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Essay   /ɛsˈeɪ/  /ˈɛsˌeɪ/   Listen
Essay

noun
(pl. essays)
1.
An analytic or interpretive literary composition.
2.
A tentative attempt.



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"Essay" Quotes from Famous Books



... lucid vagueness which has always been my intention in this matter. I tried over several beginnings of a Utopian book before I adopted this. I rejected from the outset the form of the argumentative essay, the form which appeals most readily to what is called the "serious" reader, the reader who is often no more than the solemnly impatient parasite of great questions. He likes everything in hard, heavy lines, black and white, yes and no, because he does ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... power. To the Honorable F.O.J. Smith, then chairman of the House Committee of Commerce, belongs the credit of a just appreciation of the new invention, and of a zealous advocacy of an experimental essay, and the inditing of an admirably written report in its favor, signed by every member of the committee.... To Ezra Cornell, whose noble benefactions to his state and the country have placed his name by the ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... by accustoming our pupils too much to the consideration of tangible substances when we teach them arithmetic, or by turning their attention too much to signs. The art of forming a sound and active understanding, consists in the due mixture of facts and reflection. Dr. Reid has, in his "Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man," page 297, pointed out, with great ingenuity, the admirable economy of nature in limiting the powers of reasoning during the first years of infancy. This is the season for cultivating the senses, and whoever, at this early age, endeavours to ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... might as well have been vacant; he did not appear to see her, and the poor woman was rendered so utterly miserable by this neglect and indifference, that she forgot to congratulate Moronval on the brilliant success of his essay, which concluded amid great applause and ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... Our first essay, in America, to establish a federative government had fallen, on trial, very short of its object. During the war of Independence, while the pressure of an external enemy hooped us together, and their enterprises kept us necessarily on the alert, the spirit of the people, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... of Mr. St. John's lines in the Essay on the Influence of Great Cities (the worst in the volume,) is "The very name of London sounds sweetly to me." This is not a whit better than the man who thought "no garden like Covent Garden, and no flower like a cauliflower." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various

... foregoing essay, a parallel drawn between English men and English mastiffs by the celebrated cardinal Ximenes comes not unappropriately ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... Alexander, An Historical, Philosophical, and Practical Essay on the Human Hair, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... pleasant sense in this talk of bringing my doubts and ideas to her tentatively, much as I used to bring an essay in school days. She still retained a vivid impression of my faults, but the very finest human relationships are established upon the knowledge of one's weaknesses—as the Master established His church upon the weakest link of the discipleship. Speaking of the ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort

... In an essay on the history of manners and customs which forms the introduction to his book, M. Ernest Feydeau has discussed this question of colour applied to science with much spirit, logic, and eloquence. He proves that it is possible, without falling into novel writing, without ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... impressed than she chooses to show," Mr. Erwin continued. "I remember a very curious essay by a French writer about your countrymen: he contended that they were characterized by a savage stoicism through their contact ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... measure of his talent. No amount of mere discussion and statement, such as this, could give a just conception of the greatness of this power. It must be felt in the books themselves, and all that can be done in the present essay is to recall to the reader the more general features of each of the five great romances, hurriedly and imperfectly, as space will permit, and rather as a ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the heart is the negation of this haughty maxim. From the heart proceeds love, that son of abundance and of poverty, to speak with Plato, that needy one ever on the search for his lost heritage. Love has wings, said again the wisdom of the Greeks, wings which essay to carry him ever higher. Let us extricate the thought which is involved in these graceful figures: Our desires have no limits, and indefinite desires can be satisfied only by meeting with an infinite Being who can be an inexhaustible ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... The concluding essay discusses the Procedure of Deliberative Bodies. Its novelty lies chiefly in proposing to carry out, more thoroughly than has yet been done, a few devices already familiar. But for an extraordinary reluctance ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... poem," says Coleridge, "is a short mock-heroic of ancient date. The text varies in different editions, and is obviously disturbed and corrupt to a great degree; it is commonly said to have been a juvenile essay of Homer's genius; others have attributed it to the same Pigrees, mentioned above, and whose reputation for humour seems to have invited the appropriation of any piece of ancient wit, the author of which was uncertain; so little did the Greeks, before the age of the Ptolemies, know or care about ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... exercise of despotic power. It is true, he hardly knew, himself, what was to be done next; but he saw quite distinctly that he was in a dilemma, and must manage to get out of it by some means or other. If he could only succeed in this instance, as well as he had succeeded in his former essay in the black art, all might be well, and Margery be carried in triumph into the settlements. Margery, pro haec vice, was his goddess of liberty, and he asked for no higher reward, than to be permitted to ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... while portraits of Shakespeare, Montaigne, Goethe, Dante, looked down upon him from the walls. Produce a volume of Plato or of Shakespeare, he says somewhere, or 'only remind us of their names,' and instantly we come into a feeling of longevity. That is the scholar's speech. Opening a single essay at random, we find in it citations from Montesquieu, Schiller, Milton, Herodotus, Shelley, Plutarch, Franklin, Bacon, Van Helmont, Goethe. So little does Emerson lend himself to the idle vanity of seeking all the treasures of wisdom in his own head, or neglecting the hoarded ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley

... in his effort to win Louis's ear, Sigismund decided that he would make another essay towards a Burgundian alliance, this time face to face with the duke. On to Flanders he journeyed and found Charles in the midst of the ostentatious magnificence already described. Ordinary affairs of life were conducted with a splendour hardly attained ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... lived; and—without pausing to consider its merits—wished to sweep away the whole foundation into the sea, and to build upon some illusory basis a new heaven and new earth. He had yet to read the essay in which Matthew Arnold says that "Byron shattered, inevitably shattered himself against the black rock of British Philistinism." He was at present full of hope. The Poetry of Revolt coloured his imagination to such a degree that he saw himself standing alone and triumphant amid ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh

... taste: but these principles are simple, and two or three entertaining books, of no very alarming size, comprise all that has yet been ascertained upon this subject. Vernet's Theorie des Sentiments Agreables; Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty; an Essay of Hume's on the standard of taste; Burke's Sublime and Beautiful; Lord Kames's Elements of Criticism; Sir Joshua Reynold's Discourses; and Alison on Taste; contain so much instruction, mixed with so much amusement, that we cannot think that it will be a terrible ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... no less approval my profane work. And it is the judgment which he placed upon that essay which authorizes my resuming the subject, augmented by ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... butterflies and plants much more readily than with the sufferings of human beings; and they are melted to tears much more quickly by simple incidents from the manifold life of nature, than by the tragedies of human experience which surround them on every side. Robert Louis Stevenson says in his essay on "Child's Play," "Once, when I was groaning aloud with physical pain, a young gentleman came into the room and nonchalantly inquired if I had seen his bow and arrow. He made no account of my groans, which he accepted, as he had to accept so much else, as a piece of the inexplicable conduct ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin

... rejoined the Jesuit; "but more of this hereafter. Your lady hath had much converse with me. She thinks that the character of the man who commands that cutter, is such as to warrant his services for gold—and wishes to essay him." ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... this place! My best love to all your people. Isabel's fan could have no more appropriate field for its exhibition than summer here! Adieu, beloved. (I say nothing about home news. Z.'s affair bewilders me. I am awfully anxious for news, but it's useless talking at this distance.) (See Lamb's Essay on ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden

... from the surfaces to a clear sky. He gave an account of the theory of automatic cooling by radiation, which has found a place in all text-books of physics, in his first Essay on Dew published in 1818. The theory is supported in that and in a second essay by a number of well-planned observations, and the essays are indeed models of scientific method. The process of the formation of dew as represented by Wells is a simple one. It starts from the point of view that all bodies are constantly radiating heat, and cool automatically ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various

... example, and noted their enthusiasm, several of the old men ventured to try for themselves. They were instant converts. Last of all, the old women and the children—always the most conservative in such matters, took the notion that they were losing something, and dared to essay the novel diet. One taste, as a rule, proved enough to vanquish their prejudices. In a very few minutes every shred of the carcase that could claim acquaintance with the fire had been eaten, and ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... snail-shell curls. The statue has been spoken of by a high authority [Footnote: Newton, "Essays on Art and Archaeology" page 81.] as showing only "a meager and painful rendering of nature." That is one way of looking at it. But there is another way, which has been finely expressed by Pater, in an essay on "The Marbles of Aegina": "As art which has passed its prime has sometimes the charm of an absolute refinement in taste and workmanship, so immature art also, as we now see, has its own attractiveness in the naivete, the freshness ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... and set up for him. I had made a study of that sort of thing, and at Dawn Hill had done something toward realizing my own ideas of the splendid. But a glance showed me that I was far surpassed. What I had done seemed in comparison like the composition of a school-boy beside an essay by Goldsmith ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... had really lost very little, was inconsolable because her "essay," to be read at Commencement, had been burned up, and departed for the ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... equipment of libraries this essay has little to do: the ground being already covered adequately by Dr. Clark in his admirable monograph on The Care of Books. Herein is described the making, use, and circulation of books considered as a means of literary culture. It seemed possible to throw a useful sidelight ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... Field made his first essay in journalism as a reporter, there is not the shadow of a tradition that he made any more progress along the line of news-gathering and descriptive writing than he did as a student at Williams. He had too many grotesque fancies dancing through his whimsical brain to make account ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... which none shall possess, though all shall enjoy. The brothers, more ambitious, attacked her through the reason, brought her popular translations and selections from Marx and Lassalle, together with each Venturist pamphlet and essay as it appeared; they flattered her with technical talk; they were full of the importance of women to the new doctrine and the ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... their deliverance: come, O my lady, and show me where they are imprisoned." Thereupon the twain drew near to the place and the Prince forthright tried a key upon the lock of the dungeon but it did not fit; then he made essay of another wherewith they opened the wicket. As they were so doing the report of the captives' moaning and groaning increased yet more and more until Khudadad, touched and troubled at their impatience, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... the details of the preparation of the Reform Bill published by Lord Russell in the last edition of his 'Essay on the British Constitution.' Much of this conversation of Lord Lyndhurst's is extremely wide of the truth, but it is retained to show what was said and believed by competent persons ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... capacity of the Indians in these latitudes. Mr. Tylor must have thought in 1891 that the natives were competent to a belief in a supreme deity, for he said, "Another famous native American name for the supreme deity is Oki".(3) In the essay of 1892, however, Oki does not appear to exist as a god's name till 1724. We may now, for earlier evidence, turn to Master Thomas Heriot, "that learned mathematician" "who spoke the Indian language," and was with the company which abandoned Virginia on 18th June, ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... an elaborate life of Greeley, but only an extended, a just and thoroughly appreciative essay. Eminent success has crowned the effort. The general public, as well as the more fastidious student, will find genuine pleasure and real benefit in perusing this little volume."—Prof. William F. ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn

... most precise information upon the topography of Babylon is to be found in Professor RAWLINSON's essay on that subject in the second volume of his translation of HERODOTUS (p. 570, in ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... only lucrative branch of my art, for the practice brought the whole nest of phyzmongers on my back, where they buzzed like so many hornets. All these people have their friends, whom they incessantly teach to call my women harlots, my Essay on Beauty borrowed, and my composition ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... headache I was always conscious of renewed vital power and of keener sensations. I would try the experiment once more—hazarded under circumstances so different that it made me tremulous but to think of the vast abyss between my now and then—and essay, to ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... speech, survived for a short time in the Empire. Like all falsehood, the falsehood of the "Teutonic theory" could not live without an element of truth to distort, and it is the business of anyone who is writing true history, even in so short an essay as this, to show what that ground was and how ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc

... dreamed dreams. So far as my humbler and essentially prosaic faculties of observation and comparison go, plain facts are against them. But, as I may be mistaken, I have thought it well to prefix to the letters (by way of "Prolegomena") an essay which appeared in the "Nineteenth Century" for January, 1888, in which the principles that, to my mind, lie at the bottom of the "social question" are stated. So far as Individualism and Regimental Socialism are concerned, this paper ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... water for a considerable distance, and then suddenly disappearing beneath the waves. These are flying-fish enjoying an air bath, either in frolic or in fear; pursued, may be, by some aqueous enemy, to escape from whom they essay these aerial flights. The numerous islands, very many of which are uninhabited, have yet their recorded names, more or less characteristic, such as Rum Key, Turk's Island,—famous for the export of salt,—Bird Rock, Fortune Island, Great ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... with the lives of others, and that the joys and sorrows of our united lives are felt by hearts that beat as one.—The seer who laid down so severely the stern conditions which the highest friendship must fulfill, has also sung its praises so sweetly, that his poem at the beginning of his essay may serve as our description of the blessings which it is in the power ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... little wise diplomacy is all that will ever be needed in this so civilised era; that when the evil day comes something will happen (it certainly will), the whole concluding, very often, with a fervent essay on the immorality of war, all about as much to the point as carrying a dove through the streets to ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... less evidence of long-continued occupation than the outside. There was a block of wood which served father and son for a seat, which had two distinct and highly-polished marks on it. There was a rude table, whose cut, scratched, and hacked surface suggested the idea of many a culinary essay, and many a good meal. There was a very simple grate composed of several stones, which were blackened and whitened with soot and fire. There was no chimney, however, for the roof of the cave was so high that ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... as secondary to that which conveyed information and led to improvement." He then proceeds to enumerate a few of the papers to which he particularly refers, which have appeared in former volumes of the Amulet; as Dr. Walsh's Essay on Coins and Medals, illustrating the progress of Christianity: accounts of the American Christians at Constantinople, and of the Chaldean Christians, and a visit to Nicaea, by the same author: the Rev. Robert Hall's Essay ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various

... in this book is not that of the critical essay. Nor will these pages give an account of Champlain's times with reference to ordinances regulating the fur trade, or to the policy of French kings and their ministers towards emigration. Such subjects must be touched on, but here it will be only incidentally. What ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby

... the short arc l by setting the dividers so one point or leg rests at the center e and the other at the point c. Somewhere on this arc l is to be located the inner angle of our pallet. In delineating this angle, Moritz Grossman, in his "Prize Essay on the Detached Lever Escapement," makes an error, in Plate III of large English edition, of more than his entire lock, or about two degrees. We make no apologies for calling attention to this mistake on the ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous

... with thine own lyre, Then should I breathe a more deserving lay, A lay which every spirit would inspire, And melt each eye to tears of sympathy; But others at thy shrine, their tributes pay. Offspring of Beauty! child of native song! And I, ev'n I, would venture to essay, To raise my lauding voice amidst the throng Of those who weep thy loss—and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various

