A Perspective on Edgar Allan Poe by Arthur Symons The poems of Edgar Allan Poe are the work of a poet who thought persistently about poetry as an art, and would have reduced inspiration to a method. At their best they are perfectly defined by Baudelaire, when he says of Poe’s poetry that it is […]
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A Letter to an American Book Hunter by Andrew Lang
To Philip Dodsworth, Esq., New York. Dear Dodsworth,—Let me congratulate you on having joined the army of book-hunters. “Everywhere have I sought peace and found it nowhere,” says the blessed Thomas à Kempis, “save in a corner with a book.” Whether that good monk wrote the “De Imitatione Christi” or not, one always likes him […]
How to Write a Feature Article by Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
How to Write a Feature Article by Willard Grosvenor Bleyer Value of a Plan. Just as a builder would hesitate to erect a house without a carefully worked-out plan, so a writer should be loath to begin an article before he has outlined it fully. In planning a building, an architect considers how large […]
Figurative Language by Joseph Devlin
Figurative Language by Joseph Devlin Figures of Speech—Definitions and Examples —Use of Figures In Figurative Language we employ words in such a way that they differ somewhat from their ordinary signification in commonplace speech and convey our meaning in a more vivid and impressive manner than when we use them in their every-day sense. Figures […]
Keeping Christmas by Henry Van Dyke
Keeping Christmas by Henry Van Dyke Romans, xiv, 6: He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord It is a good thing to observe Christmas day. The mere marking of times and seasons, when men agree to stop work and make merry together, is a wise and wholesome custom. It helps one […]
A CHRISTMAS SERMON by Robert Louis Stevenson
A CHRISTMAS SERMON by Robert Louis Stevenson By the time this paper appears, I shall have been talking for twelve months; and it is thought I should take my leave in a formal and seasonable manner. Valedictory eloquence is rare, and death-bed sayings have not often hit the mark of the occasion. Charles Second, wit […]
Getting Up On Cold Mornings by Leigh Hunt
Getting Up On Cold Mornings by Leigh Hunt An Italian author–Giulio Cordara, a Jesuit–has written a poem upon insects, which he begins by insisting, that those troublesome and abominable little animals were created for our annoyance, and that they were certainly not inhabitants of Paradise. We of the north may dispute this piece of theology; […]
The Contemporary Novel by H. G. Wells
The Contemporary Novel by H. G. Wells Circumstances have made me think a good deal at different times about the business of writing novels, and what it means, and is, and may be; and I was a professional critic of novels long before I wrote them. I have been writing novels, or writing about novels, […]
Heroism by Ralph Waldo Emerson
In the elder English dramatists, and mainly in the plays Of Beaumont and Fletcher, there is a constant recognition of gentility, as if a noble behavior were as easily marked in the society of their age as color is in our American population. When any Rodrigo, Pedro or Valerio enters, though he be a stranger, […]
Charles Dickens by Andrew Lang
Charles Dickens by Andrew Lang “I cannot read Dickens!” How many people make this confession, with a front of brass, and do not seem to know how poor a figure they cut! George Eliot says that a difference of taste in jokes is a great cause of domestic discomfort. A difference of taste in books, […]
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Women in France by George Eliot
WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLÉ by George Eliot In 1847, a certain Count Leopold Ferri died at Padua, leaving a library entirely composed of works written by women, in various languages, and this library amounted to nearly 32,000 volumes. We will not hazard any conjecture as to the proportion of these volumes which a […]
How to Draw Lightning from the Clouds by Benjamin Franklin
How to Draw Lightning from the Clouds by Benjamin Franklin As frequent mention is made in public papers from Europe of the success of the Philadelphia experiment for drawing the electric fire from clouds by means of pointed rods of iron erected on high buildings, etc., it may be agreeable to the curious to be […]
A Look at Poets and Poetry of the 1800s from 1888 by William Davenport Adams
A Look at Poets and Poetry of the 1800s from 1888 by William Davenport Adams The succession of the Hon. J. Leicester Warren to the barony of De Tabley was something more than a change in the personnel of the House of Lords; it amounted to a conspicuous addition to the Chamber’s intellectual power, and […]
Alpine Diversions by Robert Louis Stevenson
Alpine Diversions by Robert Louis Stevenson There will be no lack of diversion in an Alpine sanitarium. The place is half English, to be sure, the local sheet appearing in double column, text and translation; but it still remains half German; and hence we have a band which is able to play, and a company […]