"Preface" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Life of Aeschylus and the Catalogue of his dramas. The MS. has also been further corrected by later hands. In 1896 the Italian Ministry of Public Instruction published the MS. in photographic facsimile, with an instructive preface by Signor Rostagno. Besides M. there are some eight later MSS. (13th to 15th century), and numerous copies of the three select plays (Sept., Pers., Prom.) which were most read in the later Byzantine period, when Greek literature was reduced to gradually diminishing ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of newspapers, more diffuse than the chronological series in Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, Vol. iv. is desirable. See Preface. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... that this was the preface for some decided criticism of the past, and his face became a little hard and defiant. But in this he was mistaken, for the lady made no reference to his faults, of which she had been informed by his mother. She spoke in a kindly but almost in a business-like way of his duties ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... all very well (diplomacy had prompted this preface), but the words that followed fell so alarmingly on Godwin's ear that he looked up with a resentful expression, ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... preface to my Plays for Puritans I explained the predicament of our contemporary English drama, forced to deal almost exclusively with cases of sexual attraction, and yet forbidden to exhibit the incidents of that attraction or even to discuss its nature. Your suggestion ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... accept a criticism that seemed to him deserved. "J'ai eu tort de donner cette comedie-ci au theatre," he says in the preface to his Ile de la Raison: "Elle n'etait pas bonne a etre representee, et le public lui a fait justice en la condamnant. Point d'intrigue, peu d'action, peu d'interet; ce sujet, tel que je l'avais concu, n'etait ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... wil preface no longer, but proceed in order as you desire me: And first for the Antiquity of Angling, I shall not say much; but onely this; Some say, it is as ancient as Deucalions Floud: [J. Da.] and others (which I like better) ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... parliamento, preface, p. li. The statement in the text is an inference suggested by Professor Maitland's account of the statute De asportis religiosorum. For the last struggle of Edward and Winchelsea, see Stubbs's preface to Chron. of Edw. I. and Edw. ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... in a preface contributed to Mr. MacDonagh's book The Irish at the Front, a passage of unusual emotion which tells what he thought and felt upon ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... uncompromising preface took the place of one in which Major, on his arrival in Scotland in 1518, praised the same Archbishop, then in Glasgow, for his many-sided and 'chamaelon-like mildness.' It is generally recognised that the stern policy latterly carried on under the nominal ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... for ten days in the school of meditation, and how much so ever he turned over the leaves of the volume of his mind from the preface to the epilogue, he could hit upon no plan. On the tenth day they again met in the street, and he said to Zayn el-Arab, "Although the diver of my mind has plunged deeply and searched diligently in this deep sea, he has been unable to seize the precious pearl of a wise plan of operation: ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... PREFACE My readers of Forbidden Fruit may wish to know the origin of the work. It was this way, whilst I was staying at an out of the way village on the Sussex coast, I used to take long solitary walks, and several ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... tenure during this period. This fact is ignored by historians who suppose the chief factor in the commutation movement to have been the desire of prosperous villains to rid themselves of the degrading marks of serfdom. Vinogradoff, for instance, in his preface to the monograph from which most of the foregoing illustrations have been drawn, has nothing at all to say of the reduction of rent and the poverty of the tenants when he is speaking of the various circumstances attending the introduction of ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... Introduction Author's Preface Author's Introduction The History of Projects Of Projectors Of Banks Of the Multiplicity of Banks Of the Highways Of Assurances Of Friendly Societies Of Seamen Of Wagering Of Fools A Charity-Lottery Of Bankrupts Of Academies Of a Court ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... of poetry over prose are probably sufficient to account for most of its power. A few more considerations of the same negative nature, and which affect the vividness of either prose or verse, may be touched upon by way of preface to the inquiry, why Browning is hard to understand and why his ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... who have been giving their pennies to help take care of little Belgian children will find this new "Twins" book one of the most appealing that Mrs. Perkins has ever written. The author's Preface states the sources of her inspiration. As usual, her story will be found sympathetic in spirit and accurate ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Borghese, wherein may still be seen portraits of Lucrezia Petroni and Beatrice Cenci, the latter by the well-known Guido Reni. It is generally believed that this portrait was painted while Beatrice was in prison, and Shelley has given the following appreciative description of it in the preface to his tragedy, The Cenci, which is based upon this story, and which he wrote in Rome ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... his imaginations. His heart spoke clearly, and he interpreted its speech plainly in his words. His tendency to mysticism often, indeed, led him into strange fancies; but these, though sometimes obscure, are never vague. After these few words of preface, the story begins:— ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... have obtained dominion for more than fifty