WASHINGTON IRVING
"Some persons, in looking upon life, view it as they would view a picture, with a stern and criticising eye. He also looks upon life as a picture, but to catch its beauties, its lights,—not its defects and shadows. On the former he loves to dwell. He has a wonderful knack at shutting his eyes to the sinister side of anything. Never beat a more kindly heart than his; alive to the sorrows, but not to the faults, of his friends, but doubly alive to their virtues and goodness. Indeed, people seemed to grow more good with one so unselfish and so gentle." —Emily Foster.
....authors are particularly candid in admitting the faults of their friends.
The governor, from the stern of his schooner, gave a short but truly patriarchal address to his citizens, wherein he recommended them to comport like loyal and peaceable subjects,—to go to church regularly on Sundays, and to mind their business all the week besides. That the women should be dutiful and affectionate to their husbands,—looking after nobody's concerns but their own,—eschewing all gossipings and morning gaddings,—and carrying short tongues and long petticoats. That the men should abstain from intermeddling in public concerns, intrusting the cares of government to the officers appointed to support them, staying at home, like good citizens, making money for themselves, and getting children for the benefit of their country.
It happens to the princes of literature to encounter periods of varying duration when their names are revered and their books are not read. The growth, not to say the fluctuation, of Shakespeare's popularity is one of the curiosities of literary history. Worshiped by his contemporaries, apostrophized by Milton only fourteen pears after his death as the "dear son of memory, great heir to fame,"—"So sepulchred in such pomp dost lie, That kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die,"—he was neglected by the succeeding age, the subject of violent extremes of opinion in the eighteenth century, and so lightly esteemed by some that Hume could doubt if he were a poet "capable of furnishing a proper entertainment to a refined and intelligent audience," and attribute to the rudeness of his "disproportioned and misshapen" genius the "reproach of barbarism" which the English nation had suffered from all its neighbors.
I have lost confidence in the favorable disposition of my countrymen, and look forward to cold scrutiny and stern criticism, and this is a line of writing in which I have not hitherto ascertained my own powers. Could I afford it, I should like to write, and to lay my writings aside when finished. There is an independent delight in study and in the creative exercise of the pen; we live in a world of dreams, but publication lets in the noisy rabble of the world, and there is an end of our dreaming.
THEIR PILGRIMAGE
Act of eating is apt to be disenchanting
Air of endurance that fathers of families put on
Anxiously asked at every turn how he likes it
As much by what they did not say as by what they did say
Asked Mr King if this was his first visit
Beautifully regular and more satisfactorily monotonous
Best part of a conversation is the things not said
Comfort of leaving same things to the imagination
Common attitude of the wholesale to the retail dealer
Confident opinions about everything
Couldn't stand this sort of thing much longer
Designed by a carpenter, and executed by a stone-mason
Facetious humor that is more dangerous than grumbling
Fat men/women were never intended for this sort of exhibition
Feeding together in a large room must be a little humiliating
Fish, they seemed to say, are not so easily caught as men
Florid man, who "swelled" in, patronizing the entire room
Hated a fellow that was always in high spirits
Irresponsibility of hotel life
It is a kind of information I have learned to dispense with
It's an occupation for a man to keep up a cottage
Let me be unhappy now and then, and not say anything about it
Live, in short, rather more for one's self than for society
Loftily condescending
Lunch was dinner and that dinner was supper
Man in love is poor company for himself and for everybody else
Nearsighted, you know, about seeing people that are not
Not to care about anything you do care about
Notion of duty has to account for much of the misery in life
People who haven't so many corners as our people have
People who leave home on purpose to grumble
Pet dogs of all degrees of ugliness
Satisfy the average taste without the least aid from art
Seemed only a poor imitation of pleasure
Shrinking little man, whose whole appearance was an apology
Small frame houses hopelessly decorated with scroll-work
So many swearing colors
Thinking of themselves and the effect they are producing
Vanishing shades of an attractive and consolable grief
Women are cruelest when they set out to be kind
Wore their visible exclusiveness like a garment
Young ones who know what is best for the elders
LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
Absurd to be so interested in fictitious trouble
And in this way I crawled out of the discussion, as usual
Anything can be borne if he knows that he shall see her tomorrow
Clubs and circles
Democracy is intolerant of variations from the general level
Do you think so?
Eagerness to acquire the money of other people, not to make it
Easier to be charitable than to be just
Everybody has read it
Great deal of mind, it takes him so long to make it up
How much good do you suppose condescending charity does?
In youth, as at the opera, everything seems possible
It is so easy to turn life into a comedy!
It is so painful to shrink, and so delightful to grow!
Knew how roughly life handles all youthful enthusiasms
Liberty to indulge in republican simplicity
Much easier to forgive a failure than a success
Not the use of money, but of the use money makes of you
One thing to entertain and another to be entertaining
Possessory act of readjusting my necktie
Process which is called weighing a thing in the mind
Simple enjoyment being considered an unworthy motive
Society that exists mainly to pay its debts gets stupid
Talk is always tame if no one dares anything
Tastes and culture were of the past age
Unhappy are they whose desires are all ratified
World has become so tolerant that it doesn't care
THE GOLDEN HOUSE
Absolutely necessary that the world should be amused
Affectation of familiarity
Air of determined enjoyment
Always did what he said he would do
Desire to do something rather than the desire to make something
Don't know what it's all for—I doubt if there is much in it
Easier to make art fashionable than to make fashion artistic
Emanation of aggressive prosperity
Everybody is superficially educated
Grateful for her forbearance of verbal expression
Happy life: an income left, not earned by toil
Her very virtues are enemies of her peace
How little a thing can make a woman happy
Human vanity will feed on anything within its reach
If one man wins, somebody else has got to lose
Knew how to be confidential without disclosing anything
Long-established habits of aversion or forbearance
Moral hazard bravely incurred in the duty of knowing life
Nature is such a beautiful painter of wood
No confidences are possible outside of that relation
No one expected anything, and no one was disappointed
No such thing as a cheap yacht
Ordering and eating the right sort of lunch
Pitiful about habitual hypocrisy is that it never deceives anybody
"Squares," where the poor children get their idea of forests
To be commanded with such gentleness was a sort of luxury
Was getting to be the fashion; but now it's fashionable
Whatever he disclosed was always in confidence
World requires a great variety of people to keep it going
THAT FORTUNE
Artist who cannot paint a rail-fence cannot paint a pyramid
Best things for us in this world are the things we don't get
Big subject does not make a big writer
Bud will never come to flower if you pull it in pieces
Do you know what it is to want what you don't want?
Few people can resist doing what is universally expected of them
Freedom to excel in nothing
Had gained everything he wanted in life except happiness
Indefeasible right of the public to have news
Intellectual poverty
Known something if I hadn't been kept at school
Longing is one thing and reason another
Making himself instead of in making money
Mediocrity of the amazing art product
Never go fishing without both fly and bait
Nothing like it certainly had happened to anybody
Object was to win a case rather than to do justice in a case
Public that gets tired of anything in about three days
Remaining enjoyment is the indulgence of frank speech
Sell your manuscripts, but don't sell your soul
Success is often a misfortune
Summer days that come but to go
There isn't much to feel here except what you see
Things that are self-evident nobody seems to see
Vanity at the bottom of even a reasonable ambition
We confound events with causes
What is society for?