RasselasWillis P. Hazard, 1856 - 93 strani |
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Abissinia afford afraid amuse answered Imlac Arab astronomer attended Bassa began Cairo cavern CHAP choice companions condition considered continued conversation curiosity danger delight desire discovered dreadful easily endeavored enjoy enter envy escape evil expect eyes fancy father favorite fear felicity folly happy valley HARVARD COLLEGE hear heard hermit hope hope and fear human ignorance imagination impatience inhabitants inquire kayah knowledge Kuah labor lady less live looked maids mankind marriage mind misery mountains nature Nekayah ness never Nile observed once opinion palace Palestine passed passions Pekuah Persia pleased pleasure poet portune possessed prince princess pyramid Rasselas reason Red Sea resolved rest retired retreat rich sage silent solitude sometimes soon sorrow sound of music suffer supposed surely tain terror thing thou thought tion travelled virtue weary wisdom wonder youth
Priljubljeni odlomki
Stran 5 - YE who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow ; attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.
Stran 24 - But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of a poet; he must be acquainted likewise with all the modes of life. His character requires that he estimate the happiness and misery of every condition ; observe the power of all the passions in all their combinations, and trace the changes of the human mind as they are modified by various institutions and accidental influences of climate or custom, from the sprightliness of infancy to the despondence of decrepitude.
Stran 60 - This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth: those that never heard of one another, would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, can very little weaken the general evidence: and some who deny it with their tongues, confess it by their fears.
Stran 60 - I will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages, and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which...
Stran 6 - Such was the appearance of security and delight, which this retirement afforded, that they, to whom it was new, always desired that it might be perpetual ; and as those, on whom the iron gate had once closed, were never suffered to return, the effect of longer experience could not be known. Thus every year produced new schemes of delight, and new competitors for imprisonment.
Stran 24 - By what means (said the prince) are the Europeans thus powerful ? or why, since they can so easily visit Asia and Africa for trade or conquest, cannot the Asiatics and Africans invade their coasts, plant colonies (') in their ports, and give laws to their natural princes ? The same wind that carried them back would bring us thither.
Stran 24 - ... he must consider right and wrong in their abstracted and invariable state ; he must disregard present laws and opinions, and rise to general and transcendental truths, which will always be the same : he must therefore content himself with the slow progress of his name ; contemn the applause of his own time, and commit his claims to the justice of posterity. He must write as the interpreter of nature, and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners...
Stran 22 - ... the province of poetry is to describe nature and passion, which are always the same, the first writers took possession of the most striking objects for description and the most probable occurrences for fiction, and left nothing to those that followed them but transcription of the same events, and new combinations of the same images.
Stran 49 - I had supposed to live in affluence. Poverty has, in large cities, very different appearances : it is often concealed in splendour, and often in extravagance. It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the rest : they support themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is lost in contriving for the morrow.
Stran 55 - Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness before had concealed : they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty.