America and Her Commentators: With a Critical Sketch of Travel in the United States

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C. Scribner, 1864 - History - 460 pages

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Page 159 - In happy climes, the seat of innocence, Where nature guides and virtue rules, Where men shall not impose for truth and sense The pedantry of courts and schools : There shall be sung another golden age, The rise of empire and of arts, The good and great inspiring epic rage, The wisest heads, and noblest hearts.
Page 448 - In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth.
Page 259 - While the language free and bold Which the Bard of Avon sung, In which our Milton told How the vault of heaven rung When Satan, blasted, fell with his host; — While this, with reverence meet, Ten thousand echoes greet, From rock to rock repeat Round our coast; — While the manners, while the arts, That mould a nation's soul, Still cling around our hearts, — Between let Ocean roll, Our joint communion breaking with the Sun : Yet still from either beach The voice of blood shall reach, More audible...
Page 183 - Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people ; a people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.
Page 158 - If you put this question to me,' says Sir Robert, 'as a minister, I must, and can assure you, that the money shall most undoubtedly be paid as soon as suits with public convenience : but if you ask me as a friend, whether Dr. Berkeley should continue in America, expecting the payment of £10,000, I advise him by all means to return to Europe, and to give up his present expectations.
Page 139 - Their starting point is different and their courses are not the same. Yet each of them seems marked out by the will of heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.
Page 131 - I confess that, in America, I saw more than America ; I sought there the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or to hope from its progress.
Page 159 - The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime Barren of every glorious theme, In distant lands now waits a better time, Producing subjects worthy fame : In happy climes, where, from the genial sun And virgin earth, such scenes ensue, The force of Art by Nature seems outdone, And fancied beauties by the true : In happy climes, the seat of innocence, Where Nature guides, and Virtue rules, Where men shall not impose, for truth and sense, The pedantry of courts and schools...
Page 164 - The inhabitants are of a mixed kind, consisting of many sects and subdivisions of sects. Here are four sorts of anabaptists, besides presbyterians, quakers, independents, and many of no profession at all. Notwithstanding so many differences, here are fewer quarrels about religion than elsewhere, the people living peaceably with their neighbours of whatsoever persuasion. They all agree in one point, that the church of England is the second best.
Page 159 - The wisest heads and noblest hearts. " Not such as Europe breeds in her decay ; Such as she bred when fresh and young, When heavenly flame did animate her clay, By future poets shall be sung. " Westward the course of empire takes its way ; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day ; Time's noblest offspring is the last.

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