"Preface" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... excursions; to Glasgow, seen to disadvantage under gray skies and with slippery pavements. Through England rapidly to Dover and to Calais, where I found the name of M. Dessein still belonging to the hotel I sought, and where I read Sterne's "Preface Written in a Desobligeante," sitting in the vehicle most like one that I could find in the stable. From Calais back to Paris, where ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... a genius."—(Lucien turned about as if the incense were burned too close to his face.)—"Yes, my dear fellow, a genius. I have read your Archer of Charles IX.; it is more than a romance, it is literature. Only two living men could have written the preface—Chateaubriand and Lucien." ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... they vibrate subtly with what I can only call the sense of the Eternal. How beautiful, how consoling, that her last book should have been that translation, such as only one who was at once true poet and true scholar could have made, of the sweetest medieval elegy 'The Pearl'!" And Miss Bates, in her preface to the posthumous volume of "Folk-Ballads of Southern Europe", illumines for us the scholarship which went into these ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... into the more serious pagan literature. At least in the more enlightened pagans there has ever revealed itself more or less the instinct of the human soul that "feels after" God. St. Paul in his address to the Athenians made a tactful as well as scholarly point to preface a missionary sermon when he cited a line from a poem of Aratus (B.C. 272) familiar, doubtless, to the majority of ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... of the sixty-seven mills named in the preface of this Report, showing how each mill is at this ...
— Report of the Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee • Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee
... Evangelical, became filled with a new spirit of earnest aggressiveness. In 1796 there appeared in Edinburgh The Missionary Magazine, "a periodical publication intended as a repository of discussion and intelligence respecting the progress of the Gospel throughout the world." The editors close their preface in January 1797 with this statement:—"With much pleasure they have learned that there was never a greater number of religious periodical publications carried on than at present, and never were any of them more generally ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... letter here, which I want to read to you, if I can do it without breaking down. I must preface it with some explanations, however. The letter is written by an ex-thief and ex-vagabond of the lowest origin and basest rearing, a man all stained with crime and steeped in ignorance; but, thank God, with a mine of pure gold hidden away ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... charm, and his fury subsided. On the fifth of September (Letters, 1898, ii. 24, note) he received from Murray the first proof, and by December 14 "the Pilgrimage was concluded," and all but the preface had been printed ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... those who have been prepared for a queer volume, will not be disappointed in the diary of our choleric and corpulent colonel. If ever the assurance, which seems to be regarded as indispensable in the preface to works of this class, that the author "wrote the following pages purely for his own amusement," bore the stamp of unequivocal truth, it is in the present instance; and, notwithstanding the asseverations ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... say) is all this put by itself in what Anglo-Saxons call a Foreword, but gentlemen a Preface? Why, it is because I have noticed that no book can appear without some such thing tied on before it; and as it is folly to neglect the fashion, be certain that I read some eight or nine thousand of them to be sure of how they were written ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... spoken by the Brazilians, as 'capim', grass; 'caipira', half-caste, etc. In fact, so great is the number of these words, idioms, phrases, and terms of speech derived from Guarani, that Dr. Baptista de Almeida, in his preface to his grammar published at Rio Janeiro (1879), computes that there are more words derived from Guarani than even from Arabic in the Portuguese spoken in Brazil.* The Guaranis in Brazil were known either as Tupis, from the word 'tupy',** savage, ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... 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 ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... With Preface to Moliere's Works by Honore de Balzac, Criticisms on the Author by Sainte-Beuve, Portraits by Coypel and Mignard, ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... to make this preface as distasteful as possible, in order that the plays may shine out the more pleasantly, I shall begin (how better?) with an attack on the dramatic critics. I will relate a little conversation which took place, shortly after the publication ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... evidence of the reverence in which the ancients were held than that such frantic balderdash as this did not extinguish it. Yet this was what a man of undoubted talent, of considerable learning, and of no small acuteness (for Stanyhurst's Preface to this very translation shows something more than glimmerings on the subject of classical and English prosody), could produce. It must never be forgotten that the men of this time were at a hopelessly wrong point of view. It never occurred to them that English left to itself could equal Greek ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... those two books wherein this policy is contained were called The Books of Discipline. And, without all doubt, they who sware the oath meant by discipline that whole policy of the church which is contained in those books. Howbeit (as the preface of them showeth) discipline doth also comprehend other ecclesiastical ordinances and constitutions which are not inserted in them. 2. Doctrine and discipline, in