"Diction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... style, of being chiefly due to Chapman. In 1654 two tragedies, Alphonsus Emperour of Germany and The Revenge for Honour, were separately published under Chapman's name. Their authorship, however, is doubtful. There is nothing in the style or diction of Alphonsus which resembles Chapman's undisputed work, and it is hard to believe that he had a hand in it. The Revenge for Honour is on an Oriental theme, entirely different from those handled by Chapman in his other tragedies, and the versification is marked by a greater ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... "ideographic" fashion. The conservatism which is a feature of proper names everywhere, in consequence of which the archaic traits of a language are frequently preserved in them, just as they are preserved in terms used in the ritual and in poetic diction, is sufficient to account for the interesting fact that the Semitic settlers of the Euphrates valley in handing down their names from one generation to another retained the custom of writing them ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... say that all this is narrated by the author in the spirit of accurate history, would be far below the meed of praise that is due. He has executed this part of the book in a style of animated and lively description, and with that flowing and finished diction, which can only be attained when the mind of a writer is perfectly familiar with the events, and when, by the force of imagination, he becomes himself as it were an actor instead of a spectator of the scenes which ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... personal interviews, were all laid under contribution by the author, and served as sources of his authority. These he has woven together with such judgment in selection, skill in arrangement and force of style and diction, that just as "Gray's Elegy" alone has placed him in the front rank of poets, so this one work has given the author a high and permanent place among the historians of our country. The work attempted ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... then, "Oh what a lucky fellow! Well, Fortune does favor fools—that's certain! It is always so!"—and forthwith the exclaimer relates half a dozen similar instances. Thus accumulating the one sort of facts and never collecting the other, we do, as poets in their diction and quacks of all denominations do in their reasoning, put a part for the whole, and at once soothe our envy and gratify our love of the marvelous, by the sweeping ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... in the cramped hand of Brother Spencer. Through its faulty diction ran a plainly discernible undernote of disapproval for Samson, though there was no word of reproof or criticism. It was plain that it was sent as a matter of courtesy to one who, having proven an apostate, scarcely merited such consideration. It informed him that old Spicer South ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... to enable it to be used. The word was quite a puzzle to the commentators until it was pointed out that it was the familiar medical term, and then it was easy to understand. Occasionally this use of a medical term gives a strikingly accurate significance to Luke's diction. For instance, where other evangelists talk of the Lord looking at a patient or turning to them, Luke uses the expression that was technically employed for a physician's examination of his patient, as if the Lord carefully looked over the ailing people to see their physical ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... in him a far more cultivated man, with more sense of decency and self control, and even elegance of diction, than the Tzar. He even reproaches the latter, in one letter, for his ignorance of the proper way to write, and for his lack of culture, and tells him he ought to be ashamed of himself, comparing the Tzar's literary style with "the ravings of women," ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... faultless diction, remarkable fluency of expression and discriminating choice of words, made him a master speaker and writer, attributed his facility to the training he received in the home of his father, a minister, where the children were constantly encouraged in the use of correct English and in the broadening ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... management of the dramatic monologue and the Arguments given to the several poems included in this volume, will, it is hoped, reduce, if not altogether remove, the difficulties of this kind. In the same section of the Introduction certain peculiarities of the poet's diction are presented ...
— The Writing of the Short Story • Lewis Worthington Smith
... ballad is full of leaps and omissions; the style is simple to a fault; the diction is spontaneous and free. Assonance frequently takes the place of rhyme, and a word often rhymes with itself. There is a lack of poetic adornment in the style quite as conspicuous as the lack of reflection and moralizing in the matter. Metaphor and simile are rare and when found are for ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... vendor of comestibles that sympathy which is accorded to the joys and sorrows of his more refined fellow-creatures, it is impossible to view without alarm the hold which his loose and ungrammatical diction is obtaining in the most cultured salons of to-day. Anxious to minimise the danger, yet loth to check a sentiment of fraternity so creditable to our common humanity, I have devised a plan by which Mr. CHEVALIER's songs may he rendered in such-wise that while all their deep humanity is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... her, as she advanced in years, to compose essays, letters, dialogues, and sometimes orations, all of which were not only written and handed in for correction, but he frequently directed her to recite them from memory, and invited her to assist him, while he dissected and criticised either her diction, line of argument, choice of metaphors, or intonation of voice. In these compositions he encouraged her to seek illustrations from every department of letters, and convert her theme into a focus, upon which to pour all the concentrated light which ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... of so many plebeian authors, containing so very few whose genius was worthy of commemoration." (38) But this very circumstance renders the merit of Walpole the greater, in having, out of such materials, composed a work which must be read with amusement and interest, as long as liveliness of diction and felicity in anecdote are considered ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... and poetic fancy, and in its playful sublimity resembles the azure canopy mirrored in the smiling waters, bright, liquid, serene, heavenly! A great outcry, we know, has prevailed for some time past against poetic diction and affected conceits, and, to a certain degree, we go along with it; but this must not prevent us from feeling the thrill of pleasure when we see beauty linked to beauty, like kindred flame to flame, or from applauding the voluptuous fancy that raises and adorns the fairy fabric ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... this—comments, at least of the unfavourable kind, generally echoing Ben Jonson's complaint that Spenser "writ no language"; that his dialect is not the dialect of any actual place or time, that it is an artificial "poetic diction" made up of Chaucer, and of Northern dialect, and of classicisms, and of foreign words, and of miscellaneous archaisms from no matter where. No doubt it is. But if any other excuse than the fact of a beautiful and satisfactory effect is wanted for the formation ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... is that Mr Carlyle deals. To speak in our own plain common-place diction, it is to the elements of all religious feeling, to the broad unalterable principles of morality, that he addresses himself; stirring up in the minds of his readers those sentiments of reverence to the Highest, and of justice to all, even to the lowest, which can never utterly die out ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... perfumed with affectation. A toilet is described with the solemnity of an altar raised to the goddess of vanity, and the history of a silver bodkin is given with all the pomp of heraldry. No pains are spared, no profusion of ornament, no splendour of poetic diction to set off the meanest things. . . . It is the perfection of ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... before the public. My earnest effort has been to be as faithful to the poet as possible, and for