The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table

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Ticknor and Fields, 1868 - American essays - 373 pages
 

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Page 105 - I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving! To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, — but we must sail, and not drift nor lie at anchor.
Page 313 - Little I ask ; my wants are few ; I only wish a hut of stone, (A very plain brown stone will do,) That I may call my own ; — And close at hand is such a one, In yonder street that fronts the sun. Plain food is quite enough for me; Three courses are as good as ten ; — If Nature can subsist on three, Thank Heaven for three. Amen! I always thought cold victual nice; — My choice would be vanilla-ice. I...
Page 297 - Little of all we value here Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year Without both feeling and looking queer. In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
Page 295 - Saw the earth open and gulp her down, And Braddock's army was done so brown, Left without a scalp to its crown.
Page 298 - The parson was working his Sunday's text, Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed At what the -Moses - was coming next. All at once the horse stood still, Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill First a shiver, and then a thrill, Then something decidedly like a spill.
Page 296 - He sent for lancewood to make the thills; The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees, The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese, But lasts like iron for things like these; The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum...
Page 110 - This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main, — The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
Page 297 - EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;— it came and found The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. Eighteen hundred increased by ten; — "Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then. Eighteen hundred and twenty came; — Running as usual; much the same. Thirty and forty at last arrive, And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.
Page 297 - That there wasn'ta chance for one to start. For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, And the floor was just as strong as the sills, And the panels just as strong as the floor, And the whippletree neither less nor more, And the back cross-bar as strong as the fore, And spring and axle and hub encore. And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt In another hour it will be worn out!
Page 353 - The wild flowers who will stoop to number ? A few can touch the magic string, And noisy Fame is proud to win them ; Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them...

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