years over the most critical people in the world? But Montrond always declared that no man in France would ever take the trouble to read a book if once he had taken the trouble to read the preface. Even by the capricious and pedantic yet ignorant society of fashionable London his fantastical dominion was acknowledged; and the reason of this will be understood at once in the fearlessness with which he uttered his rule of conduct: "Every man of distinction should settle his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... and particularly the part of Hippolito, belong to Davenant, for, as Dryden says in the preface, Sir William 'to put the last hand to it, design'd the counterpart to Shakespeare's plot, namely that of a man who had never ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... to Etext Edition Preface Preface (To the Second Edition) Introduction Poems A Yorkshire Dialogue between an awd Wife a Lass and a butcher . Anonymous An Honest Yorkshireman. Henry Carey From "Snaith Marsh" Anonymous When at Hame wi' Dad Anonymous I'm Yorkshire too Anonymous The Wensleydale ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... fond of a Preface, that they will write one tho' there be nothing more in it than an Apology for its self. But to show thee that I am not one of those, I will make no Apology for this, but do tell thee that I think it necessary ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... safe resource in time of any distress, whether of a child having eaten too many blackberries, or of a man being helpless from "rhumatiz;" a girl needing a recommendation to a service, or "Please, sir, I wants to know if it is allowed for a man to kill my father?" which was the startling preface to George Truman's complaint of a public-house row, in which his father had got ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from all controversial matters. In her preface she begs that it may be clearly understood, "that she has taken throughout the aesthetic and not the religious view of these productions of art; which, in as far as they are informed with a true and earnest feeling, and steeped in that beauty ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... in between my futile dash for liberty and this harsh preface to their dragging of me back to the manor house, I could not tell. It must have been an hour or more, for now a gibbous moon hung pale above the tree-tops, and all around were bivouac fires and horses tethered to show that in the interval a troop ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... been a White Friar in Norwich, then, changing his party, he became bishop of Ossory, but lived at length on a prebend he had in the church of Canterbury, where he followed his studies. Bale, in his preface to Leland's "New Year's Gift,"[12] says that those who purchased the monasteries reserved the books, some to scour their candlesticks, some to rub their boots, some they sold to the grocers and soap-sellers, and some they sent ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... required form on the eighteenth of August. "You will observe here and there," he remarked in his preface, "some severity appears. I have not fortitude enough always to bear with calmness calumnies which necessarily include me, as a principal agent in the measures censured, of the falsehood of which I have ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... evident that the First Folio, 1623, was intended by his "fellows" at the Globe to stand as their monument to his memory, built of the plays that had become their private property by purchase. The verses that preface it, written by W. Basse, suggest that Shakespeare should have been buried by Chaucer, Spenser, Beaumont, in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. But the author ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... with a plagiarism oft repeated. It was a plagiarism as long ago as 1736, when it was admitted such in the preface of Smith's ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... first publish'd this Arabick Author with his accurate Latin Version, Anno 1671. Dr. Pococke his Father, that late eminent Professor of the Oriental Languages in the University of Oxford, prefix'd a Preface to it; in which he tells us, that he has good Reason to think, that this Author was contemporary with Averroes, who died very ancient in the Year of the Hegira 595, which is co-incident with the 1198th Year of our Lord; according to which Account, the Author liv'd something above five hundred ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... cities are abundant in the settled portion of Yucatan, which lies north of the great forest. Charnay found "the country covered with them from north to south." Stephens states, in the Preface to his work on Yucatan, that he visited "forty-four ruined cities or places" in which such remains are still found, most of which were unknown to white men, even to those inhabiting the country; and he adds that ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... practised over and over again." After four years of warfare, in which the principles enunciated in the text-books had been put to the most searching of all tests (i.e. practical application in War), the General Staff of the Army was able to preface a list of its recent publications with the following exhortation: "It must be remembered that the principles laid down in Field Service Regulations and in Infantry Training are still the basis ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... exercised a very material influence on my eventual choice of a career—I chanced upon an illustrated volume of Travels by Land and Sea. I opened it at the title-page, down which I patiently and conscientiously waded; then on to the preface—which, luckily, was a short one—and so into the body of the book. I of course encountered a great deal that I could only imperfectly understand; and I detected within myself a rapidly-growing disposition to skip all the hard words; but, notwithstanding these ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... In his preface to the reader, John Sparrow writes: "I must say that this book, 'Aurora,' hath conduced more to open my mind to the understanding of all his writings, and of all Mysteries, both natural and divine (and so, consequently, of the Holy Scriptures) ...
