Certainly now in his old age Mr. Howells is selecting queer titles for his books. A while ago we had that feeble tale, “The Coast of Bohemia,” and now we have “My Literary Passions.” “Passions,” literary or otherwise, were never Mr. Howells’ forte and surely no man could be further from even the coast of […]
Historic Articles by Authors
Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson “Ne te quaesiveris extra.” “Man is his own star; and the soul that can Render an honest and a perfect man, Commands all light, all influence, all fate; Nothing to him falls early or too late. Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk […]
Emerson Is a Flippin’ Genius! by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Emerson’s was an Asiatic mind, drawing its sustenance partly from the hard soil of our New England, partly, too, from the air that has known Himalaya and the Ganges. So imprest with this character of his mind was Mr. Burlingame, as I saw him, after his return from his mission, that he said to me, […]
William Shakespeare’s Influence by William Dean Howells
William Shakespeare’s Influence by William Dean Howells The establishment of our paper in the village where there had been none before, and its enlargement from four to eight pages, were events so filling that they left little room for any other excitement but that of getting acquainted with the young people of the village, and […]
Does Fortune Favor Fools? by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Does Fortune Favor Fools? by Samuel Taylor Coleridge “Does Fortune favor fools? Or how do you explain the origin of the proverb, which, differently worded, is to be found in all the languages of Europe?” This proverb admits of various explanations, according to the moods of mind in which it is used. It may arise […]
A Review of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by James Russell Lowell
THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH The introduction and acclimatization of the hexameter upon English soil has been an affair of more than two centuries. The attempt was first systematically made during the reign of Elizabeth, but the metre remained a feeble exotic that scarcely burgeoned under glass. Gabriel Harvey,—a kind of Don Adriano de Armado,—whose […]
Books Which Have Influenced Me by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Editor has somewhat insidiously laid a trap for his correspondents, the question put appearing at first so innocent, truly cutting so deep. It is not, indeed, until after some reconnaissance and review that the writer awakes to find himself engaged upon something in the nature of autobiography, or, perhaps worse, upon a chapter in […]
What is Art by Ralph Waldo Emerson
What is Art by Ralph Waldo Emerson ART. GIVE to barrows trays and pans Grace and glimmer of romance, Bring the moonlight into noon Hid in gleaming piles of stone; On the city’s paved street Plant gardens lined with lilac sweet, Let spouting fountains cool the air, Singing in the sun-baked square. Let statue, picture, […]
A Preface to My Husband’s Poetry by Mary Shelley
TO THE VOLUME OF POSTHUMOUS POEMS PUBLISHED IN 1824. In nobil sangue vita umile e queta, Ed in alto intelletto un puro core Frutto senile in sul giovenil fibre, E in aspetto pensoso anima lieta.—PETRARCA. It had been my wish, on presenting the public with the Posthumous Poems of Mr. Shelley, to have accompanied them […]
The Philosophy of Composition by Edgar Allan Poe
Charles Dickens, in a note now lying before me, alluding to an examination I once made of the mechanism of Barnaby Rudge, says—”By the way, are you aware that Godwin wrote his Caleb Williams backwards? He first involved his hero in a web of difficulties, forming the second volume, and then, for the first, cast […]
What I Think of Leo Tolstoy by William Dean Howells
What I Think of Leo Tolstoy by William Dean Howells I come now, though not quite in the order of time, to the noblest of all these enthusiasms—namely, my devotion for the writings of Leo Tolstoy. I should wish to speak of him with his own incomparable truth, yet I do not know how to […]
CRIME AND EDUCATION by Charles Dickens
I offer no apology for entreating the attention of the readers of The Daily News to an effort which has been making for some three years and a half, and which is making now, to introduce among the most miserable and neglected outcasts in London, some knowledge of the commonest principles of morality and religion; […]
My Thoughts on Walt Whitman by Willa Cather
My Thoughts on Walt Whitman by Willa Cather Speaking of monuments reminds one that there is more talk about a monument to Walt Whitman, “the good, gray poet.” Just why the adjective good is always applied to Whitman it is difficult to discover, probably because people who could not understand him at all took it […]
IN DEFENSE OF BOOKS by John Milton
IN DEFENSE OF BOOKS by John Milton I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the Church and Commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors. For books are not absolutely dead things, […]
DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE by N. P. Willis
Nathaniel Parker Willis was the most famous and well-paid magazine writers of his time. He worked with Edar Allan Poe