the oath, do comprehend all that to which the church required, and we promised, to perform obedience; ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... he landed in Brobdingnag, and saw corn as high as the oaks in the New Forest, thimbles as large as buckets, and wrens of the bulk of turkeys. The whole book, and every component part of it, is on a gigantic scale. The title is as long as an ordinary preface: the prefatory matter would furnish out an ordinary book; and the book contains as much reading as an ordinary library. We cannot sum up the merits of the stupendous mass of paper which lies before us better than by saying that ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... truth into question, and having nothing but truth to offer in excuse for this narrative, I omit all unnecessary preface, desiring only that the reader may believe what I have faithfully related. Our fleet, consisting of six goodly ships, the Charles, Unicorn, James, Globe, Swan, and Rose, under the supreme command of Captain Benjamin Joseph, who sailed as ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... preface, he kept me waiting for a long time, while he sat silently looking into the fire and stroking his ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... de parliamento, preface, p. li. The statement in the text is an inference suggested by Professor Maitland's account of the statute De asportis religiosorum. For the last struggle of Edward and Winchelsea, see Stubbs's preface to Chron. of Edw. I. and ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... popular but very inaccurate title of the "Lake School," applied to a trio of poets who, except as friends, had little in common with each other. Indeed, after Wordsworth had developed his theory of poetical realism in the preface to a volume published in 1800, Coleridge rejected and criticised it as wholly untenable. All three, however, may be considered as comrades in a revolt against the conventional diction of eighteenth century poetry, from which Coleridge's "dreamy tenderness" and mystical flights of fancy ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... de la Revolution," V., preface XXX (3rd ed.). "When I was young and looking for a job, I was referred to an esteemed Review, to a well-known philanthropist, devoted to education, to the people, and to the welfare of humanity. I found ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... my holiday I found a gift from you, a book; this time I find only the blue and gold thing which, such as it is, I send you, you are to take from me. I could not even put in what I pleased but I have said all about it in the word or two of preface, as also that I beg leave to stick the bunch in your buttonhole. May I beg that Mrs. ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... gallant cavaliers cut after the same pattern as the first. Their stern, harsh faces, red beards, and broad, square military shoulders told that by swordthrusts and broken lances they had founded the nobility of their race. An heroic preface to this family biography! A rough and warlike page of the Middle Ages! After these proud men-of-arms came several figures of a less ferocious aspect, but not so imposing. In these portraits of the fifteenth century beards had disappeared with the sword. In those ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... 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, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... re-read, and with great interest and delight. She then pronounced it "the most interesting book she had ever read," dating from it a new birth to her mind. The book was translated into German, Strauss writing a preface for it, and that interpreter of Christianity praised it highly. Hennell rejected all supernaturalism and the miraculous, regarding Christianity as a slow and natural development out of Judaism, aided by Platonism and other outside influences. He finds the sources of Jesus' teachings in ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... a more or less biographical nature have been written about General Charles Gordon, it is both appropriate and natural that I should preface the following pages with a statement of a personal character as to how and why I ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... offense to the Portuguese. Livingstone thought it a good sign, wrote playfully to Mr. Webb that they were "cussin' and swearin' dreadful," and wondered if they would keep their senses when the book came out. In a postscript to the preface to The Zambesi and its Tributaries, he says, "Senhor Lacerda has endeavored to extinguish the facts adduced by me at Bath by a series of papers in the Portuguese official journal; and their Minister for Foreign Affairs has since devoted ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... at which M. de Treville waited for the king. He knew the king of old, and he knew that all these complaints were but a preface—a sort of excitation to encourage himself—and that he had now come to his ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... aesthetics for the next hundred years.[2] Not that Addison invents anything; but he catches every current whisper and swells it to the journalistic audibility. Here, if we take Addison at his word, are the key ideas for Wordsworth's Preface on the language of rustic life, for Tolstoy's ruthless reduction of taste to the peasant norm. Addison went on to urge what was perfectly just, that the old popular ballads ought to be read and liked; at the same time he pushed his praise to a rather wild extreme, and he made some comic comparisons ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... REUBEN GOLD, authority on colonial history, his judgment as to Radisson, Preface; recites tradition of slaughter of ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... Introduction 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 ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... offered him, he set Him upon the altar and thereafter began his sacrament. And King Arthur set him on his knees before the chapel and began to pray to God and to beat his breast. And he looked toward the altar