... identical moment has travelled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now that I feel nothing, it has stopped, has perhaps gone down again into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise? Ten times over I must essay the task, must lean down over the abyss. And each time the natural laziness which deters us from every difficult enterprise, every work of importance, has urged me to leave the thing alone, to drink my tea and to think merely of ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... always comport with a man's feelings of security, especially if he happens to be a little nervous, to sound the deer-bleat in a wild region of country. I once undertook to experiment with the instrument myself, and made my first essay in attempting to call up an antelope which I discovered in the distance. I succeeded admirably in luring the wary victim within shooting range, had raised upon my knees, and was just in the act of pulling trigger, when a rustling in the grass on my left drew my attention in ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... recite ten lines of poetry to her House Mistress every morning before breakfast until the end of the term; and Marjorie Anderson, who, I understand, was the instigator of the whole affair, will spend Saturday afternoon indoors until she has copied out the whole of Bacon's essay on 'Empire'. ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... did Joe Blunt essay to catch Charlie, and during that space of time he utterly failed. The horse seemed to have made up his mind for what is ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... this fundamental principle in my essay On the Gastrulation of Mammals (1877), and sought to show in this way that I assumed a gradual degeneration of the food-yelk and the yelk-sac on the way from the proreptiles to the mammals. "The cenogenetic process of adaptation," I said, "which has ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel

... the little problem to which we have referred. Pride and Prejudice it is true, was written and finished before Sense and Sensibility—its original title for several years being First Impressions. Then, in 1797, the author fell to work upon an older essay in letters a la Richardson, called Elinor and Marianne, which she re-christened Sense and Sensibility. This, as we know, was her first published book; and whatever may be the connection between the title ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... a more minute notice of the principles of the Roman law, than what the limits of this work should properly allow. I shall therefore endeavor to abridge what has been written by the more eminent authorities, taking as a basis the late work of Lord Mackenzie and the learned and interesting essay of Professor Maine. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... the Drawer is well aware that it subjects itself to the charge of being commonplace, but it is precisely the commonplace that this essay seeks to defend. Great is the power of the commonplace. "My friends," says the preacher, in an impressive manner, "Alexander died; Napoleon died; you will all die!" This profound remark, so true, so thoughtful, creates a deep sensation. It is deepened by the statement that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... posture extremely inconvenient for those who, like ourselves, wore long and tight trousers, whilst the two beautiful women on their side earnestly seconded his request. We complied with it, though it was the first time that either of us had made the essay. The ladies, having left the room for a moment, returned with a salver of dried fruits, and a beverage made of sugar and milk; but I was so much engaged in admiring their personal attractions, that I paid but little attention to their presents. It appeared ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various

... should contribute to his magazine, The New Monthly, and offered them half as much again as his other writers, who were paid at the rate of sixteen guineas a sheet. For this periodical Lady Morgan wrote a long essay on Absenteeism and other articles, some of which ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... Divine is represented to us by symbols that speak to more parts of our nature than to the intellect alone. Horace Bushnell entitled an essay that still repays careful reading, The Gospel a Gift to the Imagination. One of our chief complaints with the historic creeds and confessions is that they have turned the poetry (in which religious experience most naturally expresses itself) into ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin

... everything that referred to the commercial side of the expedition, kept himself principally to his room, thinking and writing. What he was writing about he told to nobody, not even Yaquita, and it seemed to have already assumed the importance of a veritable essay. ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... word for it that, although not so fortunate an investigation, not so entirely accordant with later results as the doctrine of the circulation; yet that still, this little treatise of Harvey's has in many directions exerted an influence hardly less remarkable than that exerted by the Essay upon the Circulation of ...
— William Harvey And The Discovery Of The Circulation Of The Blood • Thomas H. Huxley

... essay on Method in History, tells us that there are two distinct phases to every historical event. These are the event itself and the human feeling that brought it forth. It has seemed to me that there ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... little promise as a literary genius. When he competed for a prize offered by the Academy of Lyons, his essay was found to be next to the last and he was number 15 out of 16 candidates. But he overcame all these difficulties through his absolute and unshakable belief in his own destiny, and in his own glorious future. Ambition was the main-spring of his life. The thought ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... stranger will wander as now in the city; Rome will be here, and the Pope the custode of Vatican marbles. I have no heart, however, for any marble or fresco; I have essayed it in vain; 'tis vain as yet to essay it: But I may haply resume some day my studies in this kind. Not as the Scripture says, is, I think, the fact. Ere our death-day, Faith, I think, does pass, and Love; but Knowledge abideth. Let us seek Knowledge;—the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... heat proving insupportable, they were driven once more to essay the river transit. A boat was again hired; a second time they embarked on the shining Nile; and again an evil fortune attended them. Instead of reaching Berber, as they should have done, in four days, they spent a week in the voyage; but it was some compensation ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... The compositions of Chopin were, even at that time, known and very much liked in England. The most distinguished virtuosi frequently executed them. In a pamphlet published in London by Messrs. Wessel and Stappletou, under the title of AN ESSAY ON THE WORKS OF F. CHOPIN, we find some lines marked by just criticism. The epigraph of this little pamphlet is ingeniously chosen, and the two lines from Shelley could scarcely be ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... a sentiment exactly the reverse: "To expect," says he, in his Essay on the rise of Arts and Sciences, "that the arts and sciences should take their first rise in a monarchy, is to expect a contradiction;" and he holds, in a subsequent part of the same essay, that though republics ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... have felt it myself,' said her sister-in-law. 'Perhaps something could be done by essay societies. May belongs to one, and if Ursula is an intellectual girl, perhaps you could keep her up to some regular employment in the morning. I succeeded in doing so when May came out, but I can accomplish nothing regular but music with Blanche; and an hour's steady ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... successfully, too, for the Bugle sounded always the note of truth and sincerity. She started at once to write up the parade. She should be careful, of course, not to mention the major's name, or her own (her father never did) and she hoped she could at least make a good composition or essay on ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose

... began then to speak of Leonardo da Vinci, mingling with his own fantasies the perfect words of that essay which, so wonderful was his memory, he seemed to know by heart. He found exotic fancies in the likeness between Saint John the Baptist, with his soft flesh and waving hair, and Bacchus, with his ambiguous smile. ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham

... Rhyme; by Thomas Cooper, the Chartist" (1846); which is inscribed to the Countess of Blessington, and in the advertisement the author offers "but one apology for the production of a metrical essay, composed chiefly of imperfect and immature pieces: The ambition to contribute towards the fund of Christmas entertainment." The scene of the Baron's Yule Feast is depicted in Torksey's Hall, Torksey being one of the first ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... was seldom any one present who understood it better than I. Often had I persuaded the artists to represent this or that subject, and I now joyfully made use of these advantages. I still remember writing a circumstantial essay, in which I described twelve pictures which were to exhibit the history of Joseph: some ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... time that he had accomplished this, Flora had so far recovered that she declared herself quite ready to essay the journey back to the camp; and they accordingly set out forthwith, Dick very carefully noting the surrounding landmarks, with the fixed determination to return at an early moment and thoroughly examine the interior of the cavern. As they went, Flora beguiled the ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... The Rover was produced at the Duke's Theatre, Dorset Gardens, in 1681. It is noticeable that Will Smith had so distinguished himself in Willmore, that Betterton, who appeared as Belvile in the first part, did not essay a character in the second. The cast was reinforced, however, by Mrs. Barry, who took the role of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... the impetus given by Europe must together cause such rapid intellectual expansion that India will now be carried swiftly through phases which have occupied long stages in the lifetime of other nations."[4] In another essay, in a more positive mood, he writes of British responsibility for "great non-Christian populations [in India] whose religious ideas and institutions are being rapidly transformed by English law and morality."[5] In a third passage he even prophesies rashly: "The end of simple paganism is not ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... which was intended to cast an entirely new light on many obscure incidents of English history. For this he solicited encouragement—and subscriptions. He enclosed with his appeals some specimen pages, which appeared to promise marvels of industry and research. His preface was a wonderful essay, of which a HAYWARD would scarcely have been ashamed. In this way he gathered a large amount of money from historical enthusiasts with more ardour than knowledge, and from old friends who, knowing his real ability, believed that he had at last determined to justify the opinions ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various

... Sophie again entered the room. He had forgotten her, forgotten all about her. As she came in he made a quick, courteous movement to rise—too quick; for a sharp pain shot through his breast, and he grew pale about the lips. But he made essay to stand up ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the enjoyment of that light and peace. It followed the bed of a mountain stream, which began in a mere pleat of the hills, tumbling often in white cascades, and enduring no boat upon its waters until half its course was run. But here it challenged man to essay a fall; for where it burst its way over rocky slopes were channels jeopardous and hardly navigable, sequences of foaming rapids, races of wild water swirling round opposing boulders, and careering indignant of restraint between ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... The Gaedheal, a Gaelic periodical which may be known to some of your readers, I inserted a translation from the German of an essay on the authenticity of Macpherson's Ossian, appended to a poetical translation of Fingal by Dr August Ebrard, Leipsic, 1868. My object in doing this was to give Highlanders ignorant of German, as most of them unhappily are, an opportunity of hearing what a learned German had to say ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various

... observed William Marion Reedy, "1601 is to Twain's whole works what the 'Droll Stories' are to Balzac's. It is better than the privately circulated ribaldry and vulgarity of Eugene Field; is, indeed, an essay in a sort of primordial humor such as we find in Rabelais, or in the plays of some of the lesser stars that drew their light from Shakespeare's urn. It is humor or fun such as one expects, let us say, from the peasants of Thomas Hardy, outside of Hardy's books. And, though it be filthy, it ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain

... Quebec they arranged a division of labour in this manner: Jamay and Du Plessis were to remain at Quebec; D'Olbeau was to return to Tadoussac and essay the thorny task of converting the tribes round that fishing and trading station; while to Le Caron was assigned a more distant field, but one that promised a rich harvest. Six or seven hundred miles from Quebec, ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... rising in my brain Are strange; sometimes I muddle 'em, Confounding Pleck with Plodder Lane, Titley with Tillietudlem; In short, it's not a game of skill, Else I should scarce essay at; But it is harmless, costs me nil; And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various

... evidence of his poetic powers was given {99} by the appearance of The Vanity of Human Wishes, another Juvenalian imitation, but freer and bolder than the first. From 1750 to 1752 he was writing The Rambler, a sort of newspaper essay which appeared every Tuesday and Friday. He wrote it almost entirely himself, and almost always at the last moment, when the printer was calling for it. No one will now wonder that it never had a large circulation as a periodical, for it usually ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey

... George so much while he lived, might have some power to conjure him back from the common doom of kings. But George the Second was dead beyond the power of all the fat and painted women in the world to help. "Friends," says Thackeray in his Essay, "he was your fathers' king as well as mine; let us drop a respectful tear over his grave." But indeed it is very hard to drop a respectful tear over the grave of George the Second. Seldom has any man been a king with fewer kingly qualities. He had courage, undoubtedly—courage ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... Eve too, in its more elaborate, more premeditated art, has a beauty so poignant, so sensuously unearthly, that one dare not quote a line of it, in a mere "critical essay," for fear of breaking such ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... wished to surprise them with the result of his prowess—in regard to which his belief was unlimited. He felt, besides, that it was better there should be no witness to the trifling failures which might be expected to occur in the first essay of one wholly unacquainted with the art of angling, as practised in these ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... Truth," published in 1770, and containing a feeble attack on Hume. Commonplace as the book is, it was received with rapture by the Orthodox, and Reynolds painted a fine picture of Beattie, standing with the "Essay" under his arm, while the angel of Truth beside him, drives away three demonic figures, in whose faces we trace a resemblance to the portraits of Hume, Voltaire, and Gibbon. For this piece of flattery the painter ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... any appearance of art; it is disdain, anger, boldness, freedom, involved in a continued stream of argument; and, of all human productions, the orations of Demosthenes present to us the models which approach nearest to perfection." ("Essay of Eloquence." Comp. Lord Brougham's Works, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... and the cant of factitious sentiment; and can, therefore, serve only to ripen a splendid lunatic like Alexander, a puling driveller like Werter, or a morbid dreamer like Wordsworth." In another part of this essay he says: "While the historian and the philosopher are advancing in and accelerating the progress of knowledge, the poet is wallowing in the rubbish of departed ignorance, and raking up the ashes of dead ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... heard her say as she opened the door, "you are too foolish. Do run along; I must finish my essay for Miss Marlowe, and I dare say you have something to do," with a sarcasm not lost upon her hearers, who grinned appreciatively, for Genevieve was noted for the ingenuity with which she ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... of faultless mould, Sweet youthful face, fair as the moon at full, And dark orbs, by long curving lashes swept; Hearing her tender sighs and honeyed speech, The hunter fell to hot desire; he dared Essay to woo, with whispered words at first, And next by amorous approach, the Queen; Who, presently perceiving what he would, And all that baseness of him—being so pure, So chaste, and faithful—like a blazing torch Took fire of scorn and anger 'gainst ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... I have found (in the nineteenth volume of Archaeologia, pp. 1-10.) an essay by Mr. Alex. Luders on this very subject, in which that able writer, who was well accustomed to examine historical records, refers to many examples in which the title "Most Christian King" was attributed to, or used by English sovereigns, as well as the kings of France; and to the fact, that ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various

... association as this as a spur to honorable exertion is also, as it seems to me, no small part of its benefit. Leigh Hunt, says, somewhere, that when he was writing an essay he always thought of certain persons and said to himself, "A will like this, B will rub his hands at that"; and it is safe to say that any graduate of this college would prefer the suffrages of his brethren here to those of any other public. And when any of the sons of Harvard who has ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... America through his earlier works, 'Soldiers of the Saddle,' 'Capture, Prison-Pen and Escape,' 'Battles for the Union,' 'Heroes of Three Wars,' 'Peculiarities of American Cities,' and 'Ocean to Ocean on Horseback.' His latest book, 'Down the Great River,' is his most important essay in the field of literature, and is in several respects unique. It is a very interesting account of a remarkable canoe voyage from the head waters of the Mississippi to the Gulf; but its importance comes from the fact that, until this voyage was made, the ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... clipt silver. Before the late recoinage of the gold, the price of silver bullion was seldom higher than five shillings and sevenpence an ounce, which is but fivepence above the mint price. But in 1695, the common price of silver bullion was six shillings and fivepence an ounce, {Lowndes's Essay on the Silver Coin, 68.} which is fifteen pence above the mint price. Even before the late recoinage of the gold, therefore, the coin, gold and silver together, when compared with silver bullion, was not supposed to ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... warbler, yet of tender years; As a young bird, as yet unus'd to fly On wings, expanded, through the azure sky, With doubt and fear its first excursion tries And shivers ev'ry feather with surprise; So comes our chorister—the summer's ray, Around her nest, call'd forth a short essay; Now trembling on the brink, with fear she sees This unknown clime, nor dares to trust the breeze. But here, no unfledg'd wing was ever crush'd; Be each rude blast within its cavern hush'd. Soft swelling ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... chairs, are robbed of their supports. In high favor are also the constituent parts of garden inclosures. Before the beginning of the conflict the battle song resounds. It is not as though human throats, but rather as though the spirit of war were singing. They essay chiefly the formation of wild sounds, and close their eyes as though thereby to reinforce their utterance. They fight without a preconsidered plan of battle, each at the place that he occupies. Of shields they make no employment. The head is deemed ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... at first the plan of his publication, and stated that Dr. Beattie had promised an essay on Scottish music, by way of an introduction to ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... corroded. I commend it, such as it is, to the Blessing of the great Physician, and could wish the Reader to make up its many Deficiencies, by Mr. Flavel's Token for Mourners, and Dr. Grosvenor's Mourner; to which, if it suit his Relish, he may please to add Sir William Temple's Essay on the Excess of Grief: Three Tracts which, in their very different Strains and Styles, I cannot but look upon as in the Number of the best which our Language, or, perhaps, any other, has ...
— Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children • Phillip Doddridge

