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Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They LivedLong, William J. (William Joseph)

History

Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived

Name: Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived
Author: Long, William J. (William Joseph)

Long, William J. (William Joseph)

American literature -- History and criticism; English literature -- History and criticism

To examine any of these works is to discover the author's characteristic
method: first, his framework or argument is carefully constructed so as to
appeal to reason; then this framework is buried out of sight and memory by
a mass of description, digression, emotional appeal, allusions,
illustrative matter from the author's wide reading or from his prolific
imagination. Note this passage from the _French Revolution_:

    "It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of
    France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never
    lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more
    delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and
    cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in,
    glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendor and
    joy. Oh, what a revolution! And what a heart must I have to
    contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little
    did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of
    distant, enthusiastic, respectful love, that she should ever be
    obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in
    that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such
    disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation
    of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords
    must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that
    threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That
    of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded; and the
    glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall
    we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud
    submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the
    heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an
    exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of
    nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is
    gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of
    honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage
    whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched,
    and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its
    grossness."

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

History

Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived

Long, William J. (William Joseph)

American literature -- History and criticism; English literature -- History and criticism

To examine any of these works is to discover the author's characteristic
method: first, his framework or argument is carefully constructed so as to
appeal to reason; then this framework is buried out of sight and memory by
a mass of description, digression, emotional appeal, allusions,
illustrative matter from the author's wide reading or from his prolific
imagination. Note this passage from the _French Revolution_:

    "It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of
    France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never
    lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more
    delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and
    cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in,
    glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendor and
    joy. Oh, what a revolution! And what a heart must I have to
    contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little
    did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of
    distant, enthusiastic, respectful love, that she should ever be
    obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in
    that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such
    disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation
    of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords
    must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that
    threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That
    of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded; and the
    glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall
    we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud
    submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the
    heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an
    exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of
    nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is
    gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of
    honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage
    whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched,
    and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its
    grossness."

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived

Outlines of English and American Literature: An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived

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