after the preface, and it seemed him that the holy hermit held between his hands a man bleeding from His side and in His palms and in His feet, and crowned with thorns, and he seeth Him in His own figure. And when he had looked on Him so long and knoweth ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... to Mrs. Ripwinkley one morning, when she was folding away winter clothes, and pinning them up in newspapers, with camphor-gum; and she said to her, without a bit of preface,—Luclarion ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... important of her books for children, The Parent's Assistant or, Stories for Children (1796-1800). The forbidding primary title was something the publisher was mainly responsible for, and has been relegated to second place in modern reprints. In these stories, according to the preface, "only such situations are described as children can easily imagine, and which may consequently interest their feelings. Such examples of virtue are painted as are not above their conceptions of excellence, and their powers ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... readiness. The patriarch John took the formulary, and gave it the form of a letter, which seemed to him more honourable than a formulary such as those who had fallen would sign. He prefixed to the document which the Pope required to be subscribed the following preface: ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... concussions and bellowings of the earth—a manifest indication that some destruction was coming upon men." The portent of "fearful sights and great signs" from heaven, as recorded by Luke was realized in the phenomenal events chronicled by Josephus (Preface ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... impossible, in the space of any pardonable preface, to name the teachers, mothers, and librarians who have given me hints and helps during the past few years of story-telling. But I cannot let these pages go to press without recording my especial indebtedness to the few persons without whose interested aid the little book would ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... transient resident, recognize their duty as British subjects, and breathe a spirit of pure loyalty to their Sovereign. The only reference I find in their records to the Commonwealth of England is the following declaration, made in 1658, the last year of Cromwell's government. It is the preface to the collection of the General Laws, revised and published Sept. 29, 1658, and is ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... Preface Two Tragedies in One. By Robert Yarington The Captives, or the Lost Recovered. By Thomas Heywood The Costlie Whore. Everie Woman in ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... the Nightingale, is purely of Breton origin, and indeed is proved to be so by its title. "Laustic, I deem, men name it in that country" (Brittany), says Marie in her preface to the lay, "which being interpreted means rossignol in French and 'nightingale' in good plain English." She adds that the Breton harper has already made a lay concerning it—added evidence that the tale is of Celtic and not of ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... Tumblers, when they begin to understand their properties, I should think that scarce any nobleman or gentleman would be without their aviaries of Almond Tumblers." (6/35. J.M. Eaton 'Treatise on the Almond Tumbler' 1851; Preface page 6.) The pleasure thus taken is of paramount importance, as it leads amateurs carefully to note and preserve each slight deviation of structure which strikes their fancy. Pigeons are often closely confined during their whole lives; they ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... author had revised this posthumous work of Mr Strutt. See General Preface to the present edition, Vol ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... preface or introduction. These facts of structure form the data for the reconstruction of the Sussex annals during the human period. Upon them as framework all the subsequent development of the county hangs. And first let us ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... chiefly extracted from the preface to the books of the Princess, written by the Marquess de Fortia. This nobleman generously took upon himself the charge of supporting Aline, who has now attained the age of sixty years in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various
... College' was all very well (diplomacy had prompted this preface), but the words that followed fell so alarmingly on Godwin's ear that he looked up with a resentful ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... sometimes to turn away from Boswell to those passages where the good old Doctor has revealed himself with his own hand. The letter to Chesterfield is too well known for comment. But no less noble, and not nearly so well known, is the preface to the Dictionary. How moving it is in its sturdy courage, its strong grasp of the tools of expression. In every line one feels the weight and push of a mind that had behind it the full reservoir of language, ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... whole face, "you are engaged in writing a great historical work; and I am an obscure country gentleman, who is lucky enough to associate himself with the production of a new book. How do you know that I am not looking forward to a complimentary line in the preface? I am the obliged person, not you. Pray consider me as a handy little boy who runs on errands for the Muse of History. Do ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... diabolism, which Papus would most rightly deny, the exclusion does not remove the opportunity of first-hand knowledge concerning the practice of Satanism, and, "brilliant imagination" apart, M. Huysman has proved quite recently that he is in mortal earnest by his preface to a historical treatise on "Satanism and Magic," the work of a literary disciple, Jules Bois. In a criticism, which for general soberness and lucidity does not leave much to be desired, he there affirms that a ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... 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 and vulgar. I looked for it: ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Cherbury, Gibbon, Franklin, and other eminent men, wrote an autobiography. It is certainly the briefest, and perhaps the wittiest and most truthful autobiographical sketch in the language. It was published in the "New Monthly Magazine" a few months after its author's death, with the following preface or introduction from the pen of some unknown admirer ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... arrangements, it was 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 ...