this reason I have not attempted to render rime, a dangerous obstacle to a natural expression of the poet's thought and diction. But I hope that the critics will judge my work as that of a mere pioneer. I know there is value in the theme; and if this value is made sufficiently evident to arouse the interest of poetry lovers in the achievements of contemporary Greece I shall ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... the average person see as clearly, feel as keenly, and understand as well as he does himself the persons and things that he is portraying and explaining, is obviously the sine qua non of success. Ease, fluency, and originality of diction, either natural or acquired, the writer must possess if his ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... pedantry of logic. Eliza Doolittle's ambition is to become fitted for the functions of a young lady in a florist's shop. Henry Higgins, professor of phonetics, undertakes for a wager to teach her the manners and diction of a duchess—a smaller achievement, of course, in Mr. SHAW'S eyes, but still a step in the right direction. And he is better than his word. After six months she has acquired a mincing speech, from which she is still liable to lapse into appalling indiscretions; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various
... find perfect satisfaction in the versification of the 'Essay on Man,' we can understand his saying of 'Lycidas,' that 'the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers unpleasing.' In one of the 'Ramblers' we are informed that the accent in blank verse ought properly to rest upon every second syllable throughout the whole line. A little variety must, he admits, be allowed to avoid satiety; ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... satisfaction for any of the British ships that had been taken; and on being allowed the value of the St. Theresa, a Spanish ship which had been seized in the port of Dublin. Mr. W. Pitt, with an energy of argument and diction peculiar to himself, declaimed against the convention, as insecure, unsatisfactory, and dishonourable to Great Britain. He said the great national objection, the searching of British ships, was not admitted, indeed, in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... then written down with a purity of diction and loftiness of thought which prove Amos to have been a master of literary art,* was widely circulated, and gradually gained authority as portents indicative of the divine wrath began to accumulate, such as an earthquake which occurred two years after the incident ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Inclination had much share in my Consent.... On Reading, I found I had much more to do than I expected; every Character I was oblig'd to find employment for, introduce one entirely new, without which it had been impossible to have guessed at the Design of the Play; and in fine, change the Diction so wholly, that, excepting in the Parts of Alphonso and Isabella, there remains not ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... laughed at her, and in the intervals of rating Cecile for having inked her dress, flaunted some shrill controversy which left them all staring. Louie vindicating, the claims of the Holy See with much unction and an appropriate diction! It seemed to David, as he listened, that the irony of life could hardly ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... we have mentioned is excellent in the two last points, but has a redundancy in the first; the opening excites the attention very strongly; the conduct of the story is artful and judicious; the characters are admirably drawn and supported; the diction polished and elegant; yet, with all these brilliant advantages, it palls upon the mind (though it does not upon the ear); and the reason is obvious, the machinery is so violent, that it destroys the effect it is intended to excite. Had the story been kept within the utmost verge of probability, ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... Science Fiction magazines in general, are people with the ingrained human love for wonder and mystery; but some of them are afraid to accept and enjoy anything—even a fairy tale—that is not couched in the diction of modern materialistic science, with a show of concern for verified credibilities. Probably, in most cases, they would like and prize the very stories that they condemn if the writer had used a different terminology, and had offered ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... with a profusion of double epithets and a general turgidness," and adds that he has "pruned the double epithets with no sparing hand," and used his best efforts to tame the swell and glitter both of thought and diction. "The latter fault, however, had," he continues, "so insinuated itself into my Religious Musings with such intricacy of union that sometimes I have omitted to disentangle the weed from fear of snapping the ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... to a regular examination of the tragedy before us, in which I shall treat separately of the Fable, the Moral, the Characters, the Sentiments, and the Diction. And ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... of a good stenographer does not end when she leaves school. She should be able not only to take down and transcribe notes neatly and correctly. She should be able to spell and punctuate correctly and to make the minor changes in phrasing and diction that so often can make a good letter of a poor one. The most fatal disease that can overtake a stenographer (or any one else) is the habit ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... to know. In Lowndes' "Bibliographer's Manual" the English Editio Princeps is thus noticed, "Arabian Nights' Entertainments translated from the French, London, 1724, 12mo, 6 vols." and a footnote states that this translation, very inaccurate and vulgar in its diction, was often reprinted. In 1712 Addison introduced into the Spectator (No. 535, Nov. 13) the Story of Alnaschar ( Al-Nashshar, the Sawyer) and says that his remarks on Hope "may serve as a moral to an Arabian tale which I find translated into French by Monsieur ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... Doctor; "I have a few words to say to you first. In most cases, and as a general rule, I think it wisest to let every boy commit to paper whatever his feelings may dictate to him. I wish to claim no censorship over the style and diction of your letters. But there have been so many complaints lately from the parents of some of the less advanced of you, that I find myself obliged to make a change. Your father particularly, Richard Bultitude," he added, turning suddenly upon the unlucky Paul, "has complained bitterly ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... least some of Drayton's sonnets which possess a direct, instant, and universal appeal, by reason of their simple force and straightforward ring; and not in virtue of any subtle charm of sound and rhythm, or overmastering splendour of diction or thought. Ornament vanishes, and soberness and simplicity increase, as we proceed in the editions of the sonnets. Drayton's chief attempt in the jewelled or ornamental style appeared in 1595, with the title of Endimion and ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... rarest of elegant expressions in the Bible. The peculiarities of the historical writings are carefully avoided, while all modifications of style peculiar to poetry are gathered together to constitute what may fairly be called a vocabulary of poetic diction."[59] ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... which kindly humour, wit, love of the outward world, knowledge of men, are all beautifully intertwined into one strand of poetry, unlike anything else that has been seen before or since. The outward form of the verse and the style of diction are no doubt after the manner of his two forerunners whom he so much admired, Ramsay and Fergusson; but the play of soul and power of expression, the natural grace with which they rise and fall, the vividness of every image, (p. 024) and transparent truthfulness of every sentiment, are all his ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... on turning over the book at hazard, I am struck with his frequent felicity of phrase. At every step there is something one would like to quote—something excellently well said. These things are often of the lighter sort, but Hawthorne's charming diction lingers in the memory—almost in the ear. I have always remembered a certain admirable characterisation of Doctor Johnson, in the account of the writer's visit to Lichfield—and I will preface it by ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... his really famous "obscurity." This obscurity is variously ascribed to a diction unduly learned, or almost unintelligibly colloquial, or grotesquely inventive; to figures of speech drawn from sources too unfamiliar or elaborated to the point of confusion; to sentences complicated by startling inversions, by double parentheses, by broken constructions, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... shows here all the vigor of his early days. There is the same pungency of diction, the same picturesque power. Not a person is introduced without a touch of vigorous individuality.... The characters seem to start from the ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... It is a masterly piece of writing. Coleridge scribbled in the copy that now lies on the shelves of the British Museum this tribute to its author: "I remember few passages in ancient or modern authors that contain more just philosophy in appropriate, chaste or beautiful diction than the fine following pages. They reflect equal honour on Godwin's head and heart. Though I did it in the zenith of his reputation, yet I feel remorse even to have only spoken unkindly of such a ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... to say just how much of the diction of these lines belongs to him, and how much to me. He said he would never claim them, after I read them to him in my version. I, on my part, do not wish to be held responsible for some of his more daring thoughts, if I should ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... make it thrilling, crisp and short, In purest diction drest, with gems of thought So intermingled with the story's warp and woof, That from beginning I can scarcely ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... scarecrow shaking an hour-glass—all that could alarm and repel has been gathered round this rightly-named King of Terrors. Milton, who has done so much with his stately rhythm to mould the popular conceptions of modern Christianity, has used all the sinewy strength of his magnificent diction to surround with horror the ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... the subject of this biographical essay,—Chaucer, "the poet of the dawn." For in him there are many things significant of the age of transition in which he lived; in him the mixture of Frenchman and Englishman is still in a sense incomplete, as that of their language is in the diction of his poems. His gaiety of heart is hardly English; nor is his willing (though, to be sure, not invariably unquestioning) acceptance of forms into the inner meaning of which he does not greatly vex his soul by entering; nor his airy way ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... test is seldom applied to the work of teaching. We judge the teacher by the process rather than by the product, and we introduce a number of extraneous criteria to hide the absence of a real criterion. We watch the way in which he conducts a recitation, how many slips he makes in his diction and syntax, inspect his personal appearance, ask of what school he is a graduate and how many degrees he possesses, inquire into his moral character, determine his church membership, and judge him to be a good or a poor teacher according to our findings. All of these queries may have their place ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... addition to these defects, the editor, a learned Egyptian, has played havoc with the style of his original, in an ill-judged attempt to improve it, producing a medley, more curious than edifying, of classical and semi-modern diction and now and then, in his unlucky zeal, completely disguising the pristine meaning of certain passages. The third edition, that which we owe to Sir William Macnaghten and which appears to have been printed from a superior copy of the manuscript followed by the Egyptian editor, is by ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... for Divine guidance by opening the Bible at hazard; having a literal way of interpreting the Scriptures, which is not at all sanctioned by approved commentators; and it is impossible for me to represent their diction as correct, or their instruction as liberal. Still—if I have read religious history aright—faith, hope, and charity have not always been found in a direct ratio with a sensibility to the three concords, and ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... most books of its class is its distinction of manner, its unusual grace of diction, its delicacy of touch, and the fervent charm of its love passages. It is a very attractive piece of romantic fiction relying for its effect upon character rather than incident, and upon vivid dramatic presentation."—The Dial. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... almost certain that Θ must have had the Ο´ text before him, since the coincidences of diction, though not so continuous as in the Song of the Three, are still far too numerous to be accidental. Bissell (p. 443) says of all the three pieces, "Θ simply recast the version of LXX." This dictum, however ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... business, and was largely endowed with an inventive genius. Though hitherto scarcely known as a poet, he wrote verses so early as his eleventh year, which are described by his biographer as having "evinced a maturity of taste, a refinement of thought, and an ease of diction which astonished and delighted his friends," and the specimens of his more mature lyrical compositions, which we have been privileged to publish from his MSS. are such as to induce some regret that they were not sooner given to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... we never heard him plead anything of moment, except that he was finically Frenchified in his diction; of which he gave this instance—that having occasion to notice a brick wall, (which was literally that, not more and not less,) when reconnoitring the French defences, he called it a revtement. And we ourselves remember his using the French word gloriole rather ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... to make a just estimate of his genius; and from what remains, it cannot, I presume, be said with candour and impartiality, that he has excelled Homer in the sublimity and variety of his thoughts, or the strength and majesty of his diction. ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
... vocabulary is of two kinds, latent and dynamic: latent—those words he understands; dynamic—those he can readily use. Every intelligent man knows all the words he needs, but he may not have them all ready for active service. The problem of literary diction consists in turning the latent into the dynamic." Your dynamic vocabulary is the ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... Munro of the University of Wisconsin. To all of these I am much indebted. Both in the arduous preparation of the manuscript and in the reading of the proof my wife has been my constant companion, and to her the volume owes innumerable rectifications in arrangement and diction. I would also add a word of gratitude to my publishers for their hearty coperation in their ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... in which professors read lectures to their auditory. He fixed his eye upon a sage, raised above the rest, who discoursed, with great energy, on the government of the passions. His look was venerable, his action graceful, his pronunciation clear, and his diction elegant. He showed, with great strength of sentiment, and variety of illustration, that human nature is degraded and debased, when the lower faculties predominate over the higher; that when fancy, the parent of passion, usurps the dominion of the mind, nothing ensues but the natural effect of unlawful ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... predecessors Raymond with all his guile fell into another pitfall. He lauded the Rose, the Daisy, the Garland of Vine Leaves worn by Eleanor, Marguerite, and Beatrice in three canzonets so perfect in form, so exquisite in diction that they rivalled the ditties of Thibault of Champagne, who was hitherto accounted as having written "the most delightful and most melodious canzonets that at any time ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... rose most successfully to its demands, and nobly surpassed the exacting expectations of his warmest admirers. It was agreed on every hand that Mayor Rice's address was fully equal, in scope and appropriateness of thought and beauty of diction, to that of either of the eminent scholars and orators with whom he was brought into comparison. It received emphatic encomiums at home, and attracted the flattering attention of the English press, by which it was extensively copied and adduced as another evidence of the literary culture found ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the English he had been wont to hear on female lips. His mother and his aunt spoke with propriety; their associates were soft-tongued; but here was something quite different from inoffensiveness of tone and diction. Godwin appreciated the differentiating cause. These young ladies behind him had been trained from the cradle to speak for the delight of fastidious ears; that they should be grammatical was not enough—they must excel in the art of conversational music. Of course there ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... delight and reverence Madonna pictures like this have awakened as we read the words of an old chant. In quaint diction and with fanciful imagery the writer tried to express his feelings in the presence of a painting which, if not this veritable Madonna of the Chair, ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... has faced dangers, that is full of promise, that has charm, that is fit to stir a man's blood and demand a world's devotion; no wonder he has warmed to it, no wonder he has clothed it in the richest garments of diction and rhythm ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... beauty. There is one classic rule in the architecture, but each of the different architects may characterize an edifice from himself, just as different authors writing the same language characterize it by the diction natural to him. There are suggestions of the capitals in some of our cities, and if you remember Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, you can imagine something like the union of street and garden which every street of them is. The trolleys run under ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... sentiment adapted to a singular character, he frequently hits, as it were by inspiration; but a reasonable propriety of thought he cannot for any time uphold. Nervous and picturesque expressions, as well as descriptions, abound in him; but it is in vain we look either for purity or simplicity of diction. His total ignorance of all theatrical art and conduct, however material a defect, yet, as it affects the spectator rather than the reader, we can more easily excuse, than that want of taste which often prevails in his productions, and which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... nearer to the heart of things, they were offered the chaff of divinity, and its wheat was left for less needy gleaners, who knew where to look. Even the fine old Bible stories, which may be made as lifelike as any history of our day, by a vivid fancy and pictorial diction, were robbed of all their charms by dry explanations and literal applications, instead of being useful and pleasant lessons to those men, whom weakness had rendered as docile as children ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... of diction, and freedom from immoral tendencies, I regard those two poems in the light of gems. They are suited to all grades of intelligence, to every sphere of life —to the field, to the nursery, to the guild. Especially should no Board of Aldermen ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... letters, but it seems probable that Gluck's own share in it was not a small one. The careful study which he had given to the proper conditions of opera was not likely to exclude so important a question as that of the construction and diction of the libretto, and the poem of 'Orfeo' shows so marked an inclination to break away from the conventionality and sham sentiment of the time that we can confidently attribute much of its originality to the influence of the composer himself. The opening scene shows the tomb of Eurydice erected ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... a clean, active ascetic life and a strong moral and physical make-up. He was inclined to keep the light of his conversational powers under a bushel, and at times spoke only when aroused from apparent self-centered thought. His voice was deep and pleasant, his diction and expression perfect, his thoughts, clothed in finished sentences, were entertainingly expressed and at times exhibited a rich vein of the choicest humor. He was the leading member of the conference—certainly the ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... author's style is this continuous and incessant flow of voluptuous thoughts and shining allusions. He ought to write with a crystal pen on silver paper. His subject is set off by a dazzling veil of poetic diction, like a wreath of flowers gemmed with innumerous dew-drops, that weep, tremble, and glitter in liquid softness and pearly light, while the song of birds ravishes the ear, and languid odours breathe around, and Aurora opens Heaven's smiling portals, Peris and nymphs ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... writings one single thought, one single expression, that had not been used before. The second Silesian school is more ambitious; but its poetic flights are more disappointing even than the honest prose of Opitz. The "Shepherds of the Pegnitz" had tried to imitate the brilliant diction of the Italian poets; but the modern Meistersaenger of the old town of Nuernberg had produced nothing but wordy jingle. Hoffmannswaldau and Lohenstein, the chief heroes of the second Silesian school, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... Age which produced the Faerie Queene II. The Author of the Faerie Queene III. Study of the Faerie Queene: 1. A Romantic Epic 2. Influence of the New Learning 3. Interpretation of the Allegory 4. The Spenserian Stanza 5. Versification 6. Diction and Style ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... poets to settle at Milan, Lodovico invited the Tuscans Bellincioni and Antonio Cammelli, surnamed Pistoia, to his court, in the hope of refining and polishing the rude Lombard diction. The priest Tanzio, writing after Bellincioni's death in 1492, remarks that this influence had already borne fruit, and that the sonnet, which was practically unknown in Milan before Bellincioni's coming, ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... other hand, there are certain manifest and palpable instances of inaccuracy and, more rarely, infelicity of diction which the reviewers might very properly take occasion to amend even though such alterations could not be classified by a strict constructionist under either of the two heads "enrichment" and "flexibility." In the masterly Report ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... is in them an unmistakeable Zeit-Geist in phraseology and form. The Elizabethan drama, essay, or philosophy could not be mistaken for the drama, essay, or philosophy of the Restoration; the heroic couplet reigned from Dryden to Byron; Ciceronian diction reigned from Addison to Burke; and then the Quarterlies, with Southey, Lamb, Scott, De Quincey, Coleridge, Sydney Smith, and Leigh Hunt, introduced a simpler, easier tone of the well-bred causeur, as free from ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... were all bandaged, looked as surprised as they could between them, and did not answer. Mr. Lavender went on, dropping unconsciously into the diction of the article he had been reading: "We are now at the turning-point of the ways, and not a moment is to be lost in impressing on the disabled man the paramount necessity of becoming again the captain of his soul. He who was a hero in the field must again lead us in those qualities ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... just read "In the Early Days," by Col. G. L. Cole, and I find it an interesting and instructive narrative, clothed in good diction and pleasing style. Few of the Argonauts took time or trouble to make note of the events of their journey and our California gold episode is remarkably barren of literature, a fact which makes Col. Cole's book doubly ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... 5, 1835. The son of a noble family, Platen is, barring his Weltschmerz (world weariness, compare Lenau) and the fact that he spent a good part of his life in foreign lands, the exact opposite of Heine. While Heine affects a certain carelessness of rhyme and rhythm and diction, Platen observes a studied elegance. His verse form is faultless as if chiselled in marble, his rhymes the most careful and pure. His ballads have a stately majesty of rhythm that reflects the inherent nobility of the poet. On the whole, his stanzas are characterized by a full and ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... which, through unguarded avenues, find entrance into earth, water and air, and into the ways of men. Unfathomable was the depth of his gravity. With head slightly tilted he would mince his carefully selected words in a deep voice. His literary diction would give food for merriment to our elders behind his back, some of his high-flown phrases finding a permanent place in our family repertoire of witticisms. But I doubt whether the expressions he used would sound as remarkable to-day; showing ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... trials of the Bishop-farm case, is among the papers on file. It appears to be a verbatim report of the speech as it was delivered at the time, and proves him to have been a man of talents. It is courteous, gentlemanly, and, I might say, scholarly in its diction and style, skilful in its statements, and forcible ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... book which deserves careful attention. In respect of literary qualities, such as effective arrangement, and correct and lucid diction, this essay, by an English Catholic scholar, is not unworthy of Cardinal Newman, to whom ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... and cordial, his dress, habits, and tastes simple, and his style of living temperate in the extreme. His speeches and his official papers, both military and civil, are alike famed for their propriety of feeling and their chastity of diction. His private life was unblemished, and the loveliness of his disposition made him the idol of his own household and the favorite of all who knew him. His martial courage was only equaled by his Spartan simplicity, his unaffected modesty, his ever ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... flesh and blood, persuaded that by so doing I shall interest him. Others who pursue a different track will interest him likewise; I do not interfere with their claim, but wish to prefer a claim of my own. There will also be found in these volumes little of what is usually called poetic diction; as much pains has been taken to avoid it as is ordinarily taken to produce it; this has been done for the reason already alleged, to bring my language near to the language of men; and further, because the pleasure ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... hacknied machines in the masks and operas of the sixteenth century; and it required little invention to paint the duchess of York as Venus, or to represent her husband protected by Neptune, and Charles consulting with Proteus. But though the device be trite, the lyrical diction of the opera is most beautifully sweet and flowing. The reader finds none of these harsh inversions, and awkward constructions, by which ordinary poets are obliged to screw their verses into the fetters of musical time. Notwithstanding the obstacles ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... printing of all these various editions was poor, and the diction worse, the binding certainly was good and could be copied in modern times to much advantage. No flimsy cloth or pasteboard covers, no weak paper backs, no ill-pasted leaves, no sham-work of any kind was ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Aunt Philippa certainly talked the faster; Mrs. Fullerton tried her best to edge in a word now and then,—a very scathing word, too,—but there was no silencing that flow of rapid talk. I quite envied her pure diction and the ingenious turn of her sentences; she made so much of her own admirable foresight and care of me, and so little of ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... difficulty, and indeed of awe, with which a scholar approaches the task of translating the Agamemnon depends directly on its greatness as poetry. It is in part a matter of diction. The language of Aeschylus is an extraordinary thing, the syntax stiff and simple, the vocabulary obscure, unexpected, and steeped in splendour. Its peculiarities cannot be disregarded, or the translation will ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... inequalities of their writings. In the eminent French writers such sallies of genius are more rarely to be met with, but instead of them a just arrangement, an exact propriety and decorum, joined to an equal and studied elegance of sentiment and diction, which, as it never strikes the heart like those violent and momentary flashes of imagination, so it never revolts the judgment by anything that is absurd or unnatural, nor ever wearies the attention by any gross inequality in the style or want of connection in the method, but entertains ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... fact—and 't is the part Of a true poet to escape from fiction Whene'er he can; for there is little art in leaving verse more free from the restriction Of Truth than prose, unless to suit the mart For what is sometimes called poetic diction, And that outrageous appetite for lies Which Satan angles ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... one account: but the name recurs pretty positively in 1327-8, and about that time Randall Higgenet, a monk of Chester Abbey, wrote the plays. But in the text handed down they are of a much later style of diction, and no doubt later in date than the Towneley or ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... the folks there," said Mrs. Beecham, flushed by the thought, and too much excited to think of the elegancies of diction. She had suffered more than her husband had, and retained a more forcible idea of the perils; and in the pause which ensued, all these perils crowded into her mind. As her own ambition rose, she had felt how dreadful it was to be shut in to one ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... never heard any first-hand account of any kind of trickery on his part. She considered him a man of open childlike nature, thoroughly honest and truthful, and that in her opinion his utterances in the trance state were much superior in thought and diction to his ordinary talk. She said she should like to give Mr. Myers a few additional details with regard to the fire phenomena reported in Madame Home's book, "D. D. Home, His Life and Mission," on her authority. Madame Home's secretary, she said, had slightly abbreviated her words ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... not been graceful, nor the diction, yet she knew that Ace had struck the mark fairly, for woman indeed needed no tutor to teach her to understand man—woman had always ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... absolutely essential. These two qualifications Dr. Waterland possessed in a remarkable degree. He always knew exactly what he meant, and he also knew how to convey his meaning to his readers. His style is nervous and lucid, and he never sacrifices clearness to the graces of diction. His very deficiencies were all in his favour. Had he been a man of a more poetical temperament he might have been tempted, like Platonists and neo-Platonists, to soar into the heights of metaphysical speculations and either lose himself or at least render ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... Beecher's. A man of large soul, of generous impulses, he thinks as he feels, and writes as he thinks. His thoughts are original, his imagination glowing, his sympathies all-embracing, his creed broad and flowing, his illustrations apt and graphic, his diction clear and bold, though often careless and sometimes almost grotesquely familiar;—all that he touches seems poured through his heart, and thus never fails to reach the heart of his audience. He battles with the sins and evils of his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... should be angry with the Athenians for protecting the Egesteans, descended from Trojan ancestors, whose city he, for an injury of their king Laomedon, had overthrown. However, all these may be merely other instances of the same happy taste that makes him correct the diction of Philistus, and abuse Plato and Aristotle. This sort of contention and rivalry with others in matter of style, to my mind, in any case, seems petty and pedantic, but when its objects are works of inimitable excellence, it is absolutely senseless. Such actions in Nicias's life as Thucydides and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... He is grotesque and droll in his manner, and above all always restrained. His literary life is full of sprites and gnomes that frolic before young children and once before mature people. The Griffin and the Minor Canon is a beautiful fairy story lifted from childhood's thought and diction into a mature realm. His humor is plain and simple, cool and keenly calculating. A friendly critic has said of one of his stories, "With a gentle, ceaseless murmur of amusement, and a flickering twinkle ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... Sir Roger to his grave, nor partake of the baked meats which were furnished for his funeral banquet. Such men as Sir Roger Scatcherd are always well buried, and we have already seen that his glories were duly told to posterity in the graphic diction of his sepulchral monument. In a few days the doctor had returned to his quiet home, and Sir Louis found himself reigning at Boxall Hill in his father's stead—with, however, a much diminished sway, and, as he thought it, but a poor exchequer. We must soon return to him and say something ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... Latin text, the student cannot but notice the contrast between the easy diction of modern philosophical writers and the rugged conciseness of the mediaeval Schoolman. On the other hand, disappointment awaits those who quit the pages of Cicero for the less elegant Latinity of the Middle Ages. What can be said in favor of scholastic "style" is that it expresses ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the myth is subsequent to the formation of castes. This is one of the chief arguments for the late date of the hymn, as castes are not distinctly recognised elsewhere in the Rig-Veda. Mr. Max Muller(1) believes the hymn to be "modern both in its character and in its diction," and this opinion he supports by philological arguments. Dr. Muir(2) says that the hymn "has every character of modernness both in its diction and ideas". Dr Haug, on the other hand,(3) in a paper read in 1871, admits that the present form of the hymn is not older ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... affected or theatrical;" his "quaint, delicate, delightful humour;" his "broader humour, that is not afraid to provoke the wholesome laughter of mankind by dealing with common and familiar ways and manners and men;" his "choiceness of diction;" his "lightness and grace of touch, that lend a charm even to" his "ordinary ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous
... man of business, who read but little, "The Messiah," as soon as it appeared, made a powerful impression. Those pious feelings, so naturally expressed, and yet so beautifully elevated; that pleasant diction, even if considered merely as harmonious prose,—had so won the otherwise dry man of business, that he regarded the first ten cantos, of which alone we are properly speaking, as the finest book of devotion, and once every year in Passion Week, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... reading off the newspapers into the best Greek I could furnish extempore; for the necessity of ransacking my memory and invention for all sorts and combinations of periphrastic expressions as equivalents for modern ideas, images, relations of things, &c., gave me a compass of diction which would never have been called out by a dull translation of moral essays, &c. "That boy," said one of my masters, pointing the attention of a stranger to me, "that boy could harangue an Athenian mob better than you and I could address an English one." He who honoured me with this ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... verse. The present poem (with the exception of a very few lines) has been entirely rewritten, and has at least the comparative merit of being less vague in the thought, and less unpolished in the diction, than ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and kindly spirit of this book, the humor and vivacity of personal descriptions, redeemed by an exquisite choice of expression from the least taint of the common or the coarse; the occasional melody and music of the diction, cadenced, as it were, by the very grace and tenderness of the thought it clothes, or the images of beauty it evokes; the broad, easy touches, revealing as at a glance the majestic and tranquil features of the Eastern landscape, and the ultimate feeling of all its accessories ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... fever while he was writing, and the blood-and-thunder Magazine diction he adopted did not calm him. Two months afterward he was reported fit for duty, but, in spite of the fact that he was urgently needed to help an undermanned Commission stagger through a deficit, he preferred ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... Enchanted Island, indeed, peopled, for a timeless moment, by this strange fantastic medley of persons and of things, has been cut adrift for ever from common sense, and floats, buoyed up by a sea, not of waters, but of poetry. Never did Shakespeare's magnificence of diction reach more marvellous heights than in some of the speeches of Prospero, or his lyric art a purer beauty than in the songs of Ariel; nor is it only in these ethereal regions that the triumph of his language asserts itself. It finds as splendid ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... is occasionally laid are merely fussy, not because they have not some sort of reason, but because they fail to take into account the practical difference between colloquial or off-hand speech and the diction of a scientific treatise. This is said without forgetting that colloquialism always needs watching and that some people form the habit of being careless or positively uncouth as if it were a mark ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... golden grains and eke of diamond-dust in its composition. The thoughts are not given in the bullion lump, but are well refined, and having passed through the engraver's hands, they shine with the true polish, ring with the true sound. In terse, pregnant, and somewhat oracular diction, we are here instructed how to avoid the evils contingent upon bold commercial enterprise—how to guard against excesses of the accumulative instinct—how to exercise a thoroughly conscientious mode of regulating expenditure, eschewing prodigality, that vice of a weak nature, as avarice is ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... everything; each kind of writing will have rules of its own, from which it will not be allowed to swerve, and which distinguish it from all others. Style will be thought of almost as much importance as thought; and the form will be no less considered than the matter: the diction will be polished, measured, and uniform. The tone of the mind will be always dignified, seldom very animated; and writers will care more to perfect what they produce than to multiply their productions. It will sometimes ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... WRITTEN. Such books as this should be read slowly and pondered well; but this book by its fascination will tempt one to read too rapidly. Its line of argument is logical; its diction is as pure as the bubbling stream; its truths are evident and compelling. It presents the purest psychology stripped of all mystifying technicalities, and clothed in language which even a child can understand. The reason for this is plain. It is the "Beaten Oil" drawn from the rich and ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... preposterous use of scholarship. Jonson's prose, both in his dramas, in the descriptive comments of his masques, and in the 'Discoveries', is characterised by clarity and vigorous directness, nor is it wanting in a fine sense of form or in the subtler graces of diction. ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... he had already produced beautiful poetry in his Oriental Eclogues, four years before his Odes appeared. These were, it is admitted, of a different cast from his Odes, and of a gentleness and chastity of thought and diction, which he himself was conscious, some years afterwards, did not very well represent ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... publisher, returning the proofs and mentioning two or three slight alterations, is still in my possession. Marcel Schwob told me some years afterwards that he thought it would have spoiled the spontaneity and character of Wilde's style if he had tried to harmonise it with the diction demanded by the French Academy. It was never composed with any idea of presentation. Madame Bernhardt happened to say she wished Wilde would write a play for her; he replied in jest that he had done so. She insisted on seeing the manuscript, and decided on its ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde
... stories, told with that felicitous simplicity and elegance of diction which characterize all Mr. Woodworth's efforts ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank
... his creative work and take his thoughts from his compositions. Instances of bad grammar in his letters are frequent, when dealing with ordinary topics. In no sense a polished man, he could, however, when the occasion required it, assume in his grammar and diction the grace and elegance of the scholar, but it does not often come to the front. He was too rugged, too headstrong, to pay much attention to ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... good deal of indignation:—"I sha'n't allow the bonfire no more—no, not at all; nor the fireworks neither—no, nothing of no kind of the sort." All this in his natural voice: then, swelling in dignity and in diction, "but, for the accumulated pile of combustibles, I say—for the combustible pile that you have accumulated, that you may not be deprived of the merit of doing a good action, the materials of which it is composed, that is to say, the logs of wood, and the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... in his intention,' Fleetwood muttered on a stride. 'I'll tell you this, Gower Woodseer; when you lay on in earnest, your diction is not so choice. Do any of your remarks apply ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... selected with scholarly taste, he found the great old English masters who had the good fortune to be born into the language while it was yet "a well of English undefiled." In that well he became saturated with a pure, direct, simple diction which later contact with the tendencies of his era and the ephemeral production of the daily press was not ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... some Jervas, perhaps the best of all English books. And it was the same element that made the journey of Roderick Random to London, so ostensibly a narrative of coarse jokes and common experiences and burlesque manners, told in no very choice diction, essentially a wonderful vision of the eighteenth century, carrying to one's very nostrils the aroma of the Great North Road, iron-bound under black frost, darkened beneath shuddering woods, haunted by highwaymen, with an adventure waiting beyond every turn, ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... His diction was characteristic, resembling his carriage in that it was slow and distinctive. He seemed deliberately to choose each word and to give to it all its value, syllable by syllable. His English was perfect to the verge of the pedantic; and his voice was metallic and harsh, touching at time, when ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... in a loose undress of language—as if the palm of excellence were due to the swiftest runner in the race of expression. His style is clear, polished, graceful, and harmonious, combining a flowing movement with condensation, and free from the tricks and charlatanries of diction. He is not so popular as he would be if he made more noise about his words and thoughts, and called the attention of the public to every felicity of his style or reflection by a pugnacious manner, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... not your anxious Mind perturb Should Grammar's Law your Diction fail to curb: Be comforted: it is like Tacitus: Tis mostly done by leaving ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... father, Edmund, and but for the inherited splendor of his name it is not likely that he would ever have attained great eminence as an actor. His Wolsey and his Richard (the Second, not the Third) were his best parts, perhaps because in them his beautiful diction had full scope and his limitations were not noticeable. But it is more as a stage reformer than as an actor that he will be remembered. The old happy-go-lucky way of staging plays, with its sublime indifference to correctness of detail and its utter disregard of archaeology, had received ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... united; and literature owes him a debt for importing into it so much of the highest scientific habit of mind; for showing that truthfulness need not be bald, and that real power lies more in exact accuracy than in luxuriance of diction. ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... establishment facilitated their spread. Settlers, who delighted in their controversies, or dreaded their censure, subscribed to them all. With a few honorable exceptions they rivalled each other in recklessness of statement and roughness of diction. No lover of truth will accept their testimony, or transmit their praises. They were often what they were denominated by the chief justice—"a ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... i. p. 9.) In this passage Mr. Hume has given a summary of the Life of Agricola. It is extended by Tacitus in a style more open than the didactic form of the essay on the German Manners required, but still with the precision, both in sentiment and diction, peculiar to the author. In rich but subdued colors he gives a striking picture of Agricola, leaving to posterity a portion of history which it would be in vain to seek in the dry gazette style of Suetonius, or in the page of any writer ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... said, in the same language, forgetting himself, in the excitement of the moment, and unconsciously using the same figurative diction, "or the fountain of the red stream may be dried up before the medicine-man comes. Hasten! It is noble to do good, and the Great Spirit ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... poetical works there is not much upon which the critic can exercise his powers. They are often humorous, almost always light, and have the qualities which recommend such compositions, easiness and gaiety. They are, for the most part, what their author intended. The diction is correct, the numbers are smooth, and the rhymes exact. There seldom occurs a hard laboured expression or a redundant epithet; all his verses exemplify his own definition of a good style—they consist of 'proper words in ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... one thing that makes history interesting. Cowper puts on paper a fine breezy English contempt for the submissiveness and ultra-royalism of the pre-Revolutionary French—and lives to wonder at the course of events. Macaulay's diction rolls like the swelling of Jordan, as he expatiates on the absolute subserviency, the settled incapacity for resistance, of the Bengalee—till presently the Mutiny (a near thing, in two widely different senses, and confined to the Bengalee ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... renderings given in Miss Cox's volume. I have only added the Caution Rhyme about returning at midnight, which is in prose in the versions; it would be incongruous for the little bird to change her mode of diction so suddenly. I can only hope I will not remind the reader of the guide's description of Wallenstein's horse at Prague: "The head, neck, forelegs, left hind-leg, and part of the back and tail have been restored; all the rest is ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... serves its purpose of illustration perfectly well, but considered as a separate story it is somewhat too explanatory in diction, and too condensed in form. Just as the long story is analysed for reduction of given details, so this must be analysed,—to find the details implied. We have to read into it again all that has ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... imagination after half a century of prose and rhetoric. He restored poetry to its true function as the confession of an individual soul. Wordsworth has blamed Gray for introducing, or at least, assisting to introduce, the curse of poetic diction into English literature. But poetic diction was in use long before Gray. He is remarkable among English poets, not for having succumbed to poetic diction, but for having triumphed over it. It is poetic feeling, not poetic diction, that ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... powers of his understanding; then, 'Oh, what a lucky fellow! Well, Fortune does favor fools—that's for certain! It is always so!' And forthwith the exclaimer relates half a dozen similar instances. Thus accumulating the one sort of facts and never collecting the other, we do, as poets in their diction, and quacks of all denominations do in their reasoning, put a part ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... paraphrase. Her French was of that mixed creole sort, a blending of linguistic elegance and patois, impossible to imitate. Like herself it was beautiful, crude, fascinating, and something in it impressed itself as unimpeachable, despite the broken and incongruous diction. Rene felt his soul cowering, even slinking; but he fairly maintained a good face, and went away ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... offer to Dorothy. He was aware that he need not be very particular about his words, as Dorothy, from the bashfulness of her nature, would be no judge of eloquence at such a time. But still, for his own sake, there should be some form of expression, some propriety of diction. Before eleven o'clock he had it all by heart, and had nearly freed himself from the uneasiness of his falsehood to Arabella. He had given much serious thought to the matter, and had quite resolved that he was right in his purpose, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... may turn to Le Chiffre d'Amour, or the "Lady carving an initial," as the prosaic diction of the Wallace Collection has it (No. 382). In this the equal delicacy of the sentiment and of the painting combine to effect a little masterpiece of Louis Quinze art. It is simple and natural, and entirely free from the besetting sins of so slight a picture triviality, ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... virtue, of liveliness and spirit, accomplished and agreeable, happy in himself and a blessing to others." Such a portrait of "a man of true honour" provoked the highest enthusiasm in the eighteenth century; but to-day we have little patience for the faultless diction and exemplary conduct of Sir Charles, and, of the two, Miss Byron, the heroine, is by far the more interesting. The "advertisement" to the edition of 1818 proclaimed the book "the most perfect work of its kind that ever appeared ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... unequivocal applause. His theory on this subject has been disputed, and is obviously disputable; but it was chiefly written at the age of nineteen; it has never been wholly superseded, and, for elegance of diction, has never been equaled. It brought him into immediate intercourse with all that may be called the fashion of literature—Lyttleton, Warburton, Soame Jenyns, Hume, Reynolds, Lord Bath, Johnson, the greatest though ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... lack that clinching power that stretches the interest taut. Many scenes are admirably spectacular, suggestive of richly decorated tapestries, which hang separately in spacious rooms; but the plays need more forceful dramatic action, moving through changes to a climax. Phillips's diction, though sometimes rhetorical, is also often ornately beautiful and highly poetical. We feel that even in his plays, he is greater as a poet than ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... beloved, to you, a woman of such great soul, that I could do this thing...I should be utterly wretched...But I'm not." He spoke slowly and deliberately, as one having ample time, and with the diction of earlier years. "I should be scouring the valleys with a troop of men, hunting for our money. But I'm not. It seems such a puny thing, it's hardly worth the while—except for the happiness it might bring to you, ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... Reason, rhetoric, pathos, poetry, diction, gesture, wit and humor, each has its place on the platform. While logic sounds the depths of thought, humor ripples its surface with laughing wavelets. While reason cultivates the cornfields of the mind, rhetoric beautifies the ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... enacted prophecies of the later prophets. For the rest, we are quite weary of Mr. Laing, and are content to have shown that everywhere he is the same biassed, inconsequent, untrustworthy writer. His only power is a certain superficial clearness of diction and brilliancy of style, and this is brought to bear on a mass of information drawn confessedly from the labours of others, and selected in the interest of a foregone conclusion, without a single attempt at a fair ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... brought into comparison with those of Ginevra Fanshawe, and had so signally prevailed; she had much to tell me of her travels in the interval. A most animated, rapid speaker was she in such a tete-a- tete, a most lively describer; yet with her artless diction and clear soft voice, she never seemed to speak too fast or to say too much. My own attention I think would not soon have flagged, but by-and-by, she herself seemed to need some change of subject; she hastened to wind up ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... you;—though, I know, to divide him inventorially would dizzy the arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of great article, and his infusion of such dearth and rareness as, to make true diction of him, his semblable is his mirror, and who else would trace him, his ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... parts—that which we receive from the excitement of Passion or emotion—that which is derived from the play of Imagination, or the easy exercise of Reason—and that which depends on the character and qualities of the Diction. The two first are the vital and primary springs of poetical delight, and can scarcely require explanation to any one. The last has been alternately overrated and undervalued by the professors of the poetical art, and is in such low estimation with the author now before us and his ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... but few, since most of the necessary instruction he imparted in person, and, without pedantic terminology and inflated diction and views, could so transmit to his listeners the inmost spirit of a lesson that even the youngest present absorbed its essential elements. Also, of studies he selected none but those which may help a boy to become a good citizen; and therefore most of the lectures which he delivered consisted ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... waters of which one's friends are the protecting headlands. That I knew my work to be exceedingly faulty goes without saying; that it was utterly bad, I was scarcely ready to believe. Dr. Field, noted for his pure English diction and taste, would not publish an irredeemable story, and the constituency of the New York "Evangelist" is well known to be one of the most intelligent in the country. Friendly opinions from serial readers were reassuring as far as they went, but of ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... the latter part of the book Schummel resumes his original narrative, and indulges once more in the luxury of sentimental adventure, but without the former abortive attempts at imitating Sterne's peculiarities of diction. This last resumption of the sentimental creed introduces to us one event evidently inspired by Yorick: he meets a poor, maimed soldier-beggar. Since misfortune has deprived the narrator himself of his possessions, he can give nothing and goes a begging for the beggar's sake, introducing ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... dehumanized mysticism of many of his associates. In that memorable preface to his Poems he wrote what was a slogan, a manifesto and at the same time a classic credo for all that we call the "new" poetry. "I have often thought," it begins, "that at the side of poetic diction, which everyone condemns, modern verse contains a great deal of poetic material, using 'poetic' in the same special sense. The poetry of exaltation will be always the highest; but when men lose their poetic feeling for ordinary life and cannot write poetry of ordinary things, their exalted ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... carried the use of the English language to the greatest height of which it was capable. He employed 15,000 words. "The last act of 'Othello' is a rare specimen of Shakespeare's diction: of every five nouns, verbs, and adverbs, four are ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... that though he had written speeches for and given grammar lessons to New York members of Congress, the composing a suitable reply on such an occasion as this alarmed him not a little. In truth, such little things belonged entirely to polite society, and required a grace and diction rarely attained by politicians. Indeed, he regretted much that he was not where he could obtain the services of one of those New York critics, who, being the sons and grandsons of poor bishops, write learned book notices by the yard, and get up addresses for distinguished actresses, who deliver ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... in the first, I have given Lady Charlotte Guest's translation exactly as she wrote it. It would have been easy to make it a more faithful reproduction of the Welsh by occasionally changing a word, or by making a phrase more simple in diction. But the reader would not have forgiven me for placing before him a translation that was not Lady Charlotte Guest's. I have again ventured, however, after a careful comparison of the translation with the original, to put in the form of footnotes a more accurate or more literal rendering ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards |
