Biography
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Essays by
All fool’s day
The more laughable blunders a man shall commit in your company, the more tests he giveth you, that he will not betray or overreach you.
A bachelor’s complaint of the behaviour of married people
Nothing is to me more distasteful than that entire complacency and satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a new-married couple.
A chapter on ears
Sentimentally I am disposed to harmony. But organically I am incapable of a tune.
A dissertation upon roast pig
Pig—let me speak his praise—is no less provocative of the appetite, than he is satisfactory to the criticalness of the censorious palate.
Dream children: A reverie
We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name.
Mackery end, in Hertfordshire
Those slender ties, that prove slight as gossamer in the rending atmosphere of a metropolis, bind faster, as we found it, in hearty, homely, loving Hertfordshire.
New Year’s Eve
Every man hath two birth-days: two days, at least, in every year, which set him upon revolving the lapse of time, as it affects his mortal duration.
The old and new schoolmaster
The modern schoolmaster is expected to know a little of every thing, because his pupil is required not to be entirely ignorant of any thing.
Oxford in the vacation
The mighty future is as nothing, being every thing! the past is every thing, being nothing,
A Quaker’s meeting
For a man to refrain even from good words, and to hold his peace, it is commendable; but for a multitude, it is great mastery.
The south-sea house
To the idle and merely contemplative, to such as me, old house! there is a charm in thy quiet:–a cessation–a coolness from business–an indolence almost cloistral–which is delightful!
The two races of men
There is a class of alienators more formidable than that which I have touched upon: I mean our borrowers of books–those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes.
Valentine’s day
Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door.