English TraitsPhillips, Sampson,, 1856 - 312 pagina's "The book has no equal in its kind. It is the wittiest work of America's wittiest writer." -Mark van Doren, American Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, writer, and critic In English Traits (1856), Ralph Waldo Emerson blends his observations of the English character based on travels in England with insights gained from his extensive reading of British history. Because of its playfulness, wit, and clarity of style, this book quickly became one of the author's most popular works. In the English culture, Emerson recognized the source of everything American-from the laws of society to the plot of a novel. His observations are organized into 19 essays that include "First Visit to England," "Land," "Race," "Ability," "Manners," "Truth," "Character," "Cocaine," "Wealth," "Aristocracy," "Universities," "Religion," "Literature," "The Times," "Stonehenge," "Personal," "Result," and "Speech at Manchester." |
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Populaire passages
Pagina 12 - Here is my theory of structure : A scientific arrangement of spaces and forms to functions and to site ; an emphasis of features proportioned to their gradated importance in function ; color and ornament to be decided and arranged and varied by strictly organic laws, having a distinct reason for each decision ; the entire and immediate banishment of all make-shift and make-believe.
Pagina 147 - A much older traveller, the Venetian who wrote the "Relation of England," in 1500, says: "The English are great lovers of themselves and of every thing belonging to them. They think that there are no other men than themselves and no other world but England; and whenever they see a handsome foreigner, they say that he looks like an Englishman...
Pagina 21 - Dunscore, sixteen miles distant. No public coach passed near it, so I took a private carriage from the inn. I found the house amid desolate heathery hills, where the lonely scholar nourished his mighty heart. Carlyle was a man from his youth, an author who did not need to hide from his readers, and as absolute a man of the world, unknown and exiled on that hill-farm, as if holding on his own terms what is best in London.
Pagina 240 - ... if any man think philosophy and universality to be idle studies, he doth not consider that all professions are from thence served and supplied.
Pagina 311 - I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well remembering that she has seen dark days before ; indeed, with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, and that in storm of battle and calamity she has a secret vigour and a pulse like a cannon.
Pagina 147 - Scotch are much handsomer; and that the English are great lovers of themselves, and of everything belonging to them; they think that there are no other men than themselves, and no other world but England; and whenever they see a handsome foreigner, they say that 'he looks like an Englishman...
Pagina 230 - The church at this moment is much to be pitied. She has nothing left but possession. If a bishop meets an intelligent gentleman and reads fatal interrogations in his eyes, he has no resource but to take wine with him.
Pagina 287 - ... over-growing, almost conscious, too much by half for man in the picture, and so giving a certain tristesse, like the rank vegetation of swamps and forests seen at night, steeped in dews and rains, which it loves ; and on it man seems not able to make much impression.
Pagina 114 - Neither high-born nobleman, knight, nor esquire was here ; but many of these humble sons of the hills had a consciousness that the land, which they walked over and tilled, had for more than five hundred years been possessed by men of their name and blood...
Pagina 91 - ... displayed itself; and it instantly struck him that where there was room for an enemy's ship to swing there was room for one of ours to anchor. The plan which he intended to pursue, therefore, was to keep entirely on the outer side of the French line, and station his ships, as far as he was able, one on the outer bow and another on the outer quarter of each of the enemy's. Captain Berry, when he comprehended the scope of the design, exclaimed with transport, " If we succeed, what will the world...