— Noteworthy Families (Modern Science) • Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster
... page of his Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica, as well as in his preface, Gosse bears testimony to the assistance which Hill rendered to him. The appearance of Hill's name on the title page ("Assisted by Richard Hill, Esq., Cor. M. Z. S. Lond., Mem. Counc. Boy. Soc. Agriculture ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... the verses, I will now free myself from any chance of reproach. This much I will say to soothe away my own compunctions, that the book will only make the bid for popularity or consideration with near a score of others, and not separately, and that my responsibility is thus modified. The preface to Embers says all that need be said about a collection which is, on the whole, merely a book of youth and memory and impressionism in verse. At least it was all spontaneous; it was not made to order on any page of it, and it is the handful left from very many handfuls destroyed. Since the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... London Merchant, and Richardson's almost feminine plea for virtue rewarded. A physician, Blackmore had turned to poetry for relaxation and composed his soporific epics, by his own admission, in the coffee-houses and in his coach while visiting patients. In the preface, to Prince Arthur (1695) the City Bard took occasion to flay the Wits of the day for their immorality, an attack which he followed up in 1697 with the Preface to King Arthur, whose thinly disguised political allegory won him a knighthood. Up to this point ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... them by the supposition that the diction has been much modified by Mr. Oldys (the original editor of the Miscellany), a supposition which is entirely erroneous. The "Publisher's Advertisement to the Reader," and the "Author's Preface to the Reader," signed "E.F.," and dated "Feb. 20, 1627," are both left out in the 8vo.; and it will be seen that the anonymous authorship and date of composition in the title-page are suppressed, for which we have substituted ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 6. Saturday, December 8, 1849 • Various
... to Shakespeare by Landor was sent to me with the following preface: "An old man sends the last verses he has written, or probably he may ever write to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... forgot, My part of the Preface begins in the middle of a sentence, in last but one page, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... me. I found it suitable for tragedy, and it still makes a sorrowful impression on me to see an individual to whom happiness has been allotted go under, much more, to see a line become extinct." And in defence of his realism he has said further in his preface to "Countess Julie": "The theatre has for a long time seemed to me the Biblia pauperum in the fine arts, a bible with pictures for those who can neither read nor write, and the dramatist is the revivalist, and the revivalist dishes tap the ideas of the day in popular form, so popular that the middle ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... general principles of the idiom. Noah Webster, to whose philological labors our language will be much indebted for its purity and regularity, has pointed out the advantages of a steady course of improvement, and how it ought to be conducted. The Preface to his new Dictionary is an able performance. He might advantageously give it more development, with some correction, and publish it as a Prospectus to the great work ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... in 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... of this work are stated in the Preface to the First Edition, which may be read on page v and the next following pages of the ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... the guard at Whitehall, and were thereupon connived at to act for a few days at the Red Bull, but were sometimes, notwithstanding, disturbed by soldiers."[510] To such clandestine performances Kirkman refers in his Preface to The Wits, or Sport upon Sport (1672): "I have seen the Red Bull Playhouse, which was a large one, so full that as many went back for want of room as had entered; and as meanly as you may now think of these drolls, they were then acted by the best comedians ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... the earliest times Oriental authors have occupied themselves about aphrodisiacs. The following note on the subject is taken from page 29 of a translation of the Hindoo Art of Love, otherwise the Anunga Runga, alluded to in the preface of this work, Part I., pages 3 and 5:—"Most Eastern treatises divide aphrodisiacs into two different kinds: 1., the mechanical or natural, such as scarification, flagellation, etc.; and 2., the medicinal or artificial. To the former belong the application of ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... taken from life. Alarmed by the numerous persecutions of literary men which took place during the last years of Katherine II.'s reign, Kapnist dared not publish his comedy until the accession of the Emperor Paul I., when he dedicated it to the Emperor, and set forth in a poetical preface the entire harmlessness of his satire. But even this precaution was of no avail. The comedy created a tremendous uproar and outcry from officialdom in general; the Emperor was petitioned to prohibit the piece, and to administer severe punishment to the "unpatriotic" author. The ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... for our critical structure, let us test Mr. Sawyer's new version by contrasting it with his own avowed design and the claims with which he introduces his completed task. In the Preface he says,— ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... probably in reference to what he said in the preface to his Systema Naturae: "I have borne the derision of apes in silence," &c. Adjoining this are plants, and we recognise his own ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... vii. 39. N'employez pas vn an a vostre preface, & en certaines longues excuses ou ceremonies, en disant, Monsieur: excusez-moy! si ie ne scay pas si bien dire, &c., toutesfois pour vous obeyr, &c., & autres semblables ennuyeuses and sottes trainees ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... Flemish grammarian, whose books were, at one time, in great repute; he died in 1520."—Univ. Biog. Dict. Despauter's Latin Grammar, in Three Parts,—Etymology, Syntax, and Versification,—comprises 858 octavo pages. Dr. Adam says, in the "Preface to the Fourth Edition" of his Grammar, "The first complete edition of Despauter's Grammar was printed at Cologne, anno 1522; his Syntax had been published anno 1509." G. Brown's copy is a "complete edition," printed partly in 1517, and ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... a good instance of the authority of these early years over Ruskin's whole life and teaching that in his "Elements of Drawing" he advised young artists to begin with Cruikshank, as he began, and that he wrote appreciatively both of the stories and the etchings so many decades afterwards in the preface to ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... ceremony, sir, if you please. For any business we may have to arrange there is room enough between these four walls. At all events I'll just say a few words to you by way of preface, which may save ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... and fifty pages. She had a fine command of the English language and excellent literary discrimination in the use of its words, as appears everywhere in her writings and especially in the following tribute to her husband in the preface ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... loose and tautologous style of this Preface is worth noting. Likely enough Browne wrote it in a passion that deprived him of his habitual self-command. One phrase alone reveals the true Browne—that is, Browne true to himself: 'and time that brings other things to light, should have satisfied me in the ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... what is to be found with any other People for the Number of them. When I did a few years ago, publish a Book, which mentioned a few memorable Witchcrafts, committed in this country; the excellent Baxter, graced the Second Edition of that Book, with a kind Preface, wherein he sees cause to say, If any are Scandalized, that New-England, a place of as serious Piety, as any I can hear of, under Heaven, should be troubled so much with Witches; I think, 'tis no ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... me such preface needs not (said anew The good Philander), bound by amity To my Argaeus still; thy pleasure shew: I what I ever was will be, and I, Although from him I bear such ill undue, Accuse him not; for him would I defy ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... see this is a preface to a very earnest request to see Captain Fitzgerald and the lovely Bell immediately at our farm: take notice, I will not admit even business ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... at others with cunning good nature, now embarrassed and almost ashamed of their work, and again ironically jovial, as well the artifices of their clerks to get a few crumbs from their employer's cake. The book will soon be published and Machin, the Vaudeville writer, has promised him a preface, so that it will be a most amusing work. You are surprised, eh? Confess that you are absolutely surprised, and I will lay you any bet you like that you will not guess how our excellent friend, whose existence is an inexplicable problem, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... know all about it better than we do, sir," said Cohen, repeatedly, by way of preface to full information; and the interesting statements were kept up in ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the Elegy in the London Magazine. The full title of that periodical was "The London Magazine: or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer." The editor's name was not given; the publisher was "R. Baldwin, jun. at the Rose in Pater-Noster Row." The volume for 1751 was the 20th, and the Preface (written at the close of the year) begins thus: "As the two most formidable Enemies we have ever had, are now extinct, we have great Reason to conclude, that it is only the Merit, and real Usefulness of our COLLECTION, that hath supported its Sale and Reputation ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... friendly to the Author or the Work' which preface a book written by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, are some lines by Sir Francis which are very expressive of the views that seem to have guided his life. The book, whose aim must have been to encourage the idea of settling ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... eights, as "more than human nature can endure." It is one of the ironies of life that I should have had to take up work into which the study of statistics enters largely. But the powers that set me the task provided a fitter back than mine for that burden. As I explained years ago in the preface to "How the Other Half Lives," the patient friendship of Dr. Roger S. Tracy, the learned statistician of the Health Department, has smoothed the rebellious kinks out of death-rates and population statistics, as of so many other knotty problems which ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... [1] Shirley (preface to Fasciculi Zizaniorum, Rolls Ser., p. xxvi.) thought that Wycliffe was "the sworn foe of the mendicants" in 1377, and E.M. Thompson's emphatic words repudiating the contrary statement of the St. Alban's writer, Chron. Anglice, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... sentence struck Barry to the heart. It recalled his own sermon, spoken in Edmonton to his father's battalion. Immediately he was on his feet, and without preface or apology, reproduced as far as he was able the M. O.'s speech of the previous night, ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... letter with a feeling of gratitude and joy, that at any rate the mother was spared. It began thus: 'My dear Sir,—To one who has suffered so much and with such exemplary fortitude, there needs but little preface to tell a tale of distress. It were cruel indeed to torture you with doubt and suspense. To sum up the unhappy tidings in a few words—Mrs. Judson is no more.' At intervals," continues Mr. Judson, "I got through the dreadful letter and proceed to give you the ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... published in London a new edition of Clarkson's Life of Penn, in the preface to which he has entered very fully into the points raised by Macaulay in his History in regard to the Quakers, vindicating them, and very ably sustaining the fame ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... is that no one in the world has a nicer sense of the beauty of SHAKSPEARE'S verse than Mr. BARKER. Indeed he protests in his preface: "They (the fairies) must be not too startling.... They mustn't warp your imagination—stepping too boldly between SHAKSPEARE'S spirit and yours." (The italics are my own comment.) He is of course free, within limits, to choose his own convention about fairies, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... further preface, I entreat you. At once, out with it! Be it what it may, It is not possible that it should torture me More than this introduction. What have you To say to me? Tell me the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... speculate on the origin of the present condition of our globe and of its inhabitants. But, with all his ardour for science, De Maillet seems to have hesitated to publish views which, notwithstanding the ingenious attempts to reconcile them with the Hebrew hypothesis contained in the preface to "Telliamed," were hardly likely to be received ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... Genus and As in Praesenti were the first words in collections of rules then and until recently familiar as part of the standard Latin Grammar, Lilly's, to which Erasmus and Colet contributed, and of which Wolsey wrote the original Preface.] ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... must leave our readers to form their own opinions. Perhaps some one more acquainted with the archives of the country may be able to set us right if we are wrong, or to corroborate our testimony if we are right. In his preface to "Anne of Geierstein," Sir Walter Scott observes, that "errors, however trivial, ought, in his opinion, never to be pointed out to the author without meeting with a candid and respectful acknowledgement." ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... Speeches of the Lord Gaulard of Burgundy, purporting to be made by "J.B., of Charterhouse," probably about the year 1660, in the possession of Mr. Frederick William Cosens, London, fifty copies, edited, with a preface, by "A.S." (Alexander Smith), were printed at Glasgow in 1884. I am indebted to the courtesy of my friend Mr. F.T. Barrett, Librarian of the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, for directing my attention ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... pages do not appear to need any extended preface; their topic is set forth in the first lines of the first chapter. With what success it has been handled ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... Parnassians created the most brilliant poetry that has, since Milton, been built upon erudition and impeccable art. Their leader, Leconte de Lisle, in the preface of his Poemes antiques (1853), scornfully dismissed Romanticism as a second-hand, incoherent, and hybrid art, compounded of German mysticism, reverie, and Byron's stormy egoism. Sully Prudhomme addressed a sterner ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... the history of Brazil may not be familiar to every reader, male and female,—for I hope to have many of the latter,—I will preface the narration of my residence ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... life is the matter of ultimate interest. To Browning this was so in a peculiar degree. In the epistolary preface to Sordello, written thirty years after its first publication, he said: "My stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul: little else is worth study." This interest in "the development of a soul" is the keynote of nearly all his work. To it are directly traceable ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... introduced by our ancestors to keep alive, by competition and prizes, the martial ardour and heroic spirit of the people. In archery, the usual prize to the best shooter was a silver arrow: at Dumfries the contest was transferred to fire-arms. See the preface to the Siller Gun, a poem in five cantos, by John ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... a group of children at the kirk. He selected the questions in 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, have ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... preface to another essay, the present writer ventured to affirm that "Civilisation moves rather towards a chaos than towards a cosmos." But he could not foretell that the descensus Averni would be so ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... published until the following year. A second edition was printed immediately, and several more followed; the present reprint is taken from the fourth, published in 1799—but with the addition of the characteristic preface, which, after the second edition, was dropped. The four small volumes of these early editions, with their large type, their ample spacing, their charming flavour of antiquity, delicacy, and rest—may ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... louder 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. ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... there have told me things which are enough to break one's heart; but now I am hardening it, because I see that it is of no use for me to grieve over them. This I say in reply to the statement in the preface to your Lordship's letter, in which you say: "If they would allow me to be bishop, I would maintain better order in my bishopric than there is, and the natives would be much better instructed and not so harassed." But where there are so many to order and so few to obey, he who leads this dance ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... 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 ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... next morning at an hour which most of us, if we are indiscreet enough to wake, prefer to use as the preface to a further two to four hours' nap. He had spent his evening in a freshening of his knowledge in certain municipal laws, and other details which he thought he might need, and as early as five o clock he was at work in the tenement district, asking questions and taking notes. ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... appear the height of paradox to preface a discourse on the Ancient World by asserting the conviction that the only genuine and important history is contemporary history. Yet reflection on this doctrine will show that it is not only consistent with a serious and steady interest in what is called Antiquity (and indeed in the past in ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... the most curious of a curious class of compositions, utterly destitute of literary merit, but valuable as showing what were then the most successful claptraps for an audience composed of the common people. "The end of this play," says the author in his preface, "is chiefly to expose the perfidious base, cowardly, and bloody nature of the Irish." The account which the fugitive Protestants give of the wanton destruction of cattle is confirmed by Avaux in a letter to Lewis, dated April 13/23 1689, and by Desgrigny in a letter to Louvois, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... this time, in a preface contributed to Mr. MacDonagh's book The Irish at the Front, a passage of unusual emotion which tells what he thought ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... The writer of this preface was intimately acquainted with the author of this book, and knows that he has not yielded to temptation to draw upon his imagination for the incidents related herein, but has adhered strictly to the truth. Truth is, sometimes, "stranger than fiction," ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... we should apologize for writing, even so, so long a preface to so succinct a book. The one excuse we can think of is that, having read it, one need not read the book. That book, as we have said, may strike the superficial as jocular, but in actual fact it is a very serious and even profound composition, not addressed to the casual reader, ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... with no preface at all, Fra Battista made direct confession to all his gods (whether remote or throned within the sanctuary-rail) that he had committed the sin whereof he was accused. A perceptible shiver of sensation swept ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... masterpieces, above all those of Gluck which he knew by heart, and of his philosophic researches. His four famous symphonic works are: "Fantastic Symphony," "Grand Funeral and Triumphal Symphony," "Harold in Italy" and "Romeo and Juliet." In a preface to the first he thus explains his ideas: "The plan of a musical drama without words, requires to be explained beforehand. The programme (which is indispensable to the perfect comprehension of the work) ought therefore to be considered ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... Preface. Introductory. A Sketch Of The History Of Political Economy. Books For Consultation (From English, French, And German Authors). Preliminary Remarks. Book I. Production. Chapter I. Of The Requisites Of Production. 1. The requisites of production. 2. The Second Requisite of Production, Labor. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... Health," first published twenty-one years ago, as a general outline for my classes of Medical Students, to enable them to grasp the real problem of life, and to emphasize the Study of Man, as basic in the Study of Medicine, the following epitome was placed in the Preface. ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... In the preface of 'Pierre et Jean,' Maupassant has recorded how he acquired from Louis Bouilhet the belief that a single lyric, a scant hundred lines, would give immortality to a poet if only the work were fine enough, ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... edited the Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, a celebrated clown. His share in the composition of this work was comparatively small, and consisted of a Preface, dated February of that year. It was followed by 'Sketches of Young Gentlemen,' and by 'The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby,' both published in 1839. To this latter he signed his name, Charles Dickens, dropping from that period the pseudonym of "Boz." The titular ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... moment. We have set up a sort of turnpike gate here, as you see, between the title-page and the first story in our book, in the shape of a preface, or introduction. "What! do you mean to take toll of us, then?" Why, no—not exactly. But we want to say half a dozen words to you, as you pass along, and to tell you a little about these WREATHS which we have been twining for our friends. ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... good sound advice as to getting on in the world there has probably been nothing written so forcible, quaint and full of common sense a the following preface to an old Pennsylvanian Almanac, entitled "Poor Richard Improved," by the great philosopher, Benjamin Franklin. It is homely, simple, sensible and practical—a condensation of the proverbial wit, wisdom and every-day philosophy, useful at all times, ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... circulated it by millions of copies in practically all the languages 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 of those who formerly called ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... question. She supposed Moses had come to tell her of his engagement to Sally, and that this was a kind of preface, and she answered,— ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... be answered that science hitherto is only a preface to what is to come, that even the last generation of discovery is nothing in comparison with the expansion of our knowledge and the enslavement of natural forces which must be looked for in the years ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... "Septimius Felton" was written; but the manuscript, thrown aside, was mentioned in the Dedicatory Preface to "Our Old Home" as an "abortive project." As will be found explained in the Introductory Notes to "The Dolliver Romance" and "The Ancestral Footstep," that phase of the same general design which was developed in the "Dolliver" was intended to take the place of ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Misapprehension of some Expressions of yours, which my Resentment, or perhaps my Pride, interpreted to the Disadvantage of a Poetical Trifle, I had then newly publish'd, I suffer'd myself to be unreasonably transported, so far, as to inscribe you an angry, and inconsiderate Preface; without previous Examination into the Justness of my Proceeding. I have lately had the Mortification to learn from your own Hand that you were entirely guiltless of the fact charg'd upon you; so that, in attempting to retaliate a suppos'd Injury, ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... the American Socialist who translated Engel's work into English, writes on page 7 of the preface of the 1907 edition: "The monogamic family, so far from being a divinely instituted union of souls, is seen to be the product of a series of material, and in the last analysis, ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... year one may say, with some justice, that the age of Turgenev had come to an end too; yet work so simple and human, so independent of the transitory formulas and theories of art, belongs as you point out in the Preface to ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... virtuous and lettered seclusion is a country house in whose garden he might sit on summer afternoons with his friend, Sir W. Coventry, "it maybe, to read a chapter of Seneca." In sharp contrast to this is Vahlen's preface to the minor Dialogues, which he edited after the death of his friend Koch, who had begun that work, in which he remarks that "he has read much of this writer, in order to perfect his knowledge of ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... acquainted with the laws of narration to be unaware of the nature of the pledge given by this brief preface; but, at the same time, he knows enough of the history of the Thirteen to feel confident that he shall not disappoint any expectations raised by the programme. Tragedies dripping with gore, comedies piled up with horrors, tales of heads taken off in secret have been confided ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... The preface was written by Daubenton.[15] Buffon also took much interest in the work, opposing as it did the artificial system of Linne, for whom he had, for other reasons, no great degree of affection. He obtained the privilege of having the work published at the royal printing ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... keenest pangs of thirst, and believing that all this torture was the preface to something yet worse, it can well be imagined that we were indeed a sorry party. Even Sergeant Corney ceased trying to animate us, for despair had ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... concealment. He never preaches to them, nor scolds, nor enforces the obvious. Content that what he has spoken he has spoken, he places a magnificent trust on a single expression. He neither explains, nor falters, nor repents; he introduces his work with no preface, and cumbers it with no notes. He will not lower nor raise his voice for the sake of the profane and idle who may chance to stumble across his entertainment. His living auditors, unsolicited for ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... land holdings. Given untrammelled opportunity, agriculture will not only care well for itself and for those intelligently engaged in it, but it will give stability to all other industries and pursuits. (From the Preface.) "The author piles fact upon authenticated instance and successful experiment upon proved example, until there is no doubt what can be done with land intensively treated. He shows where the land may be found, what kind we ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... the famous "Preface" to the second edition of "Lyrical Ballads," published in 1800. The poems in the first edition of "Lyrical Ballads," published in 1798, had been the joint production of Wordsworth and Coleridge. The volume was published in ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... Charles's death, a pamphlet was published in London in which the Duchess figures under the fictitious name of Francelie; Louis XIV. designated as Tirannides, and our English king as Prince des Iles. In the preface to the French translation of this pamphlet, which bears the title of Histoire secrete de la Duchesse de Portsmouth, it is stated that the author desired to give, by these changes of name, some additional ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... been a 'patriot' of the Convention, had naturally become a liveried servant of the Emperor and King, thought he might venture to compose a 'Historical Essay on the French Revolution.' He dedicated it to the Imperial Chancellor of the Legion of Honour, and he wound up his preface with these words: 'And thus at last we see without astonishment, after this long series of errors, misfortunes, and crimes, the Republic disappear, and France implore the Supreme Being to vouchsafe to her the one great and potent genius who in these difficult circumstances was able to lift ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert |
