him than Littleton or Coke. The father sends up every post1 questions relating to marriage-articles, leases, and tenures in the neighborhood; all which questions he agrees with an attorney to answers and take care of in the lump. He is studying the passions themselves, when he should be inquiring into the debates among men which arise from them. He knows the argument of each of the orations of Demosthenes and Tully, but not one case in the reports of our own courts. No one ever took him for a fool, but none, except his intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit. This turn makes him at once both5 disinterested and agreeable. As few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are most of them fit for conversation. His taste of books is a little too just for the age he lives in3; he has read all, but approves of very few. His familiarity with the customs, manners, actions, and writings of the ancients makes him a very delicate observer of what occurs to him in the present world. He is an excellent critic, and the time of the play is his hour of business; exactly at five he passes through New Inn, crosses through Russell Court, and takes a turn at Will's till the play begins; he has his shoes rubbed1o and his periwig powdered10 at the barber's as11 you go into the Rose. It is for the good of the audience when he is at a play,12 for the actors have an ambition to please1s him. III. From Thackeray's "Vanity Fair." Miss Crawley was, in consequence, an object of great respect when she came to Queen's Crawley; for she had a balance at her banker's 14 which would have made her beloved anywhere. What a dignity it15 gives an old lady, that balance at the banker's 16 ! How tenderly we look at her faults, if she is a relative (and may 17 2 437. 1 390. 8 448, second half; the expression is not quite accurate; agrees with is used in the sense of engages. 4 436. 5 506. 6 most of them is appositive to they, or a modified repetition of it; most of them are would be enough. 7 a little, adverbial objective (390), little being used 10 Objective predicate (369): a peculiar phrase, in which has takes the sense of causes to be. which you come upon, or see, as you, etc. as a noun. tical: = 8 184. 9 495. 11 Ellip12 Adverbial clause in the sense of a substantive one, anticipated by it as grammatical subject (163a); as if it were that he is at a play is for the good, etc. 14 495. balance. 17 480. 13 448. 15 it, repetition by anticipation of the real subject, that 16 501 (and so the following sentences, to the end of the piece). You every reader have a score of such); what a kind, good-natured old creature1 we find her! How the junior partner of Hobbs and Dobbs leads her smiling2 to the carriage with the lozenge upon it, and the fat wheezy coachmans! How, when she comes to pay us a visit, we generally find an opportunity to let our friends know her station in the world! We say (and with perfect truth), I wish I had Miss MacWhirter's signature to a check for five thousand pounds. She would n't miss it, says your wife. She is my aunt, say you, in an easy, careless way, when your friend asks if Miss MacWhirter is any relative. Your wife is perpetually sending her little testimonies of affection; your little girls work endless worsted baskets, cushions, and footstools for her. What a good fire there is in her room when she comes to pay you a visit, although your wife laces her stays without one! The house during her stay assumes a festive, neat, warm, jovial, snug appearance not visible at other seasons. yourself, dear sir, forget to go to sleep after dinner, and find yourself all of a sudden (though you invariably lose) very fond of a rubber. What good dinners you have - game10 every day, Madeira,1o and no end of 11 fish10 from London. Even the servants in the kitchen share in the general prosperity; and somehow, during the stay of Miss MacWhirter's fat coachman, the beer is12 grown much stronger, and the consumption of tea and sugar in the nursery (where her maid takes her meals) is not regarded in the least. Is it so, or is it not so? I appeal to the middle classes. Ah, gracious powers! I wish you would send me an old aunt -a maiden aunt13- an aunt with a lozenge on her carriage and a front of light coffee-colored hair. How my children should work workbags for her, and my Julia and I would make her comfortable! Sweet sweet vision 14! Foolish foolish dream14! IV. From Hawthorne's "The Intelligence Office." The next15 that entered was a man beyond the middle age,16 bearing the look of one who knew the world and his own course in it. He 1 369 6 139. quite. phrase 2 Appositive to partner: 376. 8 401. 4 448. 5 436. 8 all in this phrase is used as adverb: 10 Combined apposition to dinners. without end, unlimited; as if fish were the noun game, etc., and no end of an adjective phrase qualifying it. 13 377. 15 Adjective as noun, 144. = altogether, 11 Colloquial co-ordinate with 12 289, end. 16 Adjective had just alighted from a handsome private carriage, which had orders to wait1 in the street while its owner transacted his business. This person came up to the desk with a quick determined step, and looked the Intelligencer2 in the face with a resolute eye: though, at the same time, some secret trouble gleamed from it in red and dusky light. "I have an estate to dispose 1 of," said he, with a brevity that seemed characteristic. "Describe it," said the Intelligencer. The applicant proceeded to give the boundaries of his property, its nature, comprising tillage, pasture, woodland, and pleasure-grounds, in ample circuit; together with a mansion-house, in the construction of which it had been his object to realize a castle in the air, hardening its shadowy walls into granite, and rendering5 its visionary splendor perceptible to the awakened eye. Judging from his description, it was beautiful enough to vanish like a dream, yet substantial enough to endure for centuries. He