... essay on the invasion of England and a treatise on gun-boats, full of valuable maritime information; in 1805 a treatise on yellow fever, suggesting modes of prevention. In short, he was an industrious and thoughtful man. He sympathized ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... their favorite subjects, the young gentlemen a different set of topics, and the occasional outside contributors their own; so that one who happened to be admitted to a meeting never knew whether he was going to hear an account of recent arctic discoveries, or an essay on the freedom of the will, or a psychological experience, or a story, ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Read especially his essay "On the Truths and Sentiments most important to inculcate on Men for their Welfare" (a subject proposed by the Academy of Lyons in 1790). "Some bold men driven by genius.. .. Perfection grows out of reason as fruit out of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... narrative form. But the process was there; the instances of it were highly reputed and widely known. It must in almost any case have gone hard but a further step still would be taken. It was actually taken by the person who had suggested the periodical essay itself. ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... eighteen, at Valence, he gained, anonymously, a prize proposed to the Academy of Lyons by the Abbe Raynal, on the question, "What are the principles and institutions best adapted to advance mankind in happiness?" In this essay he defined happiness as consisting in the "perfect enjoyment of life according to the laws of our physical and moral organization:" and the forcible views, well adapted to the temper of the times, and the vivid style of writing, attracted much attention. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... authority, Raghunandana, mentions, on the faith of a work called Samvatsara-sandipa, that Lakshmi is to be worshipped in the forenoon of that day with flowers, perfumes, rice, and water; that due honour is to be paid to inkstand and writing-reed, and no writing to be done. Wilson, in his essay on the Religious Festivals of the Hindus (works, vol. ii, p. 188. ff.) adds that on the morning of the 2nd February, the whole of the pens and inkstands, and the books, if not too numerous and bulky, are collected, the pens or reeds cleaned, the inkstands scoured, and the books wrapped ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... commencement of his essay on Washington: "There is a spectacle as fine as that of a virtuous man struggling with adversity, and not less salutary to contemplate; it is the spectacle of a virtuous man at the head of a good ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... this city as Paul was in Ephesus, nor one fourth of the time that John lived there, yet I defy all the advocates of the mythical theory of Germany, and all their disciples here, to write a myth half as long as this essay, and impose it on the elders and members of my church as my writing. Let it only be presented in manuscript to the congregation—there was no printing in Paul's days—and in five minutes a dozen members of the church will ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... If you are asked to go out in this abominable weather, shelter yourself under the wing of Mr. AUSTIN DOBSON, and plead a prior engagement. (Ha! Ha!) You will find the engagement both prior and profitable. Mr. DOBSON'S introductory essay is not only exhaustive, but in the highest degree interesting, and his selection from the poems has been made with great ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various

... may be said to be the warbler of the Western Himalayas, and, as such, it has been made the subject of a separate essay. ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar

... precaution to secure the wicker door from the inside, and lay down with his Express, so covering the same that but the very slightest movement of the hand would be needed on his part in order to rake from stem to stern whosoever should be so ill-advised as to essay a stealthy ingress. ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... work on special articles for the newspapers, and now and then I get a short story or an essay ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... 898: L. and P., vi., 1382; vii., 56. A whole essay might be written on this latter brief document; it is not, what it purports to be, a list of knights of the shires who had died since the beginning of Parliament, for the names are those of living men. Against most of the constituencies two or three ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... they the offspring of the brain of a single individual, but that all progress is gradual only; each worker follows in the track of his predecessor, and eventually, perhaps, advances a step beyond him." And concerning the relative value of inventions in musical instruments, it appears, from an essay of his which has been recently published, that he considers improvement in acoustical proportions the chief foundation of the higher or lower degree of perfection in all instruments, their mechanism being ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various

... reforms begin in the same place where abuses do, namely, in the notion of things; that only just ideas can, in the long run, purify conduct; that clear thinking is the source of all high and sustained feeling. I wish that we might essay the philosopher-theologian's task. This generation is hungry for understanding; it perishes for lack of knowledge. One reason for the indubitable decline of the preacher's power is that we have ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... not bite for fear of being bit: They hold their pens, as swords are held by fools, And are afraid to use their own edge-tools. Since the Plain-Dealer's scenes of manly rage, Not one has dared to lash this crying age. This time, the poet owns the bold essay, Yet hopes there's no ill-manners in his play; And he declares, by me, he has designed Affront to none, but frankly speaks his mind. And should th' ensuing scenes not chance to hit, He offers but this ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve

... him to get it this morning." And Helen put the letter into her aunt's hands, while the latter gazed helplessly, first at it, and then at the girl. There is an essay of Bacon's in which is set forth the truth that you can bewilder and master anyone if you are only sufficiently bold and rapid; Mrs. Roberts was so used to managing everything and being looked up to by everyone that Helen's present mood left her ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair

... have consulted, have been of little or no service to me. The famous 'Conferences'[2] of the painter Le Brun, published in 1667, is the best known ancient work, and contains some good remarks. Another somewhat old essay, namely, the 'Discours,' delivered 1774-1782, by the well-known Dutch anatomist Camper,[3] can hardly be considered as having made any marked advance in the subject. The following works, on the contrary, deserve the ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... of his Masterpieces from the collection of his Pictures in the Cassel Gallery, Reproduced in Photogravure by the Berlin Photographic Company. With an Essay by FREDERICK WEDMORE. In large portfolio 271/2 inches ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... review of a new book the writer had just read, and passed from this to crisp comments on the great events, political, scientific, artistic, of the day. The whole letter was pungent, interesting, delightful—an impersonal essay on a dozen vital topics of life and thought. Only at the end was ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... brain, But they're perfectly sure of creating a boom in the wilds of Kentucky and Maine: They'll appreciate there my illustrious work on the way to make Pindar to scan, And Culture will hum in the State of New York when I read it my essay on 'An! [1] ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley

... the chosen Gamaliel at whose feet I could sit for ever," he would say; "on every subject he speaks well and wisely;" and once, when he was strolling through Kensington Gardens with his sister-friend, Anna Sheldon, he had electrified her by quoting a favourite passage from his essay ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... very narrow fortune, and amidst the ruffles of an ill-natured world. I have tasted too severely of the lashes of man, to take any great satisfaction in any thing but doing my duty."[39] In his devout and magnificent Essay on the Sun, he says, "'tis admirable that this planet should, through so many ages of the world, maintain an uninterrupted course, that in so many thousands of revolving years, it should retain the same ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... in paradise, and relieves his heart in an autobiography, a strange and perplexing work of fiction—quaint and subtle enough for a metaphysical conceit; but, on the other hand, with far too much of genuine and deep feeling. It is a first essay; he closes it abruptly as if dissatisfied with his work, but with the resolution of raising at a future day a worthy monument to the memory of her whom he has lost. It is the promise and purpose of a great work. But a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... through these remarks, the comparison between English art and French art, English and French humor, manners, and morals, perhaps we should endeavor, also, to write an analytical essay on English cant or humbug, as distinguished from French. It might be shown that the latter was more picturesque and startling, the former more substantial and positive. It has none of the poetic flights of the French genius, but advances steadily, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... this paper on Inchcolm having been sent to his friend Dr. Petrie of Dublin, author of the well-known essay on the "Early Ecclesiastical Architecture and Round Towers of Ireland," it was returned after a time, enriched with many notes and illustrations. In now reprinting the paper these have been added, and are distinguished from ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... Essay was originally published under the title of "A Compend of Lectures on the Aims and Duties of the Profession of the Law, delivered before the Law Class of the University of Pennsylvania." A portion of it had been read by the ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood

... obliged to confess that you have resolved with me that a miracle is impossible, and yet that you are not quite sure that you can tell, or rather own that you cannot, what a miracle is. Let me entreat you to essay some definition; and if you break down, I have no objection to take my chance of the honor of success or the ignominy ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... think of Byron as they please; but this is certain, that they can show no poet who is to be compared with him. He is different from all the others, and for the most part greater." Mazzini, many years later, concluded his famous essay on Byron and Goethe with this vindication of the English poet's claim: "The day will come when Democracy will remember all that it owes to Byron. England too, will, I hope, one day remember the mission—so entirely English, yet hitherto overlooked by her—which Byron fulfilled ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... spiritual care, with the advantage of a liberal education. In this attempt twenty-four men and twenty women have been engaged, selected from among those who have most thoroughly practiced our social theory." [Footnote: "Essay on Scientific Propagation," by ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... tragic parts of Shakespeare. It would be no very difficult task to extend the inquiry to his comedies; and to show why Falstaff, Shallow, Sir Hugh Evans, and the rest, are equally incompatible with stage representation. The length to which this essay has run, will make it, I am afraid, sufficiently distasteful to the Amateurs of the Theatre, without going any deeper into the ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various



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