A MODEST PROPOSAL Dr. Jonathan Swift For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick. 1729 It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the […]
Historic Articles by Authors
Review of Kipling’s Stories by Andrew Lang
MR. KIPLING’S STORIES The wind bloweth where it listeth. But the wind of literary inspiration has rarely shaken the bungalows of India, as, in the tales of the old Jesuit missionaries, the magical air shook the frail “medicine tents,” where Huron conjurors practised their mysteries. With a world of romance and of character at their […]
Life by Percy Bysshe Shelley
LIFE by Percy Bysshe Shelley Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, is an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the wonder of our being. We are struck with admiration at some of its transient modifications, but it is itself the great miracle. What are […]
A JULY AFTER-NOON BY THE POND by Walt Whitman
A JULY AFTER-NOON BY THE POND The fervent heat, but so much more endurable in this pure air—the white and pink pond-blossoms, with great heart-shaped leaves; the glassy waters of the creek, the banks, with dense bushery, and the picturesque beeches and shade and turf; the tremulous, reedy call of some bird from recesses, breaking […]
POEMS IN PROSE by Oscar Wilde
POEMS IN PROSE by Oscar Wilde THE ARTIST ONE evening there came into his soul the desire to fashion an image of THE PLEASURE THAT ABIDETH FOR A MOMENT. And he went forth into the world to look for bronze. For he could think only in bronze. But all the bronze of the whole world […]
Joseph Addison Thank God I am an Englishmen
Let brevity despatch the rapid thought. I have somewhere read of an eminent person who used in his private offices of devotion to give thanks to Heaven that he was born a Frenchman: for my own part I look upon it as a peculiar blessing that I was born an Englishman. Among many other reasons, […]
My Thoughts on July by Alice Meynell
One has the leisure of July for perceiving all the differences of the green of leaves. It is no longer a difference in degrees of maturity, for all the trees have darkened to their final tone, and stand in their differences of character and not of mere date. Almost all the green is grave, not […]
The Poet and His Ego by Elizabeth Atkins from The Poet’s Poet 1922
Most of us, mere men that we are, find ourselves caught in some entanglement of our mortal coil even before we have fairly embarked upon the enterprise of thinking our case through. The art of self-reflection which appeals to us as so eminent and so human, is it after all much more than a […]
Henry James is Awesome! by Willa Cather
Henry James is Awesome! by Willa Cather Their mania for careless and hasty work is not confined to the lesser men. Howells and Hardy have gone with the crowd. Now that Stevenson is dead I can think of but one English speaking author who is really keeping his self-respect and sticking for perfection. Of […]
Household Superstitions by Joseph Addison
Visions and magic spells, can you despise, And laugh at witches, ghosts, and prodigies? Going yesterday to dine with an old acquaintance, I had the misfortune to find his whole family very much dejected. Upon asking him the occasion of it, he told me that his wife had dreamt a very strange dream the night […]
The Rights And Involved Duties of Mankind Considered by Mary Wollstonecraft
In the present state of society, it appears necessary to go back to first principles in search of the most simple truths, and to dispute with some prevailing prejudice every inch of ground. To clear my way, I must be allowed to ask some plain questions, and the answers will probably appear as unequivocal as […]
My Impressions of New York by Robert Louis Stevenson
NEW YORK As we drew near to New York I was at first amused, and then somewhat staggered, by the cautious and the grisly tales that went the round. You would have thought we were to land upon a cannibal island. You must speak to no one in the streets, as they would not leave […]
Of Wisdom For A Man’s Self by Francis Bacon
Of Wisdom For A Man’s Self by Francis Bacon AN ANT is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing, in an orchard or garden. And certainly, men that are great lovers of themselves, waste the public. Divide with reason; between selflove and society; and be so true to thyself, as thou […]
My Fear of Tolstoy’s Death. A Letter by Anton Chekhov
TO M. O. MENSHIKOV. YALTA, January 28, 1900. … I can’t make out what Tolstoy’s illness is. Tcherinov has sent me no answer, and from what I read in the papers and what you write me now I can draw no conclusion. Ulcers in the stomach and intestines would give different indications: they are not […]
A Review of Hamlet by WILLIAM HAZLITT
A Review of Hamlet by WILLIAM HAZLITT It is the one of Shakespeare’s plays that we think of the oftenest, because it sounds most in striking reflections on human life, and because the distresses of Hamlet are transferred, by the turn of his mind, to the general account of humanity. Whatever happens to him, we […]