spoke, too, of the gorgeous furniture, the refinements of upholstery, and all the luxurious artifices that combined to render this a residence where life might flow onward in a stream of golden days, undisturbed by the ruggedness which fate loves to fling into it. "and at my "I am a man of strong will," said he in conclusion; first setting-out in life, as a poor, unfriended youth, I resolved to make myself the possessor of such a mansion and estate as this, together with the abundant revenue necessary to uphold it. I have succeeded to the extent of my utmost wish. And this is the estate which I have now concluded to dispose of.8" "And your terms9?" asked the Intelligencer, after taking down the particulars with which the stranger had supplied him. "Easy-abundantly easy10!" answered the successful man, smiling, but with a stern and almost frightful contraction of the brow, as if to quell11 an inward pang. "I have been engaged in various 12 a distiller,1 a trader to Africa, an East India sorts of business 1 448. == 8 323, end. 4 163a. 2 Historically a dative, or indirect object, like the classical "ethical dative;" but may be parsed as object of looked used transitively, as if looked at. 5 Qualifies the pronoun contained in his and implied as subject of the action expressed by to realize. 6 Objective predicate, 369. 7 Used in an absolute way, or as "if one might judge." 8 323. 10 Incomplete, 490. if with an indefinite subject understood := 12 Appositional to I, merchant, a speculator in the stocks and in the course of these affairs have contracted an encumbrance of a certain nature. The purchaser of the estate shall merely be required to assume this burden to himself." 66 "I understand you," said the man of Intelligence, putting his pen behind his ear; "I fear that no bargain can be negotiated on these conditions. Very probably the next possessor may acquire the estate with a similar encumbrance; but it will be of his own contracting,1 and will not lighten your burden in the least." “And am 1 to live on,2" fiercely exclaimed the stranger, "with the dirt of these accursed acres and the granite of this infernal mansion crushing down my soul? How if I should turn the edifice into an almshouse or a hospital, or tear it down and build a church?" “You can at least make the experiment,” said the Intelligencer; "but the whole matter is one which you must settle for yourself." The man of deplorable success withdrew, and got into his coach, which rattled off lightly over the wooden pavements, though laden with the weight of much land, a stately house, and ponderous heaps of gold, all compressed into an evil conscience. V. From Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero-Worship." We have undertaken to discourses here for a little on Great Men, their manner of appearance in our world's business, how they have shaped themselves in the world's history, what ideas men formed of them, what work they did on Heroes, namely, and on their reception and performance - what I call Hero-worship and the Heroic in human affairs. Too evidently this is a large topic; deserving quite other treatment than10 we can expect to give it at present. A large topic ;11 indeed, an illimitable one; wide as Universal History itself. For, as I take it, Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here. They were the leaders of men, these great ones; the modelers, patterns, and in 2 448. 8 496. 4 157. 5 444. 1 401. 6 315: i. e. little while. 7 This and the following substantive clauses governed by on in 1. 1, like manner of appearance in 1. 2. 8 if I mention them by than the one which we name. can, etc. 9 144a. = = 10 Abbreviated (494): a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do or to attain1; all things that we see standing accomplished in the world are properly the outer material result, the practical realization and embodiment, of Thoughts that dwelt in the Great Men sent into the world; the soul of the whole world's history, it may justly be considered, were the history of these. Too clearly it is a topic we shall do no justice to in this place! One comfort is, that Great Men, taken up in any way, are profitable company. We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man without gaining something by him. He is the living light-fountain® which it is good and pleasant to be near. The lights which enlightens, which has enlightened the darkness of the world; and this, not as1o a kindled lamp only, but rather as1o a natural luminary shining by the gift of Heaven; a flowing light-fountain,11 as I say, of native original insight, of manhood and heroic nobleness; in whose radiance all souls feel that it is well with them. On any terms whatsoever, 12 you will not grudge to wander1 in such neigh borhood for a while. VI. From Emerson's "Self-Reliance." There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that13 envy is ignorance18; that imitation is suicide; that13 he must take himself, for better, for worse,14 as his portion ; that13 though15 the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but16 through his toil bestowed17 on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.18 The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but19 he knows what that is which he can do; nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and 8 Subjunctive (233.2, 273): here = would be, 7 366. 1 444. 2 163b. might be considered. 8 Repetition of light in light-fountain, 1. 10. 9 i. e. this thing just stated, or its enlightening the darkness of the world: = and this it has done. 10 as here in the character of; or supply might do after only and luminary. 11 Repetition, again, of light-fountain above, 1. 10. plete expression, for whatever they may be. 434d, f. 12 Incom18 Substantive clauses: 14 i. e. whether for better or for worse: better, worse, 144a. 16 Here conjunction: = unless, or otherwise than. 15 432f. 18 448. 19 Conjunction, as above. 17 376 |