"Preface" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dyspeptic Anglo-Saxon abashment to such a concerto of down-going suppen and coteletten and gemuese and down-gurgling Laubenheimer and Marcobrunner and Zeltinger and Brauneberger as one may not hear elsewhere in the palatinates. And here, in the preface to the night, one may prehend while again eating (for in Germany, you must know, one's eating is limited in so far as time and occasion are concerned only by the locks of the alimentary canal and the contumacy of the intestines) the grand democracy of this kaiser city. For in this ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... comfortable abode in the Chaussee d'Antin, he turned his steps in the direction of the royal library, and was soon up to his ears in dusty tomes and jaundiced parchments. After much research, he discovered a folio manuscript, numbered, as he tells us in his preface, 4772 or 4773, and purporting to be a memoir, by a certain Count de la Fere, of events that occurred in France towards the latter part of the reign of Louis the Thirteenth. Upon perusal, he found this MS. so interesting, that he applied for, and obtained permission ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... included a large number of gentlemen of the wig and gown. His lordship's address is reported at length in the "Three Trials for Blasphemy," and a revised copy was published by himself. His view of the law has been dealt with already in my Preface. What I wish to say here is, that Lord Coleridge's demeanor was in marked contrast with Judge North's. I cannot do better than quote a few passages from an open letter I addressed to his ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... story which Mr. Washington Irving has dressed up very prettily in the first volume of his "Tales of a Traveller," pp. 84-119.; professing in his preface that he could not remember whence ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... sufficient number, yet as to the rest, military in just and due proportion—an education which, as JOHN MILTON says, 'fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and private, of peace and of war.' 'The nation,' says WORDSWORTH, in the preface to one of his grand odes, 'the nation would err grievously, if she suffered the abuse which other states have made of the military power, to prevent her from perceiving that no people ever was or can be independent, free, or secure, much ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... distinguished as a wretched poet, that his name had almost become proverbial," and who gave the title to Dryden's Mac-Flecknoe, is said to have been originally a Jesuit. Langbaine states "that his acquaintance with the nobility was more than with the Muses." In the preface our author says: "This Comedy is taken out of several excellent pieces of Molire. The main plot out of his Pretieusee's Ridiculee's; the Counterplot of Sganarelle out of his Escole des Femmes, and out of the Escole des Marys, the two Naturals; all which, ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... of such-like propositions is inherent only in one of its two members. O the cozening prattler that he is! I wonder if Santiago of Bressure be one of these cogging shirks. Such was of old, quoth Epistemon, the custom of the grand vaticinator and prophet Tiresias, who used always, by way of a preface, to say openly and plainly at the beginning of his divinations and predictions that what he was to tell would either come to pass or not. And such is truly the style of all prudently presaging prognosticators. He was nevertheless, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... published a pamphlet of respectable verses; and in the following year appeared as the author of a duodecimo volume of "Poems and Songs," which he inscribed to the Ettrick Shepherd. Of the compositions in the latter publication, the greater portion, he intimates in the preface, "were composed at an early age, chiefly betwixt the years of sixteen and twenty;" and as the production of a very young man, the volume is altogether creditable ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... creditably brief preface, Mr. Still sincerely disclaims literary pretension; but creditable as is this to the author, we may say that the work is in style excellent reading, and that if it were not so, the narratives themselves are so thrilling, possess ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... accordingly be considered separately. So long as it was a question of communion, more or less intimate, with foreign Churches, the intercourse was at all events not embarrassed with any difficulties about schism. The preface to the Book of Common Prayer had expressly declared that 'In these our doings we condemn no other nations, nor prescribe anything but to our own people only. For we think it convenient that every country should use such ceremonies as they shall ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... an accurately woven net of words. Nor do the vers-librists prove that they are less concerned with form than are other poets. "The poet must learn his trade in the same manner, and with the same painstaking care, as the cabinet maker," says Amy Lowell. [Footnote: Preface to Sword Blades and Poppy Seed.] The disagreement among poets on this point is proving itself to be not so great as some had supposed. The ideal of most singers, did they possess the secret, is to do as ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... what real usefulness there was in a preface to a work of this kind, and never wrote one without a misgiving that it would do more to ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... of Avignon is compared by the Italians with Babylon, and the Babylonish captivity. Such furious metaphors, more suitable to the ardor of Petrarch than to the judgment of Muratori, are gravely refuted in Baluze's preface. The abbe de Sade is distracted between the love of Petrarch and of his country. Yet he modestly pleads, that many of the local inconveniences of Avignon are now removed; and many of the vices against which the poet declaims, had been imported with the Roman court by ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... preface of four lines describing how Krishna's romance with Radha first began. The sky, it says, was dark with clouds. All around lay the vast forest. Night was coming up and Nanda who had taken the youthful Krishna ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... superior merit of the first (explorer, etc.) is a lieu commun with Arabs. So Al-Hariri in Preface ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Preface Grandeur Nature's Child To the Pines Reflections Life's Mystery The Fallen Tree There is an Air of Majesty Think Not That the Heart Is Devoid of Emotion Humanity's Stream Nature's Lullaby The Spirit of Freedom Is Born of the Mountains The Valley of the San Miguel To Mother ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... way, I sent off a lot of questions the day before yesterday to Tierra del Fuego on expression! I suspect (for I have never read it) that Spencer's 'Psychology' has a bearing on Psychology as we should look at it. By all means read the Preface, in about 20 pages, of Hensleigh Wedgwood's new Dictionary on the first origin of Language; Erasmus would lend it. I agree about Carpenter, a very good article, but with not much original...Andrew Murray has criticised, in ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... If at this point I interrupt you, with a question which I wish to preface with this remark! In the estimation of most women, well-kept hands, are considered as a rule, to indicate the measure of the owners refinement. According to my judgment, there is nothing which so quickly destroys the contour and suppleness of the hands, ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... the lovely Ines, and many more than a hundred items of interest could be enumerated. The best authority is J. de Araujo, whose monumental Bibliographia Inesiana was published in 1897. Mrs. Behn's novel was immensely popular and is included, with some unnecessary moral observations as preface, in Mrs. Griffith's A Collection of Novels (1777), Vol. III, which has a plate illustrating the tale. It was turned into French by Marie-Genevieve-Charlotte Tiroux d' Arconville (1720-1805), wife of a councillor of the Parliament, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... and, hesitating, was again my better self; but I would not go back, nor could I begin with any preface.—Thank Heaven that was impossible. ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... Ninety-one he published his third book, "The Rights of Man," with a complimentary preface by Thomas Jefferson. The book had an immense circulation in America and England. By way of left-handed recognition of the work, the author was indicted by the British Government for "sedition." A day was set for the trial, but as ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... a sapphire stone; nor even in the God of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah who in his compassion for the sheep who had gone astray, having turned everyone to his own way, laid on the Man of Sorrows the iniquity of us all." (Walter Lippmann: "A Preface to Morals.") ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... people as much liberty as they are capable of managing. This, I think, will be the glory of his administration, because, though a good theorist in finance, he is thought to execute badly. They are about to open a loan of one hundred millions, to supply present wants, and it is said, the preface of the Arret will contain a promise of the convocation of the States General, during the ensuing year. Twelve or fifteen Provincial Assemblies are already in action, and are going on well; and I think, that though the nation suffers in reputation, it will gain infinitely ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... preface exquisitely written? No literary morsel is more delicious. Is the author inveterately dull? It is a kind of preparatory information, which may be very useful. It argues a deficiency of taste to turn over an elaborate ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... Britain, and (2) Short Notices of the Kings and Bishops of Wessex expanded by copious insertions from Baeda, and after the end of his work by brief additions from some northern sources. These materials may have been thrown together into their present form in AElfred's time as a preface to the far fuller annals which begin with the reign of AEthelwulf, and which widen into a great contemporary history when they reach that of AElfred himself. After AElfred's day the Chronicle varies much in value. Through the reign ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... an account is given in the preface to the notes, and the few other old tunes which do not fall into either of the two above-mentioned classes, were included for the sake ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... preface—that is, a literary preface," laughed Ivan, "and I am a poor hand at making one. You see, my action takes place in the sixteenth century, and at that time, as you probably learnt at school, it was customary in poetry to bring down heavenly powers on earth. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... First Folio, 1623, was intended by his "fellows" at the Globe to stand as their monument to his memory, built of the plays that had become their private property by purchase. The verses that preface it, written by W. Basse, suggest that Shakespeare should have been buried by Chaucer, Spenser, Beaumont, in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. But the author withdraws ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... early,—earlier even than visits were paid in New York thirty years ago; and instantly, without any preface, looking her straight in the face, told Mrs. Portico that she was in great trouble and must appeal to her for assistance. Georgina had in her aspect no symptom of distress; she was as fresh and beautiful ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James
... thought knows that the world only belongs to him as a subject of study, and, even if he could reform it, perhaps he would find it so curious as it is that he would not have the courage to do so."—Ernest Renan, preface to Etudes d'histoire religieuse, 1857. The author has manifested better sentiments in 1859, in the preface to his Essais de morale et ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... the head of the Order, was urgently entreated, by the general chapter, to write the life of their holy Patriarch. With the intention of learning, with certainty, the truth of the facts, he went expressly to Assisi, "There," he says, in the preface to his work, "I had frequent and serious conferences with those who had been in the confidence of the great man, and who were still living; and principally with those who were most intimately consociated with him, and who have become the most faithful imitators of his holy life, to ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... Cicero.—I lately met with a writer of some deep learning and research, who, amongst other topics, entered into the subject of musical inflection by orators, &c. Now, unfortunately, the title and preface of the book is absent without leave, nor is there any heading to it, so I can do no more than say, the author refers to a passage ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... I care for M. Charnot's overshoes or the honor of Bourges at that moment! On the other side of the wall, a few feet off, I felt the presence of M. Mouillard. I reflected that I should have to open the door and launch the Academician, without preface, into the presence of the lawyer, stake my life's happiness, perhaps, on my uncle's first impressions, play at any rate the decisive move in the game which had been so ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... the Value of Gold; the Commercial and Social Consequences which may Ensue, and the Measures which it Invites. By Michel Chevalier. Translated from the French, with a Preface by Richard Cobden, Esq. New York. D. Appleton & ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... Author's Preface Author's Introduction The History of Projects Of Projectors Of Banks Of the Multiplicity of Banks Of the Highways Of Assurances Of Friendly Societies Of Seamen Of Wagering Of Fools A Charity-Lottery Of Bankrupts Of Academies Of a Court ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... Memoirs, calculated for the meridian of Scotland. To which is added the contemplative and practical angler. Writ in the year 1658. By Richard Franck. A new edition, with preface and notes. ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... too," said the old man thoughtfully, the instant the figure was finished, not giving the boy a chance to make any comment. And, without further preface he started again. This time an even stranger but equally perfect ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... a preface to the new edition of the Gypsy books, I am not a little perplexed. I was hardly more than a girl myself, when I recorded the history of this young person; and I find it hard, at this distance, to photograph her as she looks, or ought to look to-day. She does not sit still long ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... studying fashionable life in all its varied and capricious moods, and which have been preserved to posterity in her admirable delineations of character. Her reason for becoming an authoress is from her own pen, as follows, and is entitled a preface ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... whiskey and water I proceeded to examine it. It turned out to be a volume of Welsh poems entitled "Blodau Glyn Dyfi"; or, Flowers of Glyn Dyfi, by one Lewis Meredith, whose poetical name is Lewis Glyn Dyfi. The author indites his preface from Cemmaes, June, 1852. The best piece is called Dyffryn Dyfi, and is descriptive of the scenery of the vale through which the ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... chapter from the book of an educated traveller (we don't mean the education of Oxford and Cambridge) is worth volumes of the stuff usually forming the staple of books of travels. And in this unpretending book of the Yankee boy — for its preface is signally of this sort - we have scores of such chapters. The title is not altogether appropriate. It is called 'A Thousand Miles' Walk across South America.' It is more than a mere walk. It is an exploration into ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... We must be allowed to abate somewhat of the austerity of criticism by a reference to the life of the author. We cannot implicitly follow the unconditioned admiration of Mrs Howitt for "the beautiful thoughts of Andersen," which she tells us in her preface to the Autobiography, "it is the most delightful of her literary labours to translate." We must be excused if we think that the mixture of praise and of puff, which the lady lavishes so indiscriminately upon the author whose works she translates, is more ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... saw BURTON UPON MELANCHOLY, printed 1676, I pray look into it, and read the ninth page of his Preface, 'Democritus to the Reader.' There is something there which touches the point we are upon; but I mention the author to you, as the pleasantest, the most learned, and the most full of sterling sense. The wits of Queen Anne's reign, and the beginning ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... works of most of them encumbered with the debris of their senility. Coventry Patmore was a rare example of a poet who laid down his pen deliberately, not merely as an artist in words, but as an artist in life, having, as he said in the memorable preface to the collected edition of his poems, completed that work which in his youth he had set before him. His readers, therefore, are not saddened by any pathetic gleanings from a once-rich harvest-field, or the carefully picked-up shakings ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... quite gentle and kind to him the few hours preceding his departure. She had put up a generous lunch for him, and had even unbent so far as to declare that she had believed from the first that he knew nothing about the missing diamond bracelet. All this, however, had been the preface to a dozen brief lectures on thorny ways and the dark pitfalls of life. Frank was genuinely glad to escape from the gloomy influence Miss Brown cast on everything bright and happy ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... Otho, and Vitellius; viii. Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian). It was published A.D. 119-21, as it was dedicated (according to Joannes Lydus) to C. Septicius Clarus, praetorian prefect, who held office during those years. The preface and the beginning of the life of Iulius are wanting. Suetonius is a conscientious and accurate writer (cf. his discussion of Caligula's birthplace, Calig. 8), and he makes use of good sources, e.g. the Monumentum Ancyranum, Acta populi, Acta senatus, autograph documents ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... when making his constant appeal to conscience. It is, of course, a dramatic, not a didactic appeal. He preaches so little and is so effectively reticent that I could almost with he had left out the preface of his book, good as it is. Yes, just because it is so good I could wish he had left it out. It is a perfect justification of his purpose and methods, but they are their own justification with all who can think about them, and the others are themselves not worth thinking about. The ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... deficiency is to some extent supplied by an abridgment (Excerpta) made in the fourth or fifth century A.D., which adds thirty-nine themes to the thirty-five contained in the surviving part of the original work. Each Book had a separate preface. Those to v., vi., and viii. are entirely wanting; for the prefaces to ii., iii., and iv. we are ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... attempt to sketch an attitude towards statecraft. I have tried to suggest an approach, to illustrate it concretely, to prepare a point of view. In selecting for the title "A Preface to Politics," I have wished to stamp upon the whole book my own sense that it is a beginning and not a conclusion. I have wished to emphasize that there is nothing in this book which can be drafted into a legislative proposal and presented to the legislature the day after ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... have many powerful scenes and admirably drawn characters; the pictures of colonial life and manners in "Satanstoe" are animated and delightful; and in all the legal and ethical points for which the author contends he is perfectly right. In his Preface to "The Chainbearer" he says,—"In our view, New York is at this moment a disgraced State; and her disgrace arises from the fact that her laws are trampled under foot, without any efforts—at all commensurate with the object—being made to enforce them." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... I wrote a preface to Mr. Swope's book for the express purpose of informing the American public in this way that I believed that Germany intended at an early date to resume the ruthless ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... expensive cigars, ordered oysters and wine sent to his room—the very one adjoining Adah's—made two or three calls, wrote an explanatory note to 'Lina—feeling half tempted to leave out the "Dear," with which he felt constrained to preface it—thought again of Lily—poor Lily, as he always called her—thought once of the strange woman and the little boy, in whom Irving Stanley had been so interested, wondered where they were going, and who it was the boy looked a little ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... words have been added concerning the manner in which I have executed my task, this Preface shall be brought to a close.—If the style of the present SERMONS,—considering the auditory, and above all considering the subject,—shall be thought by competent judges not sufficiently dignified in parts, I ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... read the entire book, including the preface, carefully before beginning the work. If in addition to this you can read parts of the following books and articles, do so; for in this way it will be easier to grasp the full significance of ...
— The Tree-Dwellers • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... came in between my futile dash for liberty and this harsh preface to their dragging of me back to the manor house, I could not tell. It must have been an hour or more, for now a gibbous moon hung pale above the tree-tops, and all around were bivouac fires and horses tethered to show that in the interval a troop ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... the table; sitting in it all the time. After performing this evolution, he rose and limped as fast as he could up and down the room at least a dozen times, and then stopping suddenly before Rose, kissed her without the slightest preface. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... I want to say something as a preface in order to know just where we stand. Some citizens of the town have vilified me in private and in the public press—over an assumed name, however. It wouldn't be healthy for any man to do it openly. The man is a liar—but I don't care ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... writes in the preface to his Welt als Wille und Vorstellung [Footnote ref 1], "And if, indeed, in addition to this he is a partaker of the benefit conferred by the Vedas, the access to which, opened to us through the Upanishads, is in my eyes the greatest advantage ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... case to you, monsieur, free from all preface, for that would be unworthy of you. Mademoiselle de la Valliere is in Paris as one of Madame's maids of honor. I have pondered deeply on the matter; I love Mademoiselle de la Valliere above everything; and it is not proper ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the other day, into Pitiscus's preface to his "Lexicon," where I found a word that puzzled me, and which I did not remember ever to have met with before. It is the adverb 'praefiscine', which means, IN A GOOD HOUR; an expression which, by the superstition of it, appears to be low ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... be not merely sufficient, but in every way desirable, here to content ourselves with an account of the general characteristics of this poetry (contemporary prose, though existent, is of little importance), and to preface this by some remarks on the general influences and contributions of material with ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... write with aversion; what is more useless than to write something by which we unlearn good writing?' It must be acknowledged that he really flattered as sparingly as possible; the practice was so repulsive to him that in his preface he roundly owned that, to tell the truth, this whole class of composition was ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... "On Liberty," printed as a preface to this "Little Journey," rivals in worth the wonderful little classic of Ernest ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... executing the divine purposes of beneficence to the race." It was in the spirit of a crusader, consecrated to a particular service, that this man took up the problem of rubber. The words quoted are a fitting preface for the story of the years that followed, which is a tale of endurance and persistent activity under sufferings and disappointments such as are scarcely paralleled even in the pages of invention, darkened as they often are by ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... determined by the Senate that the list of Noteworthy Families should be published according to the title-page of this book, I having agreed to contribute the preface, Mr. Schuster's time being fully occupied with work in another ...
— Noteworthy Families (Modern Science) • Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster
... they were actually in physical contact, for the spiritual distance between them was formidable. Katharine, however, made no overtures, and Mrs. Milvain, who was possessed of rash but heroic courage, plunged without preface: ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... personal aspect, I have already said something in my preface to the Dublin edition. I need only add here that this true-hearted Irishman had many friends on the American continent, and that to them this little flower of his genius will be a vivid and abiding souvenir of one of the most lovable ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... as I explained in the preface to its first edition, published in 1876, is designed to serve and entertain those interested in the transactions of the Theatre. I have not pretended to set forth anew a formal and complete History of the Stage; it has rather been my object to traverse by-paths connected with the subject—to ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... "L'estomac." He took the name from Rabelais, Book IV., ch. 57, where it occurs thus:—"Messer Gaster est le premier maitre es arts de ce monde.... Son mandement est nomme: Faire le fault, sans delay, ou mourir." [7] Menenius.—See Translator's Preface. [8] Rome.—According to our republican notions of government, these people were somewhat imposed upon. Perhaps the fable finds a more appropriate application in the relation of employer to employed. I leave the fabulists and the political ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... slipped down from the rocks, found the cows, and drove them home as the preface to their ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... Huntingdon;' it is written by a modest and ingenious person of my acquaintance, and I felt great pleasure in lending him my poor assistance in the compilation of it. My name is mentioned in the preface. Perhaps," he added with a significant smile, "it might have claimed a still more conspicuous place; but I hold it more becoming in persons of rank to be the patrons than the competitors ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... work has been translated into most European languages. Of the English translations, that of Dr. Alexander Thomson, published in 1796, has been made the basis of the present. He informs us in his Preface, that a version of Suetonius was with him only a secondary object, his principal design being to form a just estimate of Roman literature, and to elucidate the state of government, and the manners of the times; for which the work of Suetonius seemed a fitting vehicle. Dr. Thomson's remarks ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... the skirmishings of Madame Dacier, La Motte, &c.; in English, besides the various translations and their prefaces, (which, by the way, began as early as 1555,) nothing of much importance until the elaborate preface of Pope to the Iliad, and his elaborate postscript to the Odyssey—nothing certainly before that, and very little indeed since that, except Wood's Essay on the Life and Genius of Homer. On the other ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... recommenced his own explanations in the language of nature. He too described the process of cooking and eating the prisoner—for this he admitted was indispensable by way of preface—and then, to show his horror of such an act, he gave a very good representation of a process he had often witnessed among his sea-sick passengers, by way of showing his loathing of cannibalism in general, and of eating this ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... poem of my "Siegfried" to a book-seller to be published, such as it is. In a short preface I explained that the completion and the performance of my work were beyond hope, and that I therefore communicated my intention to my friends. In fact, I shall not compose my "Siegfried" on the mere chance for ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... Geological tour (Mentioned by Sedgwick in his preface to Salter's 'Catalogue of Cambrian and Silurian Fossils,' 1873.) by Llangollen, Ruthin, Conway, Bangor, and Capel Curig, where I left Professor Sedgwick, and crossed the ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... Kentucky, where he lived until he died in 1812. The Indians left him unmolested in his reading or writing while he was among them, and he had kept a journal, which he wrote out in the delightful narrative of his captivity, first published in 1799. He modestly says in his preface that the chief use he hopes for it is from his observations on Indian warfare; but these have long ceased to be of practical value, while his pictures of Indian life and his studies of Indian character have a charm that will ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... lately published, which is a compilation by two London masters, it is stated, in the preface, that they were at a loss for proper lessons: had they used those in existence I cannot help thinking they were enough for the capacity of children under six years ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... clear idea is given by either of them. That of Boscovich has been given a prominence far in excess of its merits, being made the foundation for the discussion of these important curves, and this in a textbook whose preface contains the following true and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... for preparing it may be found in the catalogue of contributions from British Guiana to the International Exhibition of 1862. Preface, pp. lix. lxii. ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... proposes to perform for Woolwich in a work which he entitles 'The Records of the Woolwich District.' Mr. Vincent has been engaged in the task for twelve years. This is the work of a writer who has studied his subject in all the places where information can be obtained. The Preface alone will gain the reader's attention, even if the locality itself had no interest for him. It appears that Mr. Vincent had scented out the existence of a sealed packet of papers having reference to Woolwich, and, after a long hunt, ran the packet to earth in the British Museum. It was ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... in a dream; Newton and Cardano solved the most difficult problems in a similar manner; and Mrs. Beecher Stowe, George Eliot, and George Sand asserted that their novels had been written in a dream-like state, and that they themselves were ignorant of the ultimate fate of their personages. In a preface to one of her books Mrs. Beecher Stowe even went to the length of denying her authorship. Socrates and Tolstoi declared that their works were written in a condition of semi-unconsciousness; Leopardi, that he followed ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... Dedication Preface A Dalesman's Litany Cambodunum Telling the Bees The Two Lamplighters Our Beck Lord George Jenny Storm The New Englishman The Bells of Kirkby Overblow The gardener and the Robin Lile Doad His last Sail One Year Older The Hungry Forties The Flowers of Knaresborough Forest The Miller by the Shore ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... Preface Strange Meeting Greater Love Apologia pro Poemate Meo The Show Mental Cases Parable of the Old Men and the Young Arms and the Boy Anthem for Doomed Youth The Send-off Insensibility Dulce et Decorum est The Sentry ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... Austrian money; his skin has got to be the exact colour of Munz. He has the greenish-yellow eyes of those elective, thrice-abhorred vampyres who feed on patriot-blood. He is condemned without trial by his villainous countenance, like an ungrammatical preface to a book. His tongue refuses to confess, but nature is stronger:—observe his knees. Now this is guilt. It is execrable guilt. He is a nasty object. Nature has in her wisdom shortened his stature to indicate that it is left to us to shorten the growth of his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... which this miracle and its accompanying effects are recorded, indicates very clearly the Evangelist's idea of their relative importance. Two verses are given to the story of the miracle; all the rest of the chapter to its preface and its issues. It was a great thing to heal a man that was blind from his birth, but the story of the gradual illumination of his spirit until it came to the full light of the perception of Christ as the Son of God, was far more to the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... "I hate a Tory," says my honorable friend; "and another man hates a cat; but it does not follow that he would hunt down the cat, or I the Tory." Nay, so far from it, hatred, if it be properly managed, is, according to my honorable friend's theory, no bad preface to a rational esteem and affection. It prepares its votaries for a reconciliation of differences; for lying down with their most inveterate enemies, like the leopard and the kid in the vision of the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... obliged to you for so kindly sending me your Evidences, etc. We have read it with much interest. It seems to me written with much force, vigour, and clearness; and the main argument to me is quite new. I particularly agree with all you say in your preface. ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... censor commanded that I should print what I have stated in the preface to that third volume, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... understand by the Bible? The question was a difficult one to solve even at the beginning of the Reformation, when Luther, in his preface to the translation of the Bible, laid down a difference between the canonical books by preferring the gospel of St. John to the three other evangelists; by depreciating the Epistle of St. James as an epistle of straw, that contained nothing of the Gospel in it, and which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... subjects that interested Shelley, and some others; and she had learned to express the force of natural affection, which she was born to feel, but which had somehow been stunted and suppressed in her youth. In the preface to the collected edition of his works, she says: "I have the liveliest recollection of all that was done and said during the period of my knowing him. Every impression is as clear as if stamped yesterday, and I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... was Byron's most elaborate attempt to revive the unities and other restrictions of the severe style, which, when he wrote, had been "vanquished in literature." "I am persuaded," he writes in the preface, "that a great tragedy is not to be produced by following the old dramatists, who are full of faults, but by producing regular dramas like the Greeks." He forgets that the statement in the mouth of a Greek dramatist that his play was not intended for the stage, would ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... examples will give a sufficient idea of the commoner forms of declension in the classical West Saxon of the time of AElfred. The pronunciation has already been briefly explained in the preface. ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... and the orchestra approached the peroration of the preface of the coming solo, the violinist raised his head slowly. Suddenly his eyes met the gaze of the solitary occupant of the second proscenium box. His face flushed. He looked inquiringly, almost appealingly, at her. She sat immovable and serene, ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... woods, the fields, the cottages, the little church and its bells, the garden where she sat and sewed, the mother's stories, the morning mass, in this quiet preface of the little maiden's life; but nothing of the highroad with its wayfarers, the convoys of provisions for the war, the fighting men that were coming and going. Yet these, too, must have filled a large part in the village life, and it is evident that a ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... affectionate interest with which they linger round the catechumen's name at the very threshold of their work. But, be these as they may, I think no one can censure me for appending, in pursuance of the expressed wish of his son, the Turkey merchant's name to his system, and pronouncing, without further preface, a short epitome of the 'Shandean Philosophy ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... waistcoat to a cassock grew, And both assumed a sable hue; But being old, continued just As thread-bare, and as full of dust. His talk was now of tithes and dues; He smoked his pipe and read the news; Knew how to preach old sermons next, Vamped in the preface and the text; At christenings well could act his part, And had the service all by heart; Wished women might have children fast, And thought whose sow had farrowed last Against Dissenters would repine, ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... a poet, for Rowe seems to have thought very little on correction or explanation, but that our authour's works might appear like those of his fraternity, with the appendages of a life and recommendatory preface. Rowe has been clamorously blamed for not performing what he did not undertake, and it is time that justice be done him, by confessing, that though he seems to have had no thought of corruption beyond the printer's errours, yet he has made many emendations, if they were not made ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... there appeared to be a feeling in the air that she, Maisie,—of all people,—was in disgrace. Therefore she justified her conduct to herself with great success, till Torpenhow came up to her on the steamer and without preface began to tell the story of Dick's blindness, suppressing a few details, but dwelling at length on the miseries of delirium. He stopped before he reached the end, as though he had lost interest in the subject, and went forward ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... this Preface with a quotation from William Law on the value of the mystical writers. "Writers like those I have mentioned," he says in a letter to Dr. Trapp, "there have been in all ages of the Church, but as they served not the ends of popular learning, as they helped ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... "Parnassus" was written two years before his death, after which he wrote eight comedies and a sequel to his twelve moral tales. In his story of "Rinconete y Cortadilla" he evidently derives the names from rincon (a corner) and cortar (to cut). His last work was "Persiles and Sigismunda," the preface of which is a near presentiment of his closing labors. He says: "Farewell, gayety; farewell, humor; farewell, my pleasant friends. I must now die, and I desire nothing more than to soon see you again happy in another world." His industry was wonderful. We can but have a grateful ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... than encourage the taste of the day. To this I would answer, that it is easier to perceive the wrong than to pursue the right, and that I have never contemplated the prospect 'of filling (with Peter Bell, see its Preface,) permanently a station in the literature of the country.' Those who know me best, know this, and that I have been considerably astonished at the temporary success of my works, having flattered no person and no party, and expressed opinions which are not those ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... logic, rhetoric, and poetic which Savonarola derived from St. Thomas Aquinas[345] persisted for four centuries, rejuvenated by contact with the richer classical scholarship of the renaissance. B. Lombardus, for instance, in his preface to Maggi's edition of Aristotle's Poetics (1550), differentiates logic, rhetoric, and poetic by the same criteria. Logic, he says, proves by syllogism, and in this is different from both rhetoric and poetic, which use enthymeme ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... the faculty of rendering themselves visible when they thought proper, and assuming what shape they pleased. These are principally known by the names of Peris, Dives, [146] and Gins, or Genii. Richardson, in the preface to his Persian Dictionary, from which our account will principally be taken, refers us to what he calls a romance, but from which he, appears to derive the outline of his Persian mythology. In this romance Kahraman, a mortal, is introduced in conversation ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... blue stepped to the edge of the platform and for a silent minute towered above his neighbors like one of the great trees he so loved. Then, without warning or preface, he began to talk ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... and Napoleon's greatness: "I do not know," their spokesman says, "from whence or from whom he derives it, but there is a charm about that man indescribable and irresistible. I am no admirer of his." Such persons always preface any statement they are about to make by asserting their own superiority in this way, and the officers, who, with others, had many imaginary grievances against Napoleon, determined to empty their overburdened souls to him. This gallant person emphasizes the fact that he dislikes ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... exaggerated; but the fact is certain that in the time of M. Antoninus the heathen populations were in open hostility to the Christians, and that under Antoninus' rule men were put to death because they were Christians. Eusebius, in the preface to his fifth book, remarks that in the seventeenth year of Antoninus' reign, in some parts of the world, the persecution of the Christians became more violent, and that it proceeded from the populace in the cities; and he adds, in his usual style of exaggeration, that we may infer ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... of Taylor's new poem, 'Philip van Artevelde.' Melbourne had read and admired it. The preface, he said, was affected and foolish, the poem very superior to anything in Milman. There was one fine idea in the 'Fall of Jerusalem'—that of Titus, who felt himself propelled by an irresistible impulse like that of ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... Sir Norman, without farther preface, launched into a rapid resume of La Masque's story, feeling the cold chill with which he had witnessed it creep over him as he ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... that occasion—the whole thing altogether, but particularly the prison scene, had knocked me up, I could not therefore remember a tithe of my sins; and the priest, poor man, had really so much to do, and was in such a hurry, that he had me clean absolved before I had got half through the preface, or knew what I was about. I then went with a fresh batch to receive the sacrament, which I did from the hands of the good-natured gentleman who enjoyed so richly the praying talents of the hare-lipped devotee in ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... Mary put her arm round Beth. The lawyer broke the seal, unfolded the will, and remarked by way of preface: "The document is in the handwriting of ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... woman deeply trustful sits reading her Bible because of the world to come, so, as though it would fit me for the coming strife of this temporal world, I read and read the Iliad. Even outwardly, it was not like other books; it was throned in towering folios. There was a preface or dissertation printed in type still more majestic than the rest of the book; this I read, but not till my enthusiasm for the Iliad had already run high. The writer compiling the opinions of many men, and chiefly of the ancients, set ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... in court. My business is to take him alive. That ain't all, that's just the preface. Listen! If you'll believe me, the stage that Red and his pards was in—coming here to swear out the warrant, they was—that there stage was set on by this friend of yours—yes, Brick has gathered together some of his old pards and is a highwayman—why, ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... also George Sand's Preface to Obermann, p. 10. 'En meme temps que les institutions et les coutumes, la litterature anglaise passa le detroit, et vint regner chez nous. La poesie britannique nous revela le doute incarne sous la figure de Byron; puis la litterature allemande, ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley
... human body capable of being affected in many ways and of affecting external bodies in many ways; consequently it is good (by the last Prop.). Again, whatsoever brings about a change in the aforesaid proportion causes the human body to assume another specific character, in other words (see Preface to this Part towards the end, though the point is indeed self—evident), to be destroyed, and consequently totally incapable of being affected in an increased numbers of ways; therefore it is ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... was one of the first to republish in Scotland Professor Stuart's Letters to Dr. Channing, with a preface of his own. He showed me Professor Stuart's letter in reply, and seemed rather amused that the professor directed it to the Rev. James Thom, supposing, of course, that so much theological zeal could not inhere in a layman. He also showed us many autograph ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... possession may, from the nature of the subjects, be Stephens's, but whether included in the volume alluded to I know not. The volume contains six sermons, each with separate title and separate pagination. A common preface is prefixed, and there has been a common title-page, which unfortunately ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.03.23 • Various
... generations prior to Hugh Chamberlen, who translated from French into English the foremost obstetrical textbook of his time. The book, published in 1672, does not contain a description of the forceps, but in his preface Hugh Chamberlen refers to delay in delivery, saying, "My father, my brothers, and myself (though none else in Europe as I know) have by God's blessing and our own industry attained to and long practiced a way to deliver women without prejudice to them or their infants in this case." ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... history applies to the other "dry" branches. Even Johnson's Dictionary is packed with emotion. Read the last paragraph of the preface to it: "In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed.... It may repress the triumph of malignant criticism to observe that if our language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... Eastern Province have since done. The English missionaries took pains to do this. The liturgy of their church was printed in the Mohawk tongue, at New York, as early as the year 1714. [Footnote: This date is given in the preface to the Mohawk Prayer Book of 1787. This first version of the liturgy was printed under the direction of the Rev. Wm. Andrews, the missionary of the "New England Society."] By the middle of the ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... activity, had compensated itself in the persons of a few individuals. But when one has reached this mood, one remembers that it is all embodied in "The House of the Seven Gables." Though Hawthorne, in the Preface to that romance, takes precautions against injuring local sentiment, by the assurance that he has not meant "to describe local manners, nor in any way to meddle with the characteristics of a community for whom ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... A preface is usually an excrescence on a good book, and a vain apology for a worthless one; but, in the present instance, a few ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... of the civilized world. Yet throughout it speaks of "Socialists" with ill-concealed disdain, and always in favor of Communism and the Communist Party. The reason for this is clearly explained by Engels himself in the preface written by him for the English edition, but that has not prevented many an unscrupulous opponent of Socialism from quoting the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels against the Socialists of the Marx-Engels school.[7] In like manner, the utterances and ideas of many ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... olim defuncti, Libris rarissimis tam Typis excusis quam Manuscriptis refertissimae: Quorum Auctio habebitur Londini, ad Insigne Ursi in Vico dicto Ave-Mary-Lane prope Templum D. Pauli, Novemb. 21, 1687. Per T. Bentley and B. Walford, Bibliopolas. Lond.'; and in the Preface we read:—'If the catalogue, here presented, were only of Common Books, and such as were easie to be had, it would not have been very necessary to have Prefac'd any thing to the Reader: But since it appears ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... of things retained in this visible form is called conception by the metaphysicians, which term I shall retain; it is inaccurately called imagination by Taylor, in the passage quoted by Wordsworth in the preface to his poems, not but that the term imagination is etymologically and rightly expressive of it, but we want that term ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... of so many ardent literary beginners in France. The trite phrase, "written with blood and tears," does not in the least apply here. A native wisdom has invariably saved Marguerite Audoux from the dangerous extreme. In his preface to the original French edition, M. Octave Mirbeau appositely points out that Philippe and her other friends abstained from giving purely literary advice to the authoress as her book grew and was read aloud. With the insight of artists they perceived that hers was a talent which must be strictly ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... them, and will not until they are opened. As in the case of the drowning man, the volume of memory was partly open, or the leaf partly unrolled; in the case of the judgment the entire book will be opened, so that everything will be displayed from preface ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... made clear at the very outset of this Preface that the pages which follow do not pretend to be a history of piracy, but are simply an attempt to gather together, from various sources, particulars of those redoubtable pirates and buccaneers whose names have been handed down to us in ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... surge of starlit air, Pour on my brow your tide so rare! I see where Verrenberg doth glimmer, And Shepherds' Knoll with snows a-shimmer. He sits him down to write at last, Dips pen and makes the A and O, Which o'er his "Preface" always go. I meanwhile from my post on high Ne'er from my master turn an eye, Look at him now, with far-off gaze Pondering, testing every phrase; The snuffer once he seizes quick And cleans of soot the flaming wick; Then oft in deep abstraction, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the Shorter Catechism that relate to the Ten Commandments; and the very first of the answers that his father then taught him has made a profound impression on Ebenezer's mind. The forty-third question runs: 'What is the preface to the Ten Commandments?' And the answer is: 'The preface to the Ten Commandments is in these words: "I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the Land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."' Other questions follow, and they, with their attendant answers, ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... which the palates of discerning boys were most delightfully tickled. I find a difficulty in preventing my congratulations upon The Book of the Blue Sea (LONGMANS) from being fulsome. To begin with, the title itself is simply irresistible. Then, before you even get to the preface, there are some verses, "The Song of the Larboard Berth," which cry "halt" so arrestingly that after I had got by them and was fairly revelling in the entrancing pages that follow I kept on going back to have another ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... Surprise was a preface to much agitation in her, which caused her to rise from her seat, and pace to the side of the room. The steward quietly looked on and added, 'I have been ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy |
