Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1

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Houghton Mifflin, 1913 - Authors, American

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Page 257 - The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To preach deliverance to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed, To preach the acceptable year of the LORD.
Page 286 - They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all ; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere.
Page 219 - No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize, or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.
Page 416 - Days, that need borrow No part of their good morrow From a fore-spent night of sorrow : Days, that in spite Of darkness, by the light Of a clear mind are day all night. Life that dares send A challenge to his end, And when it comes, say,
Page 506 - But such inveterate and persistent optimism, though it may show only its pleasant side in such a character as Emerson's, is dangerous doctrine for a people. It degenerates into fatalistic indifference to moral considerations, and to personal responsibilities; it is at the root of much of the irrational sentimentalism in our American politics Never were truer words put on paper.
Page 344 - England is the country in which social discipline has most succeeded, not so much in conquering, as in suppressing, whatever is liable to conflict with it. The English, more than any other people, not only act but feel according to rule. In other countries, the taught opinion, or the requirement of society, may be the stronger power, but the promptings of the individual nature are always visible under it, and often resisting it: rule may be stronger than...
Page 514 - He lived long enough to witness the revolution he had wrought, and to "see what he foresaw." There are torpid places in his mind, there is something hard and sterile in his poetry, want of grace and variety, want of due catholicity and cosmopolitan scope: he had conformities to English politics and traditions; he had egotistic puerilities in the choice and treatment of his subjects; but let us say of him that, alone in his time, he treated the human mind well, and with an absolute trust. His adherence...
Page 228 - I am very much afraid that a domestic cat will not answer when one wants a Bengal tiger.' In December of the next year, he wrote of Lincoln: 'I conceive his character to be on the whole the great net gain from the war.
Page 325 - Well! Well?' and I replied that I thought it a book of prodigious talent and unparalleled ingenuity; but then, I suppose trusting to the sincerity of my own thoughts, I went on to say that of all the strange books produced on this distracted airth, by any of the sons of Adam, this one was altogether the strangest and the most preposterous in its construction; and where, said I, do ye think to find the eternal harmonies in it? Browning did not seem to be pleased with my speech, and he bade me good...
Page 9 - Willard prayed excellently. The Lord bring light and comfort out of this dark and dreadful cloud, and grant that Christ's being formed in my dear child, may be the issue of these painful pangs.

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