— The Gnosis of the Light • F. Lamplugh
... preface to any of the Gospels, and it is thoroughly human. There is not even such an invocation ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... conclusion, to beg that the readers of this Preface will pardon an egotism which a great wrong has made necessary, and which is quite as disagreeable to myself as it ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was alone when he received the latter of these letters. At first, a look divided between irony and melancholy passed over his face, as he read his sister's preface and her hearsay evidence, but, as he went farther, his upper lip curled, and a sudden gleam, as of exultation in a verified prophecy, lighted his eye, shading off quickly, however, and giving place to an iron expression ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... igscuse this kind of ad hominam (as they say) disk-cushion. I propose, honrabble Barnit, to cumsider calmly this play and prephiz, and to speak of both with that honisty which, in the pantry or studdy, I've been always phamous for. Let us, in the first place, listen to the opening of the "Preface of ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... many-sided man's biographer. The description is slightly touched with the humorous hyperbole characteristic of its author; but it is in substance just, and I cannot but wish that it were possible, within the limits of a preface, to set out the whole of it in excuse for the many inevitable shortcomings of this volume. Having thus made an "exhibit" of it, there would only remain to add that the difficulties with which De Quincey confronts an intending biographer of Coleridge must necessarily be multiplied ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... envelope go quite a blank, though I cannot quite make it a prize ... In literature I have done nothing but write a preface and notes for two new editions of the old Highways and Byeways, and a short sketchy article in this month's number of the North American Review on the present state of Ireland. I am going to follow it up in the next number in reference to the state of ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... which the miserable war entailed far from conducive to health. The rest and seclusion to be had at the residence of one or other of his brothers offered him the much-needed opportunity of renewing his inquiries into the subject of generation, and it is of this time that Dr. Ent speaks in the preface to the published work on that subject which appeared in 1651. "Harassed with anxious and in the end not much availing cares, about Christmas last, I sought to rid my spirit of the cloud that oppressed it, by a visit to that great man, the chief honour ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae
... the book well adapted to the ends proposed in the preface. The style is clear, the thoughts perspicuous. I think it calculated to do good, to promote the truth, to diffuse light and impart instruction to the community, in a department of study of ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... affectionate preface she proceeded to intimate her desire that the Earl should take the matter as nearly as possible into his own hands. It was her wish that he should retain the authority of absolute governor, but—if it could be so arranged—that he should dispense ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Jewish, the Greek, and the Roman accounts of the eastern world. See, on the Shah Nameh, Translation by Goerres, with Von Hammer's Review, Vienna Jahrbuch von Lit. 17, 75, 77. Malcolm's Persia, 8vo. ed. i. 503. Macan's Preface to his Critical Edition of the Shah Nameh. On the early Persian History, a very sensible abstract of various opinions in ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... arranged for publication of the almost finished novel. The reader should note Henry Trollope's preface to Volume I and Postscript at the ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... the Talmud is the Mishna, i.e., an explanation of the text of the Mosaic laws, and their application to new cases and circumstances. The Mishna has been well described by the illustrious Spanish Jew, Maimonides, who in the twelfth century published it at Cordova, with a preface, in which he says: "From Moses, our teacher, to our holy rabbi, no one has united in a single body of doctrine what was publicly taught as the oral law; but in every generation, the chief of the tribunal, or the prophet of his day, made memoranda of what ...
— Hebrew Literature
... Despite the objections to the satire-satyr etymology stated by Isaac Casaubon,[7] scurrilous satire, especially as a political weapon, was a recognizable subspecies in England at least to 1700. The anonymous author, for instance, of A Satyr Against Common-Wealths (1684) contended in his preface that it is "as disagreeable to see a Satyr Cloath'd in soft and effeminate Language, as to see a Woman scold and vent her self in Billingsgate Rhetorick in a gentile and advantageous Garb." But as Harte certainly realized, The Dunciad differed greatly from unvarnished abuse, and thus required ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... the verge of temerity, and may justly be said to have never known what terror was. Another summer excursion was a visit to Chamouni, of which he has left memorable descriptions in his letters to Peacock, and in the somewhat Coleridgian verses on Mont Blanc. The preface to "Laon and Cythna" shows what a powerful impression had been made upon him by the glaciers, and how he delighted in the element of peril. There is a tone of exultation in the words which record the experiences of his two journeys in Switzerland and France:—"I ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... who describes the scenes to which he introduces us; and that it is not a mere translation from Strabo or Pausanias which we are reading, or a commentary on those authors. This reflection leads us to the concluding remark in Mr. Gell's preface (by much the most interesting part of his book) to his Itinerary of Greece, in ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... occupied himself with literary labors, the more sweet and soothing to his wounded spirit, that they tended to illustrate the faded glories of his native land, and exhibit them in their primitive splendor to the eyes of his adopted countrymen. "And I have no reason to regret," he says in his Preface to his account of Florida, "that Fortune has not smiled on me, since this circumstance has opened a literary career which, I trust, will secure to me a wider and more enduring fame than could flow from ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... my depression of spirits and extreme alteration of person might have operated as a preface; for I saw no one, except my royal mistress and Mrs. Schwellenberg, who noticed not the change, or who failed to pity and question me upon my health and my fatigues; but as they alone saw it not, or mentioned it not, that afforded me no resource. And thus, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... beginning of the war when Booth resolved to transform himself from a stock actor to a "star." As many will read this who do not understand such distinctions, let me preface it by explaining that a "star" is an actor who belongs to no one theater, but travels from each to all, playing a few weeks at a time, and sustained in his chief character by the regular or stock actors. A stock actor is a good actor, and a poor fool. ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... written in a dungeon—'Don Quixote,' the 'Pilgrim's Progress': beautiful each in its way, and destined to immortality: Raleigh begins the 'History of the World,' the most God-fearing and God-seeing history which I know of among English writings; though blotted by flattery of James in the preface: wrong: but pardonable in a man trying in the Tower to get out of that doleful prison. But all his writings are thirty years too late; they express the creed of a buried generation, of the men who defied ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... subject in this place, as the preface to a series of remarks on that particular relation which every young woman— except, perhaps, a few who are situated like Fidelia—ought to be prepared to sustain, and to sustain well. Indeed, I consider this to be paramount, at a ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... be observed that, at the commencement of each of the three parts of the Tripartite Life, there are several pages of Latin, which were intended by the author as a sort of introduction or preface to what follows in each part. They are made up principally of Scriptural quotations strung loosely together. These quotations have general reference to the establishment of Christ's kingdom upon earth, and are obviously intended to bear upon the happy introduction ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... reprinted from the English edition, The Phantom World, from the French of CALMET, with a Preface and Notes by Rev. HENRY CHRISTMAS, giving a general survey of the history and philosophy of spirits, apparitions, ghosts, elves, fairies, spooks, bogles, bugaboos, and hobgoblins. It will probably meet with an extensive circulation in these days when Connecticut divines ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... contrasted the work with the Greek Anthology, pointing in particular to certain epitaphs by Carphylides, Kallaischros and Pollianos. The critical testimony of Miss Harriet Monroe in her editorial comments and in her preface to "The New Poetry" has greatly strengthened the judgment of to-day against a reversal at the ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... History of the World, the writing of which set his mind free to wander forth at will although his body stayed behind the bars. But the contrast was too poignant not to wring this cry of anguish from his preface: 'Yet when we once come in sight of the Port of death, to which all winds drive us, and when by letting fall that fatal Anchor, which can never be weighed again, the navigation of this life takes end: Then it is, I say, that our own cogitations (those ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... author of "Rab and his Friends" tells us in the preface, is a re-publication of articles written in 1848, on the death- bed of the author, a man of many accomplishments and of a most lovable nature. He would lie and dictate or write in pencil these happy and wistful memories ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... On this point, Southey justly remarks (Preface to Curse of Kehama): "In the religion of the Hindoos there is one remarkable peculiarity. Prayers, penances, and sacrifices are supposed to possess an inherent and actual value, in one degree depending upon the disposition or motive of the ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... and creditably brief preface, Mr. Still sincerely disclaims literary pretension; but creditable as is this to the author, we may say that the work is in style excellent reading, and that if it were not so, the narratives themselves are so thrilling, possess such a heart-reaching interest, that if these were ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Ritella, his mother, joined to the nobility of their birth a large fund of piety. In his infancy he was seized with a mortal illness, of which he was cured by St. Francis, which was one of the reasons why he determined to write his Life. "I should fear," he says in his preface to his Legend, "that I should be accused of criminal ingratitude if I neglected to publish the praises of him, to whom I acknowledge that I owe the life of ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... being originally in holy orders and a beneficed clergyman, deserted the Established Church and ran into all the excesses of Antinomianism, Webster was a great admirer, and has in a preface, hitherto unnoticed, prefixed to a scarce tract of Erbury's, entitled "The great Earthquake, or Fall of all the Churches," published in 1654, 4to, left a sketch of his opinions and character, in which his defence is undertaken with ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... complete collection of your lectures direct to the Archduke Rudolph, and, if possible, dedicate them to him; you are certain at all events to receive a present, not a very large one probably, but still better than nothing; put some complimentary expressions in the preface, for he understands music, and it is his chief delight and occupation. I do really regret, knowing his talents, that I cannot devote myself to him as much ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... As a preface I wish to say only a very few words—namely, that but for the great pressure put upon me I should not have ventured to write, or allowed to be published, any reminiscences of mine, being very conscious that I could not offer to the public any ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... a minute," said Jane. A moment later she met Holcroft carrying two pails of milk from the barnyard. He was about to pass without noticing her, but she again secured attention by her usual preface, "Say," when she had a somewhat ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... to hurt her; this morning, in particular, she would have been glad to set forth upon the day's forlorn hope without that preface of hate and cruel greed. But Aristide still stood, with the coin in his open hand, staring from it to her and she flinched from him. "Good morning," she said timidly, and ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... share of the Church's thought and activity, I have felt that there is still the want of a connected study of all the records of it contained in the Gospels and Acts, and unless these be studied together its full scope and completeness cannot be realised."—From the Preface. ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... down into that yawning grave, while I sit here and plot out a preface for Anne's book," said exhausted Eleanor, selecting a bowlder where she could sit and see ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... are in italic type, quotations from the texts indicated will be found in the New English Dictionary, under the head of the English word which is distinguished in the article by quotation marks (see Preface). In references to special passages volumes have been marked off from pages by an inverted full stop, and lines or verses have been shown, where they follow other numerals, by small superior figures. Occasionally where lines have not been given, the mark has ...
— A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary - For the Use of Students • John R. Clark Hall
... invitation; and no sooner was the tea-kettle removed, and the girls sent out of the room, than the widow, without much preface, began as follows: "Well, there are very surprizing things happen in this world; but certainly it is a wonderful business that I should have a relation of Mr Allworthy in my house, and never know anything of the matter. Alas! sir, you little imagine ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Corner, and then, honor bright, I'll finish the preface and go on with the story. I must tell you about the old schoolhouse, and the road which led to it. This last wound around a long hill, and was skirted on either side with tall trees, flowering dogwood, blackberry bushes, and frost grapevines. Half-way down the hill, and under one ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... favored with few and brief intervals of peaceful sway. The inferior members of the court party, in times of high political excitement, led scarcely a more desirable life. These remarks may serve as a preface to the following adventures, which chanced upon a summer night, not far from a hundred years ago. The reader, in order to avoid a long and dry detail of colonial affairs, is requested to dispense with an account of the train of circumstances that had caused much temporary inflammation ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the ensuing winter, we discussed the design and execution in several free and familiar conversations. In a short excursion to Buriton I reviewed my essay, according to his friendly advice; and after suppressing a third, adding a third, and altering a third, I consummated my first labour by a short preface, which is dated Feb. 3, 1759. Yet I still shrunk from the press with the terrors of virgin modesty: the manuscript was safely deposited in my desk; and as my attention was engaged by new objects, the delay might have been ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... Perhaps some readers may think that Swift cared little for Whiston and Ditton, except as a chance hearing of their plan pointed them out as good marks. But it was not so: the clique had their eye on the guilty pair before the publication of the tract. The preface is dated July 7; and ten days afterwards Arbuthnot[278] writes as follows ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... search after "ENGLAND'S ANTIQUITIES, and peruse the LIBRARIES of all Cathedrals, Abbies, Priories, Colleges, etc., as also all the places wherein Records, Writings, and Secrets of Antiquity were reposited." "Before Leland's time," says Hearne, in the Preface to the Itinerary, "all the literary monuments of Antiquity were totally disregarded; and Students of Germany, apprised of this culpable indifference, were suffered to enter our libraries unmolested, and to cut out of the books deposited there whatever passages they thought ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... "Rear-guard," p. 313, puts in an account of a battle on Lookout Mountain, wherein Sevier and his two hundred men defeat "five hundred tories and savages." He does not even hint at his authority for this, unless in a sentence of the preface where he says, "a large part of my material I have derived from what may be termed 'original sources'—old settlers." Of course the statement of an old settler is worthless when it relates to an alleged important ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... on property appeared in 1840, under the title, "What is Property? or an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government." Proudhon dedicated it, in a letter which served as the preface, to the Academy of Besancon. The latter, finding itself brought to trial by its pensioner, took the affair to heart, and evoked it, says Sainte ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... me to write a note of introduction to this book. Surely it needs none; but it is a pleasant task to write prefaces for other people's books. When one writes a preface to a book of one's own, one naturally grovels, deprecates, and has no opportunity to call the friendly reader's attention to what the author considers the beauties and significances of the work. How agreeable, then, to be able to do this ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... The preface to the Crusades appeared in those endless and already successful wars of Christendom against Asia upon the high plateaus of Spain. These had taught the enthusiasm and the method by which Asia, for ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... late at night writing a sketch of my preface and notes for the heads of chapters. I was tired, fell into a profound sleep, dreamed I was teaching the emperor of China to pronounce 'chrononhotonthologos,' and in the morning was wakened by the sound of the gong; the signal ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... the simple-hearted people of Aberdeen; so that, although the Misses Simpkins still held their nightly confabulations, they did not venture as at first, so openly to propagate their animadversions concerning the "mysterious stranger," but on the contrary, always made it a point to preface any sudden and amiable suggestion that presented itself to their minds with "not that I would say any thing against her, but it does seem a little singular," &c. But of Miss Fanny—sweet, witching Fanny Layton! ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... the first eminence, in whose day (fortunately perhaps for me) I was not destined to appear before the public, or to abide the Herculean crab-tree of his criticism, Dr. Johnson, has said, in his preface to Shakspeare, that—"Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature." My representations of nature, whatever may be said of their justness, are not general, unless we admit, what I suspect ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... that when my great-grandfather began to write this book, his thoughts were centred on the objective which he describes in his own Preface—the diversion to Australia of some part of the stream of emigration then running from the British Isles to North America. Perhaps, even more urgently, he may have wanted to forestall any British tendency to withdraw ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... ever inscribed to Shakespeare by Landor was sent to me with the following preface: "An old man sends the last verses he has written, or probably he may ever write to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... Popular Superstition," prefaced to "The Tale of Tamlane," wherein he states that "the most distinct account of the duergar [i.e. dwergs, or dwarfs], or elves, and their attributes, is to be found in a preface of Torfaeus to the history of Hrolf Kraka [Copenhagen, 1715], who cites a dissertation by Einar Gudmund, a learned native of Iceland. 'I am firmly of opinion,' says the Icelander, 'that these beings are creatures of God, consisting, like human beings, ...
— Fians, Fairies and Picts • David MacRitchie
... Preface Grandeur Nature's Child To the Pines Reflections Life's Mystery The Fallen Tree There is an Air of Majesty Think Not That the Heart Is Devoid of Emotion Humanity's Stream Nature's Lullaby The Spirit of Freedom Is Born of the Mountains The Valley of the San Miguel To Mother Huberta Suggested by ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... altogether of His Mass, and that is what brings his ruin. By temptation upon temptation, he begins to jump one verse, then two. Then the epistle is too long—he does not finish it; skims the Gospel, passes by the creed without even entering, skips the pater, salutes from afar the preface, and by bounds and jumps precipitates himself into eternal damnation, always following the infamous Garrigou (vade retro, Satanas), who seconds him with marvellous skill; tucks up his chasuble, ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... volcano! You can see that he takes Austrian money; his skin has got to be the exact colour of Munz. He has the greenish-yellow eyes of those elective, thrice-abhorred vampyres who feed on patriot-blood. He is condemned without trial by his villainous countenance, like an ungrammatical preface to a book. His tongue refuses to confess, but nature is stronger:—observe his knees. Now this is guilt. It is execrable guilt. He is a nasty object. Nature has in her wisdom shortened his stature to indicate that it is left to us to shorten the growth of his offending years. Now, you dangling ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... are nearly at a stand-still; and in these days of universality and everything, we almost resolved to leave this page blank, and every reader to write his own preface, had we not questioned whether the custom would be more honoured in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 407, December 24, 1829. • Various
... Preface by Robert Ross How They Struck a Contemporary The Quality of George Meredith Life in the Fallacious Model Life the Disciple Life the Plagiarist The Indispensable East The Influence of the Impressionists on Climate An Exposure ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... somewhat sonorous preface to the small matter of my story; but I am anxious to elaborate it a little, lest it should be imagined that I am merely a person of bucolic mind, to whom all cities or large congregations of my fellow-men ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... grace did Salisbury's years great wrong, To curtail his good work, that seem'd so long: He, peradventure, would have brought in more, After his preface, to rich plenty's store. Perchance he would have show'd Dame Vanity, That in your court is suffered hourly; And bade you punish ruffians with long hair, New fashions, and such toys. A special care Has that good man: he turns the statute-book; About his hall and ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... not only object to our having formerly kept our ritual concealed, but especially to our denial of the existence of our organization. Let them procure a copy of the secret instructions of the Jesuits, styled "Secreta Monita," and in the preface they will find ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... (Boswell, May 8, 1781). The parallel would have been more nearly complete if Moll Cutpurse "had written her own Life in verse," and brought it to Selden or Bishop Hall with a request that he would furnish her with a preface to it. ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... been stated in the preface, this book is not intended to be a guide to "collecting," or "furnishing"; nevertheless, it is possible that, in the course of recording some of the changes which have taken place in designs and fashions, and of bringing into notice, here and there, the opinions of those who have thought and ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... L'Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, in his Histoire des nations civilisees du Mexique (Paris, 1859, vol. I. Preface), speaks of M. Aubin as the translator of the manuscript "Historia Tulteca," as the author of the Memoire sur l'ecriture figurative et la peinture didactique des anciens Mexicains, in which he reconstructed the ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... expresses four kinds of Mania—Firstly, the musical; secondly, the telestic or mystic; thirdly, the prophetic; and fourthly, that which belongs to Love."—PREFACE ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... 'Peter Bell' was issued in 1819, another 'Peter Bell' was published by Messrs. Taylor and Hessey. It was a parody written by J. Hamilton Reynolds, and issued as 'Peter Bell, a Lyrical Ballad', with the sentence on its title page, "I do affirm that I am the real Simon Pure." The preface, which follows, is too paltry to quote; and the stanzas which make up the poem contain allusions to the more trivial of the early "Lyrical Ballads" (Betty Foy, Harry Gill, etc.). Wordsworth's 'Peter Bell' was published about a week later; ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... manuscript in loan from M. Daille, transcribed it, and afterwards published it at the Hague, under the title of Scaligerana, sive Excerpta ex Ore Josephi Scaligeri. This edition was full of inaccuracies and blunders, and a more correct impression was afterwards published by M. Daille, with a preface complaining of the use that Vossius had made of the manuscript, which he declares was never intended for publication, and was not of a nature to be given to the world. Indeed, most literary men in that age conceived ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... she had revealed little that Dinwiddie had not told him already, and as he knew that this brief recapitulation of her earlier life was not prompted by vanity, he could only wonder if it were the suggestive preface to that secret volume at which Dinwiddie ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... century was concluded, Captain Savery contrived a steam-engine which was certainly the first put to practical uses. It has been stated that he owed the knowledge of this invention to hints conveyed in Lord Worcester's little volume.] In the preface to his little book, the marquis states he had sacrificed from six to seven hundred thousand pounds in bringing his various inventions to perfection; after which it is satisfactory to find he derived some profit from one of them, ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... well guess it, from its preface. He turned down a lonely pathway, which, had we chosen it ourselves, could not have been more suitable for the attack ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Cardwell, in his editorial preface to the reprint of the two Books of Common Prayer set forth in the reign of Edward the Sixth, observes, "The communion service of the first liturgy contained a prayer for the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the bread and wine, and a following prayer of ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... will no longer permit him to devote himself as in former days to discussions of pure reason; this very passion must be called to our aid if his attention is to be given to my teaching. That is why I made use of this terrible preface; I am quite sure he will ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... are chiefly extracted from the preface to the books of the Princess, written by the Marquess de Fortia. This nobleman generously took upon himself the charge of supporting Aline, who has now attained the age of sixty years in a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various
... From the earliest times Oriental authors have occupied themselves about aphrodisiacs. The following note on the subject is taken from page 29 of a translation of the Hindoo Art of Love, otherwise the Anunga Runga, alluded to in the preface of this work, Part I., pages 3 and 5:—"Most Eastern treatises divide aphrodisiacs into two different kinds: 1., the mechanical or natural, such as scarification, flagellation, etc.; and 2., the medicinal or artificial. ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... respectable social positions with undisguised approval. Mr. Cooper addressed himself to the exposure and correction of the evil, in a series of novels, purporting to be edited from the manuscripts of a family named Littlepage; and in the preface to the first of these, entitled Satanstoe, a Tale of the Colony, published in 1845, announces his intention of treating it with the utmost freedom, and declares his opinion, that the "existence of true liberty among us, the perpetuity of our institutions, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... trap. The spider beheads her. Then the gnats and flies assemble, perform a funeral service over her remains, and carry them off on their shoulders to the village of Komarovo (komar gnat). For specimens of the Russian "Beast-Epos" the reader is referred (as I have stated in the preface) to Professor de Gubernatis's ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... cut out some of the preface, Mr. Gordon; I'll cut out the remainder," he said, moistening his dry lips. "You have the true record of the expense account in that package. I'm down and out; what is it ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... others, because we have a universal invitation; all are commanded to believe, and we know not how soon or how late our end may be received. I might have said more of this subject; but forasmuch as it is a forbidden question, and in the preface or declaration to the articles of the church, printed 1633, to avoid factions and altercations, we that are university divines especially, are prohibited "all curious search, to print or preach, or draw the article aside by our own sense and comments upon pain of ecclesiastical censure." I will ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... from the undiscerning critics who persisted in seeing in their nonsense a hidden meaning, a cynical, political, or other intent, veiled under the apparent foolery. Lear takes occasion to deny this in the preface to one of his books, and asserts not only that his rhymes and pictures have no symbolical meaning, but that he "took more care than might be supposed to make the subjects incapable ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... regard all I have just said as a kind of preface, the object of which is to illustrate the title of my lectures and to guard me against any possible misunderstanding and unjustified criticisms. And now, in order to give you a rough outline of the range of ideas from which I shall attempt to form a judgment concerning our educational institutions, ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... slight though it may be, of the treasures contained in them; which is exactly that which I now propose to myself and to you. I remember a very learned scholar, to whom we owe one of our best Greek lexicons, a book which must have cost him years, speaking in the preface of his completed work with a just disdain of some, who complained of the irksome drudgery of such toils as those which had engaged him so long,—toils irksome, forsooth, because they only had to do ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... is noticeably stern. He has no reverential preface, no softening of his message. His words are as if cut with steel on the rock. He brushes aside the promises of vulgar decorations and honours with undisguised contempt, and goes straight to his work of rousing ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... as we can easily foresee, to produce great good. Its leading design, as its title implies, and as is stated indeed by the author in his preface, is to elucidate the influence of intellect and passion upon the health and endurance of the human organization; an influence which has been but imperfectly understood and appreciated in its character and importance, by ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... are coming originally from somewheres near Rumania," Elkan began without further preface, "and—why, what's the matter? You've ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... is only a preface, intended to prepare you for a piece of news which will surprise you. I am a ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau |
