounderby himself have said more? Here was a poet in a strange shape, indeed. His origin was none of the best, and, we were assured...
...illusion. He has spied one or two pretty girls in his audience, whom he proceeds to regard especially, to the eminent danger of subverting the discipline of the school. The teacher calls out his pet class to recite in Virgil, and our "dig" (ah, so fallen!) takes the offered book. He listens nonchalantly to a translation, and a number of questions from the teacher, when the latter, perhaps seeing the state of the case, suggests that his visitor asks the class some questions. Just the thing! Our friend has now got so far as to be in the mood...
Carlyle, for instance, draws us up to his philosophic height, and with him we learn to look down upon our fellow-men or upon our own natures. We may close the book and declare that Carlyle is the "Prince of Cynics," but we have felt and thought with him, and are inclined to acknowledge that he is right. The particular weakness he has exposed we regard with a scorn which has no mixture of pity. We may blame him for his quickness in discovering our vices and our failings, or for his slowness to appreciate our virtues; we may complain...
...since it is so difficult to be witty, are we to give up the attempt, and devote ourselves to a style of composition as devoid of humor as a statute-book? Certainly not. If we have not the wit to elicit an appreciative smile from our readers, we at least have the ability to throw into our expressions a certain degree of spiciness and originality; otherwise we had better cast our quill aside, and turn our thoughts to other pursuits...