"Preface" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an account is given in the preface to the notes, and the few other old tunes which do not fall into either of the two above-mentioned classes, were included for the ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... the dust and to brush out all the nooks and corners," she used to say to Theodora and Ellen; and when, at stated intervals, it became necessary, in her opinion, to clean the wood-house and other out-buildings, or the cellar, she would generally preface the announcement by saying to them at the breakfast table, "You must get me some broom-stuff, to-day, some of that green cedar down in the swamp below the pasture. I want enough for two or three brooms. Sprig off a ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... in the Preface to his Spiritism and Psychology, made the remark: "It will be a great day when the subliminal psychology of Myers and his followers, and the abnormal psychology of Freud and his school, succeed in meeting, and will supplement and complete one another. That will be a great forward ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... work of the learned Icelander exhibits) 'a text formed according to his ideas of Anglo-Saxon, and accompanied by his Latin translation, both the one and the other standing equally in need of an Oedipus.' —Edition of 1855, Preface, xiv. ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... though ordinarily invisible, to have had the faculty of rendering themselves visible when they thought proper, and assuming what shape they pleased. These are principally known by the names of Peris, Dives, [146] and Gins, or Genii. Richardson, in the preface to his Persian Dictionary, from which our account will principally be taken, refers us to what he calls a romance, but from which he, appears to derive the outline of his Persian mythology. In this romance Kahraman, a mortal, is introduced ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... you silly girl?" said Mowbray, gently disengaging himself from her hold.—"What is it you can have to ask that needs such a solemn preface?—Remember, I hate prefaces; and when I happen to open ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... In his clear preface, Gilbert Murray says with truth that The Trojan Women, valued by the usage of the stage, is not a perfect play. "It is only the crying of one of the great wrongs of the world wrought into music." Yet it is one of the greater dramas ...
— The Trojan women of Euripides • Euripides
... introduction or explanation on ushering a volume into the world of letters; but, lest the question arise as regards the direct intention or motive of an author, it is always safer that he make a plain statement of his object, in the preface page of his work, thus making sure that he will be ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... the History of the Reign of King Edward the Fourth, and that in a style sufficiently florid, yet not altogether pleasing the ear, but as much informing the mind, so that we may say of that Kings Reign, as Mr. Daniel saith in his Preface to his History of England, That there was never brought together more of the main. He also wrote a Tragi-Comedy, called, the Queen of Arragon, which as having never seen, I can give no great ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... he was in a playful mood, he said he believed he could repeat the heads of all the chapters of the four volumes which he straightway did. He occasionally read novels, but was quite indifferent whether he began with the second or the first volume; and I heard him commend highly the preface of the late novel attributed to Sir Walter Scott, called Moredun, as a fine piece of special pleading, declaring that its author would make a good special pleader. I have spoken already of the hearty praise ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... of the feelings of the principal personages, is, in this instance, very awkwardly introduced. A stranger, while contemplating a famous picture of the Rape of Europa in the Temple of Astarte at Sidon, is accosted by a young man, who, after a few incidental remarks, proceeds, without further preface, to recount his adventures at length to this casual acquaintance. This communicative gentleman is, of course, Clitophon; but before we proceed to the narrative of his loves and woes, we shall give a specimen of the author's powers in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... should here say something, in the way of preface, concerning correspondence; but the subject does not properly belong to the present work. The nature and meaning of correspondence may be seen in a brief summary above, n. 76, and n. 342; and fully in the APOCALYPSE REVEALED, from ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... liked to provide this collection of "Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews," with a Dedication and a Preface. In the former, I should have asked you to allow me to associate your name with the book, chiefly on the ground that the oldest of the papers in it is a good deal younger than our friendship. In the latter, I intended to comment upon certain criticisms ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... to state at the outset, that this preface does not in the least represent the book as it naturally strikes the reader. Women may read carelessly, as they have been accused of doing in this instance, but when hundreds of women, writing from all parts of the country, in private and in public, and without concert with each other, all testify ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... of the "Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley" calls for a few words by way of preface, for there existed a particular relationship between the English writer ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... Monch von Carmel.'—These letters of Schiller were found among his papers at his death; rescued from destruction by two of his executors, and published at Carlsruhe, in a small duodecimo, in the year 1819. There is a verbose preface, but no note or comment, though some such aid is now and then a ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... that tawdry man of genius, Jules Janin, who writes theatrical reviews for the Debats, has divine intimations; and there is scarce a beggarly, beardless scribbler of poems and prose, but tells you, in his preface, of the saintete of the sacerdoce litteraire; or a dirty student, sucking tobacco and beer, and reeling home with a grisette from the chaumiere, who is not convinced of the necessity of a new "Messianism," and will hiccup, to such as will listen, chapters ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the Wildcat's car he encountered a locked door. Inside the car, on a seat beside the rag-head Hindoo, the Wildcat curled himself up as a preface to twelve long chapters of ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... late, and such a mass of ill-digested information on the subject has been printed, that we shall not plunge into any discussion relating to the conflicting opinions of the moderns, but proceed, without preface, to supply an accurate history of the ancient canal which connected the Nile with the Red Sea.[1] We are satisfied that any exact knowledge of what actually existed in former times, and the precise object of the ancient ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... of dignified despondency which pervades this remarkable preface tells us much. That the republican historian was no timid or time-serving flatterer of prince or public is more than clear, while his unerring judgment of the future should bring much of respect for his judgment of the past. When he wrote, ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... the second book, that on the philosophy of the organism, to read in its preface that a much-to-be-honoured British nobleman had established a foundation of lectures in a Scotch University for forwarding the study of a Natural Theology. The term possessed me. Unlike the old theology woven of myths and a fanciful ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a species of preface, the general effect of which is that the copy is not that actually taken in court, though it is a true copy in regard to the notes of what was said; but that the writer has added to it some 'remarkable passages' that took place during the trial, and has made this present fair copy of the whole, ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... that when my great-grandfather began to write this book, his thoughts were centred on the objective which he describes in his own Preface—the diversion to Australia of some part of the stream of emigration then running from the British Isles to North America. Perhaps, even more urgently, he may have wanted to forestall any British tendency to withdraw from the colony and abandon ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... which presides to-day over the formation of the embryo, is also manifested in the successive development of the numerous creation which have formerly peopled the earth." Agassiz says himself in his Preface: "I have succeeded in expressing the laws of succession and of the organic development of fishes during all geological epochs; and science may henceforth, in seeing the changes of this class from formation to formation, follow the progress of organization in one great ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... Venetian, in the service of Don Henry of Portugal, informs us in his preface, that he was the first navigator from the noble city of Venice, who had sailed on the ocean beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, to the southern parts of Negroland, and Lower Ethiopia. These voyages ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... the state of anti-slavery opinions in this country just prior to the year 1800. In this examination I shall make use of a very rare pamphlet in the library of General Washington, which seems to have escaped the notice of writers on this subject; and shall preface my remarks on the main topic of discussion with a brief description ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... charge, religion as such, then, is not to blame. Yet of the charge that over-zealousness or fanaticism is one of her liabilities we cannot wholly acquit her, so I will next make a remark upon that point. But I will preface it by a preliminary remark which connects itself ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... evil destiny overtook them before their thoughts could get themselves executed. We opened one volume with eagerness, bearing the title of 'Voyages to the North-west,' in hope of finding our old friends Davis and Frobisher. We found a vast unnecessary Editor's Preface: and instead of the voyages themselves, which with their picturesqueness and moral beauty shine among the fairest jewels in the diamond mine of Hakluyt, we encountered an analysis and digest of their results, which Milton was called in to justify ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... publishers of Pamela have preferred to print Richardson's table of contents from the sixth edition, his complete introduction (his preface, together with letters to the editor and comments) is missing even from some of our best collections. Occasionally one finds the preface and the first two letters, but only four publishers since Richardson have attempted to reprint the full introduction. ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... to struggle gradually along; at last we arrived in that Stronghold, where [as preface to the War of 1734, known to some ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... carried a newspaper in his hand. Big men are not usually excitable, but the blue eyes of this Hercules were ablaze with suppressed emotion. In a voice that sounded like a cathedral bell, he said, without preface or introduction, so that the room rang again, "Listen. 'Gold discovery in the Eastern ranges. There has arrived in town a lucky digger who is said to have sold, this morning, some 800 ounces of gold to the Kangaroo ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... the consternation of all hands, our old friend "the Bore," familiarly known as "the old Auger," opens his mouth to tell us of a little incident illustrative of his personal prowess, and, by way of preface, commences at Eden, and goes laboriously through the patriarchal age, on through the Mosaic dispensation, to the Christian era, takes in Grecian and Roman history by the way, then Spain and Germany and England and colonial times, and the early history of our grand republic, the causes of and ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... after year, that I make, to hold intercourse with his mind. Always some weary captious paradox to fight you with, and the time and temper wasted." "It is curious," he again says, "that Thoreau goes to a house to say with little preface what he has just read or observed, delivers it in a lump, is quite inattentive to any comment or thought which any of the company offer on the matter, nay, is merely interrupted by it, and when he has finished his report ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... Preface to the first volume of this series for the occurrence of repetitions, is even more needful here I am afraid. But it could hardly be otherwise with speeches and essays, on the same topic, addressed at intervals, ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... trusted me with the choice and arrangement of these papers, written before you departed to the South Seas, and have asked me to add a preface to the volume. But it is your prose the public wish to read, not mine; and I am sure they will willingly be spared the preface. Acknowledgments are due in your name to the publishers of the several magazines from which the papers ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that this life was but a short preface to a new existence which began the moment Death had entered the house. Until at last, the life of the future came to be regarded as more important than the life of the present and the people of Egypt turned their teeming ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon
... the Baconians, made no pretence of impartiality, and says outright in his preface that his readers 'must not expect to find in these pages an equal and impartial leaning of the judge alternately to the case of both parties, as would, I hope, be found in any judicial summing-up of the evidence in a real judicial inquiry.' And, ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... In the preface the author quaintly admits that "many have found a defect in this work that maps were not adjoined, which do allure the eyes by pleasant portraitures, ... yet my ability could not compass it." They must, then, have been added at the last by a generous afterthought, ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... These rules form the Preface to modern editions of the Index. The one I use is dated Naples, 1862. They are also printed in vol. iv. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Preface and volume were going through the Press, Austria-Hungary and Germany surrendered, and unprecedented revolutions broke out which swept the Hapsburg, the Hohenzollern, and all the other German dynasties away. No one can foresee ...
— The League of Nations and its Problems - Three Lectures • Lassa Oppenheim
... reorganisation was merely a part. One of the cleverest characterisations of the Emperor Augustus which has ever been written was that by the late Professor Mommsen, but its relatively secluded position in the Latin preface to an edition of Augustus's great autobiography, the Res Gestae, has prevented it from being generally known. Mommsen describes Augustus as "a man who wore most skilfully the mask of a great man, though himself not great." This epigrammatic statement is undoubtedly clever but it is not ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... In his own preface Mr. Ruskin has told us all that in 1856 it was necessary to know of the genesis of the Harbors. That account may now be supplemented with the following additional facts. In 1826 Turner (in conjunction with Lupton, the ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... As a preface to the account of the Ethical Systems, and a principle of arrangement, for the better comparing of them, we shall review in order the questions that arise in ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... to these, there is his well-known treatise "On the Fairies of Popular Superstition," prefaced to "The Tale of Tamlane," wherein he states that "the most distinct account of the duergar [i.e. dwergs, or dwarfs], or elves, and their attributes, is to be found in a preface of Torfaeus to the history of Hrolf Kraka [Copenhagen, 1715], who cites a dissertation by Einar Gudmund, a learned native of Iceland. 'I am firmly of opinion,' says the Icelander, 'that these beings are creatures of God, consisting, like human beings, ...
— Fians, Fairies and Picts • David MacRitchie
... we met Frances Power Cobbe, author of that admirable book, "Intuitive Morals." In her preface to the English edition of Theodore Parker's works, of which she is the editor, Miss Cobbe has shown herself as large by the heart as she is by the head. That sunny day in Florence, when she, one of a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... integrity. He had not accepted office without a full perception of its difficulties. He saw all that had to be done, and applied himself to putting the finances of the nation on a healthy footing, as an indispensable preface to other reforms equally necessary. He easily secured the co-operation of the king and queen, Louis cheerfully adopting the retrenchments which he recommended, though some of them, such as the reduction in the hunting establishment, touched ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... Biographical, Political, Social, Literary, and Scientific. By Hugh Miller. Edited, with a Preface, by Peter Bayne. Boston. Gould & ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... not succeed entirely. We believe, with Mr Lewes, that the perfect accomplishment of this task is impossible, and that Goethe's work is fully intelligible only to the German scholar. But, at the same time, Mr Blackie fully succeeded in the aim which he set before him. He says in the preface, "The great principle on which the excellence of a poetical translation depends, seems to be, that it should not be a mere transposing, but a re-casting, of the original. On this principle, it has been my first and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... 1632. There is some uncertainty as to this date, as there are several dates fixed by different authors, both for his birth and death, but we have adopted the biography given by Dr. C. H. Bruder, in the preface to his edition of Spinoza's works. His parents were Jews of the middle, or, perhaps, somewhat humbler class. His father was originally a Spanish merchant, who, to escape persecution, had emigrated to Holland. Although the life of our great philosopher is one full of interesting incidents, ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... inseparable from any translation of a German metaphysical treatise—has led us to the conviction that a paraphrase into a more easily understood form is a necessity, if the thought of Rosenkranz is to be appropriated by the very class who are most in need of it. As was remarked in the preface to the translation, we have in English no other work of similar size which contains so much that is valuable to those engaged in the work of education. It is no compendium of rules or formulas, but rather a systematic, logical treatment of the subject, ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... trades, yet could find no market for their book-knowledge. The same rail that brought me the letter from the Punjab, brought also a little book published by Messrs. Thacker, Spink & Co., of Calcutta, which interested me, for both its preface and its contents treated of this matter of over-education. In the preface occurs this paragraph from the Calcutta Review. For "Government office" read "drygoods clerkship" and it will fit more ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to the heart. It recalled his own sermon, spoken in Edmonton to his father's battalion. Immediately he was on his feet, and without preface or apology, reproduced as far as he was able the M. O.'s speech of the previous night, ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... life he himself has told most admirably in the preface to the first edition of Lis Isclo d'Or, published at Avignon in 1874. He was born in 1830, on the 8th day of September, at Maillane. Maillane is a village, near Saint-Remy, situated in the centre of a broad plain that lies at the foot of ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... thee thou shalt live half a year or two months longer? Art thou a wise man to let thy immortal soul hang over hell by a thread of uncertain time, which may soon be cut asunder by death?-(Bunyan's Preface ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... drunkard; occasionally whore and thief" (Boswell, May 8, 1781). The parallel would have been more nearly complete if Moll Cutpurse "had written her own Life in verse," and brought it to Selden or Bishop Hall with a request that he would furnish her with a preface ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... be said about this book in the shape of a preface. The superstition of the Evil Eye is, and has been, one of the most general that ever existed among men. It may puzzle philosophers to ask why it prevails wherever mankind exists. There is not a country on the face of the earth where a belief in the influence ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... a hint behind the letter that unless she had a satisfactory reply at once she or Uncle John would come up to London to see Joan for themselves! Joan could imagine the agitation and yet firm purpose which would preface the journey. She wrote hastily. She was perfectly happy and ridiculously underworked. Everyone was so good to her, one day soon she would take a day off and run down and see them, they should see how well ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... the preface to the volume on "American Founders" are applicable also to this volume on "American Leaders." The lecture on Daniel Webster has been taken from its original position in "Warriors and Statesmen" (a volume the lectures of which are now distributed ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... arm round Beth. The lawyer broke the seal, unfolded the will, and remarked by way of preface: "The document is in the handwriting of the ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... evil I mean that which we certainly know to be a hindrance to us in the attainment of any good. (Concerning these terms see the foregoing preface towards ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... later writings and the marvelous clearness of insight which was shown in his English Traits. Kingsley acquiesced in this, but referred to some American poetry, so called, which Emerson had lately edited, and in his preface had out-Heroded Herod. Kingsley said the poems were the production of a coarse, sensual mind. His reference, of course, was to Walt Whitman, and I had no defence to make. Of Lowell, Mr. Kingsley spoke very highly: his Fable for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... postman brought in a thin and sallow packet with a wonderful Indian postmark on it, and containing a most unattractive orange pamphlet of verse, printed at Bhowanipore, and entitled "A Sheaf gleaned in French Fields, by Toru Dutt." This shabby little book of some two hundred pages, without preface or introduction, seemed specially destined by its particular providence to find its way hastily into the waste-paper basket. I remember that Mr. Minto thrust it into my unwilling hands, and said "There! see whether you can't make something of that." ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... Preface. Chapter I. Introduction. 1. Object and Character of this Book. 2. Progress requires that we should look back as well as forward. 3. Orthodoxy as Right Belief. 4. Orthodoxy as the Doctrine of the Majority. Objections. 5. Orthodoxy as the Oldest Doctrine. Objections. 6. Orthodoxy ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... which was published in 1882 in a volume of over six hundred and fifty pages. She had a fine command of the English language and excellent literary discrimination in the use of its words, as appears everywhere in her writings and especially in the following tribute to her husband in the preface of his Life:— ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... solicitors, judges and juries and detectives; appointments in queer places to meet queer people—all this had passed before me with the rapidity of a landscape viewed from the window of an express train; and now that the chapter had closed, I found that it was but the preface to the real business I had set ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... debt," said Denzil, annoyed. "I wrote a book for him and he's taken all the credit for it, the rogue! My name doesn't appear even in the Preface. What's that ticket you're looking ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... introduced this subject in this place, as the preface to a series of remarks on that particular relation which every young woman— except, perhaps, a few who are situated like Fidelia—ought to be prepared to sustain, and to sustain well. Indeed, I consider this to be paramount, at a suitable age, to every other; ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... writing this preface for the conscious fool, but for his self-deceived brother who considers himself a very wise person. My hope is that some persons may recognise themselves and be provided with food for thought. They will usually be people who have contributed little to this ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... With this preface he briefly related the circumstances under which he had become possessed of the packet, and then handed it to Winterfield—with ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... you, monsieur, free from all preface, for that would be unworthy of you. Mademoiselle de la Valliere is in Paris as one of Madame's maids of honor. I have pondered deeply on the matter; I love Mademoiselle de la Valliere above everything; and it ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Shakspere's method is to depict a human soul in action, with all the pertinent play of circumstance, while Browning's is to portray the processes of its mental and spiritual development: as he said in his dedicatory preface to "Sordello," "little else is worth study." The one electrifies us with the outer and dominant actualities; the other flashes upon our mental vision the inner, complex, shaping potentialities. The one deals with life dynamically, the other with life as Thought. Both methods are compassed by ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... essentially spirited and intellectual, whose spirit and intellect have been invariably the wonder and admiration, if not the model and mold of contemporary thought, and whose literary triumphs remain to this day among the most notable landmarks of modern literature." * * *—Extract from Author's Preface. ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... last. He thought desperately that if he were to miss many more strokes the game must presently end, and an opportunity which might never recur pass beyond recall. He determined to tell her without preface that he adored her, but when he opened his lips a question came forth of its own accord relating to the Persian way of playing billiards. Gertrude had never been in Persia, but had seen some Eastern billiard cues in the India museum. Were not the Hindoos wonderful people for filigree work, ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... tells us of a rumour among his officers "that I spend my time composing poetry, especially during our battles." But that he did not write for the sake of writing must be clear to anyone who reads the book, even if the author had not declared his motive in the preface. Here he admits that, though "soldiers think of nothing so little as failure," it was in fact the thought of possible failure that determined him, at the very start, to prepare from day to day his defence. Perhaps this is not quite the attitude of one who stakes all upon the great chance. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... note met with a prompt answer; for, four days later, she writes (in reply to the letter which she afterwards characterised in the Preface to the second edition of "Wuthering Heights", as containing a refusal so delicate, reasonable, and courteous, as to be more cheering ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... question, flung out without any reverential preface, assumes that the character of God requires that the fate of the righteous should be distinguished from that of the wicked. The very brusqueness of the question shows that he supposed himself to be appealing to an elementary and indubitable law of God's dealings. The teachings of the Fall ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... than either of the other volumes of the series; his diary records that the work was accomplished within ten months, namely, between July 1844 and April 1845; but the book was not actually issued till late in the year following, the preface bearing the date "September 1846." Altogether, as Darwin informs us in his "Autobiography," the geological books "consumed four and a half years' steady work," most of the remainder of the ten years that elapsed between the return of the "Beagle," and the completion of his ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... called on him for a toast, which call was seconded by the company. He rose, and in his surprise asked if they were serious in making such a demand of so old a man, and being assured that they were, he said, if they would suspend their hilarity for a few moments, he would give them a toast and preface it with a few observations. Having thus secured a breathless stillness, he went on to remark, that they were then on the verge of the 22d of February, the anniversary of the birth of the great patriot and statesman ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... in her General Preface prefixed to the first volume of the reprint, in series, of her Novels and Romances, when giving an account of the circumstances on which she founded her very graphic and interesting romance ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... indiscretions denounced in the most awful terms as crimes of the deepest dye. Many an exordium she had listened to on the tearing of her frock, or the losing of her glove, that might have served as a preface to the "Newgate Calendar," "Colquhoun on the Police," or any other register of crimes. Still she had always been able to detect some clue to her own misdeeds; but here even conjecture was baffled, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... announces a revised edition of Mr. Elbert Pitts's Final Words on Religion, under the title of Antepenultimate Words on Religion. As Mr. Pitts observes in his arresting Preface, "Finality, in a time of upheaval, is a relative term, and I hope, at intervals of six months or so, to publish my penultimate, quasi-ultimate and paulo-post-ultimate views on the vital beliefs which underlie the fantastic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... translation of Herodotus does not justify itself, it will hardly be justified in a preface; therefore the question whether it was needed may be left here without discussion. The aim of the translator has been above all things faithfulness—faithfulness to the manner of expression and to the structure ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... has stated, in the preface to the Chronicles of the Canongate, 1827, that he received from an anonymous correspondent an account of the incident upon which the following story is founded. He is now at liberty to say, that the information was conveyed to him by a late amiable ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... best authority is J. de Araujo, whose monumental Bibliographia Inesiana was published in 1897. Mrs. Behn's novel was immensely popular and is included, with some unnecessary moral observations as preface, in Mrs. Griffith's A Collection of Novels (1777), Vol. III, which has a plate illustrating the tale. It was turned into French by Marie-Genevieve-Charlotte Tiroux d' Arconville (1720-1805), wife of a councillor of the Parliament, an aimable blue-stocking ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... This refers to the earliest English translation of Euclid by Billingsley, which was published in 1570, with a long preface by Dr. Dee. Professor De Morgan is of opinion that the translation also was by Dee, or that Billingsley may have been only a pupil who worked immediately under his directions. The passage to which Dee alludes is as follows:— "a man to be curstly affrayed of his owne shadow; ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee
... little old man who was explaining to him. Silently he led the way upstairs, and after he had seen the blanket pack deposited in one corner of Sarah's beloved guest-room, after he had seen the rusty coat peeled off as a preface to removing the dust accumulation of the long hot day from hands and face, an inspiration came to him. While the boy was washing, utterly lost to everything but that none-too-simple task, he went out of the room on a still-hunt of his own, and came back ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... sweeping a statement. But none of such motives could account for its praise by Mr. Beerbohm in the London "Saturday Review." "Max" is often paradoxical, but he is not paradoxical here: "Not long ago this play was published as a book, with a preface by Mr. George Moore, and it was more or less vehemently disparaged by the critics. Knowing that it was to be produced later in Dublin, and knowing how hard it is to dogmatize about a play until one has seen it acted, I confined myself ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... often takes place spontaneously, as when a problem left unsolved the night before yields its solution apparently by an inspiration when we arise in the morning. "Sleep on it" still remains the best counsel for those in perplexity, but they should preface their slumbers by the positive autosuggestion that on waking they will find the difficulty resolved. In this connection it is interesting to note that autosuggestion is already widely made use of as a means of waking at a particular hour. A person who falls ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... I shall not last very long. If I am wiped out, I think it will be the preface to trouble ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... Vijnana-Bhikshu (c. 1500) tries to explain away this atheism and to reconcile the Sankhya with the Vedanta. See Garbe's preface to ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... property, for fictitious purposes, as that of Smith. I have pacified him by a very polite and gentlemanly letter, and if ever you publish any more of the Seven Gables, I should like to write a brief preface, expressive of my anguish for this unintentional wrong, and making the best reparation possible else these wretched old Pyncheons will have no peace in the other world, nor in this. Furthermore, there is a Rev. Mr. ——, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... As when of old som Orator renound 670 In Athens or free Rome, where Eloquence Flourishd, since mute, to som great cause addrest, Stood in himself collected, while each part, Motion, each act won audience ere the tongue, Somtimes in highth began, as no delay Of Preface brooking through his Zeal of Right. So standing, moving, or to highth upgrown The Tempter all impassiond thus began. O Sacred, Wise, and Wisdom-giving Plant, Mother of Science, Now I feel thy Power 680 Within me cleere, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... of Greene's, either in December, 1592, or early in 1593,[5] published an address as a preface to his Kind-Harts Dreame, making a public apology to Shakespeare for allowing Greene's letter to come out with this insulting attack. He says: "With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... roysterer of the day, Mr. Richard Martin, in the Middle Temple Hall; but afterwards, on proper submission, he was readmitted. Davis afterwards reformed, and became the wise Attorney-General of Ireland. His biographer says, that the preface to his "Irish Reports" vies with Coke for solidity and Blackstone for elegance. Martin (whose monument is now hoarded up in the Triforium) also became a learned lawyer and a friend of Selden's, and was the person to whom ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... the sixty-seven mills named in the preface of this Report, showing how each mill is at this ...
— Report of the Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee • Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee
... lead the dance; be in the vanguard; introduce, usher in; have the pas; set the fashion &c (influence) 175; open the ball; take precedence, have precedence; have the start &c (get before) 280. place before; prefix; premise, prelude, preface. Adj. preceding &c v.; precedent, antecedent; anterior; prior &c 116; before; former; foregoing; beforementioned^, abovementioned^, aforementioned; aforesaid, said; precursory, precursive^; prevenient^, preliminary, prefatory, introductory; prelusive, prelusory; proemial^, preparatory. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... to a considerable doubt in Mamie's mind concerning "Yours respectfully," but she had finally let it stand, evidently convinced that the plain signature, without preface, savored of an ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... Indra, the Veda says. In that description is the preface to a theogony of which Hesiod wrote the final page. It was the germ of sacred dynasties that ruled the Aryan and the Occidental skies. From it came the grandiose gods of Greece and Rome. From it also came the paler deities of the Norse. Meanwhile ages fled. ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... scarcely finished dressing in the morning when my aunt came into my room, and after wishing me good-morning said, without any preface,— ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... legislator to have no preface to his laws, but to say at once Do this, avoid that—and then holding the penalty in terrorem, to go on to another law; offering never a word of advice or exhortation to those for whom he is legislating, after the manner of some ...
— Laws • Plato
... a boy, viz., a son of Dr. Prettyman, (afterwards Tomline,) Bishop of Winchester, and, in earlier times, private tutor to Mr. Pitt; they were published by Middleton, first Bishop of Calcutta, in the preface to his work on the Greek article; and for racy idiomatic Greek, self-originated, and not a mere mocking- bird's iteration of alien notes, are so much superior to all the attempts of these sexagenarian doctors, as distinctly to mark the growth of a new era and a new generation ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... alone when he received the latter of these letters. At first, a look divided between irony and melancholy passed over his face, as he read his sister's preface and her hearsay evidence, but, as he went farther, his upper lip curled, and a sudden gleam, as of exultation in a verified prophecy, lighted his eye, shading off quickly, however, and giving place to an iron expression of rigidity ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stern as its author, and embodying some of his political prejudices, it was at least a solid piece of work, which succeeded at once, and soon became the standard book upon the subject. Mill argues in the preface with characteristic courage that his want of personal knowledge of India was rather an advantage. It made him impartial. A later editor[19] has shown that it led to some serious misconceptions. It is characteristic of the Utilitarian attitude ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... once, without any explanation or preface, Sallie began calling upon Mrs. Mayo and sending her flowers from her conservatories. Often when Sallie came to see me her coachman had orders to be at Mrs. Mayo's disposal, to take the children for a drive, while Sallie and I sat and talked about everything except why she ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... dedicated to Dr. Babington, "in remembrance of some delightful days passed in his society, and in gratitude for an uninterrupted friendship of a quarter of a century;" and in the preface the author, after saying that the characters are imaginary, intimates that "in the portrait of HALIEUS, given in the last dialogue, a likeness, he thinks, will not fail to be recognised to that of a most estimable physician, ardently beloved by his friends, and esteemed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... preface to the Life of Lord Keeper Guilford, by Roger North, it appears that Dudleys youngest daughter of Charles, and granddaughter of Dudley Lord ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... FIXED STARS, reduced to January 1, 1850: together with their Annual Precessions, Secular Variations, and Proper Motions, as well as the Logarithmic Constants for computing Precession, Aberration and Nutation: with a Preface explanatory of their Construction and Application. By the late FRANCIS BAILY, Esq., D.C.L. Oxford and Dublin; President of the Royal Astr. Soc. &c. ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... preface to the Lion of the North I expressed a hope that I might some day be able to continue the history of the Thirty Years' War. The deaths of Gustavus and his great rival Wallenstein and the crushing defeat of the Swedes and their allies at the battle ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... in his thirty-eighth year, set to work at Oulton upon his "Bible in Spain," which was published by Mr. John Murray, three years later, in 1843. Of his method, or lack of method, in working, something may be gathered from the preface to the second edition of "The Zincali," which was written about the time of the issue of the former book. Mr. Murray had advised him to try his hand at something different from his "sorry trash" {41} about gipsies, and write a work that would ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... dinner, where Betty Turner dined with us, and after dinner carried my wife, her and Deb. to the 'Change, where they bought some things, while I bought "The Mayden Queene," a play newly printed, which I like at the King's house so well, of Mr. Dryden's, which he himself, in his preface, seems to brag of, and indeed is a good play. So home again, and I late at the office and did much business, and then home ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... in their Utopias, have also expressed similar ideas, and they were also current in the 18th century amongst the French Encyclopaedists, as may be concluded from separate expressions occasionally met with in the writings of Rousseau, from Diderot's Preface to the Voyage of Bougainville, and so on. However, in all probability such ideas could not be developed then, owing to the rigorous censorship of the Roman Catholic ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... behind him fairly transcribed, and most of them corrected as for the press. All these, now first collected together, form the contents of the last two volumes.[2] They are disposed in chronological order, with the exception of the "Preface to Brissot's Address," which having appeared in the author's lifetime, and from delicacy not being avowed by him, did not come within the plan of this edition, but has been placed at the end of the last volume, on its being found deficient ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... look?" demanded Mrs. Fosdick, without preface, as our large hostess returned to the little room with a mist about her from standing long in the wet doorway, and the sudden draught of her coming beat out the smoke and flame from the Franklin stove. ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... family. The count had already sent to solicit my interest, through the mediation of madame de Monaco, mistress to the prince de Conde; and, as I shrewdly suspect, the occasional of himself. Finding this measure did not produce all the good he expected, he came, without further preface, to speak to me himself about it. Unwilling to come to an open rupture with him, I endeavoured to make him comprehend, that the policy of the sovereign would never permit his placing any of the administrative power in the hands ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... met with a prompt answer; for, four days later, she writes (in reply to the letter she afterward characterized in the Preface to the second edition of "Wuthering Heights," as containing a refusal so delicate, reasonable, and courteous as to be more cheering than ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... are chiefly extracted from the preface to the books of the Princess, written by the Marquess de Fortia. This nobleman generously took upon himself the charge of supporting Aline, who has now attained the age of sixty years in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various
... With this preface we shall now introduce the reader to the inside of one of these concert saloons, and show him the pretty waiter girl as his fancy pictures her, and as she really is: Chancing to walk along the street, the ears ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... keeps me here. I have often admired your courtesy, which has made no attempts to discover my antecedents; it is not the usual characteristic of our nation. If you are disposed to hear, I am willing to give you a little autobiographical outline, which is a necessary preface to a request which I am going to ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... vibrate subtly with what I can only call the sense of the Eternal. How beautiful, how consoling, that her last book should have been that translation, such as only one who was at once true poet and true scholar could have made, of the sweetest medieval elegy 'The Pearl'!" And Miss Bates, in her preface to the posthumous volume of "Folk-Ballads of Southern Europe", illumines for us the scholarship which went into these close and ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... In the preface of Dr. Guyer's remarkable book, "Being Well Born," we read the following: "It is no exaggeration to say that during the last fifteen years, we have made more progress in measuring the extent of inheritance and ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... Mr Stevenson made the acquaintance of Mr Sydney Colvin and a life-long friendship ensued. The older man was of great use in many ways to the younger, whose genius he early discovered, and whose leaning to literature he encouraged. In the interesting preface to The Vailima Letters Mr Colvin tells of his help in that time of trial, and that he used his influence to persuade the parents that Louis had found his real vocation in literature, and ought to follow it. No doubt when the large and full Life of Mr Stevenson, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... Let me preface my few hints by saying that all patients and patients' friends expect the nurse to know all about the diseases and their cures, the care and management of the sick,—that is common, ordinary nurses' business,—but there too many nurses stop; they often can go no further; ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... designate, without violating any confidence, as Mr. George Sidney Fisher, devotes an elaborate preface, which is itself a third essay, to discussing the invasion of Virginia by John Brown and the Southern threats of secession, drawing from the foray of Harper's Ferry a conclusion very different from that of the disunionists. In his ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... cases, there was a similar confusion between the syllables Jut- and Vit-. This is an error into which even a careful writer might fall. That Beda had no authentic historical accounts of the conquest of Britain, we know from his own statements in the Preface to his Ecclesiastical History,[14] and that he partially tried to make up for the want of them by inference is exceedingly likely. If so, what would be more natural than for him to conclude that Jutes as well as Angles helped to subdue the country. The fact itself was probable; besides ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... Adolphe Mabille, a devoted missionary of the Societe des Missions Evangeliques of Paris, who worked with great success in Basutoland. His life is written by Mr. Dieterlen (a name well known and highly esteemed in France), and the book has a preface by the famous ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... is that no one in the world has a nicer sense of the beauty of SHAKSPEARE'S verse than Mr. BARKER. Indeed he protests in his preface: "They (the fairies) must be not too startling.... They mustn't warp your imagination—stepping too boldly between SHAKSPEARE'S spirit and yours." (The italics are my own comment.) He is of course free, within limits, to choose his own ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... the occurrences were many of them such as the record authenticated; the localities were drawn largely from nature. The story betrays marks of haste or carelessness in some portions, though others are elaborately studied. His preface shows that the reception of his first book had made him timid and sensitive about the fate of the second, and explains and excuses what might be found fault with, to disarm the criticism he had ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... VOLTAIRE, his charming, if possibly rare, acts of magnanimity, his moderation in war, which was not all hypocrisy. In fact, if you expect an ogre you will be disappointed. He could give the latest Hohenzollern points in a good many directions. I ought, of course, to add that a learnedly allusive preface by Lord ROSEBERY graces the volume, and that the very competent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... "Contes Drolatiques," those Rabelaisian stories in old French tracing the progress of the language, which he often declared would be his principal claim to fame. In 1842 the name "La Comedie Humaine" was after much consideration given to the whole structure, and in the preface he explains this title by saying: "The vastness of a plan which includes Society's history and criticism, the analysis of its evils, the discussion of its principles, justifies me, I think, in giving to my work the name under which it is appearing to-day—'The Human Comedy.' Pretentious, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... common practice of stealing other men's wit, would if he could with the same safety, steal anything else." Shadwell mentions, however, nothing of borrowing from The Misanthrope and The Forced Marriage. The preface was, besides political difference, the chief cause of the quarrel between Shadwell and Dryden; for in it the former defends Ben Jonson against the latter, and mentions that—"I have known some of late so insolent to say that Ben Jonson wrote his best playes without wit, imagining ...
— The Bores • Moliere
... a refuge from it by turning the leaves of a book upon the table, which was a complete edition of Harry Denham's Poems, with a preface by a man named Lydiard; and really, to read the preface one would suppose that these poets were the princes of the earth. Lord Romfrey closed the volume. It was exquisitely bound, and presented ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... these imputations being credited. He wrote a treatise, entitled Frequent and Daily Communion, which was likewise approved by some of the most learned of the Romish clergy. This was printed with his Spiritual Guide, in the year 1675; and in the preface to it he declared, that he had not written it with any design to engage himself in matters of controversy, but that it was drawn from him by the earnest solicitations of ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... that a man, who had once been unfaithful to his king and country, where he had been loaded with favours, would certainly betray, for his own private interest, every state where he was trusted. He continued his preface, by speaking of the rapid progress I had made in Russia, and the free entrance I had found in the chancellor's house, where I was received as a son, and initiated in the secrets ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... wandered all over the universe to establish his philosophy, and in his reply Engels would have to follow him. So far from this deterring Engels, it was just this which made his task attractive. He says in his preface of 1892: ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... volume of the Picturesque Annual. The Public are stated, in its preface, to have contributed from ten to twelve thousand guineas to the support of last year's volume; and we are inclined to think, that, in his next, the Editor will have the gratification of reporting still more ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... with the tissue of the story, just because such things cannot be told or heard without a quickening of the pulse, a glow upon the cheek, a beating in the heart. Otherwise we shall attempt to be "such an honest chronicler as Griffith." It is indispensable, however, not only to preface the details of the campaign with a concise description of the condition of the disordered and degraded people whom our enmity and vengeance smote so heavily; but likewise to explain, with some degree of minuteness, the views and purposes which, from first to last, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... compositions, and endeavoured to correct rather than encourage the taste of the day. To this I would answer, that it is easier to perceive the wrong than to pursue the right, and that I have never contemplated the prospect 'of filling (with Peter Bell, see its Preface,) permanently a station in the literature of the country.' Those who know me best, know this, and that I have been considerably astonished at the temporary success of my works, having flattered no person and no party, and expressed ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... of all data for future guidance,—namely, the actual sickness experience of the Order. An elaborate series of tables has accordingly been prepared and published for their information by Mr. Ratcliffe, the corresponding secretary, at an expense of about L3,500. In the preface to the last edition it is stated that "this sum has not been abstracted from the funds set apart for relief during sickness, for assurances at death, or for providing for necessitous widows and orphans, but from ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... to epic poetry is much the same as the critic whom Lucien Buonaparte has quoted in his preface. Epic poetry, of the highest class, requires in the first place an action eminently influential, an action with a grand or sublime train of consequences; it next requires the intervention and guidance ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... epitaphs," we invite our many guests to a simple "dinner of herbs." Such was man's primitive food in Paradise: "every green herb bearing seed, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed:" "the green herb for meat for every beast of the earth, and every fowl of the air." What better Preface can we indite than a grace to be said before sitting down to the meal? "Sallets," it is hoped, will be found "in the lines to make the matter savoury." Far be it from our object to preach a prelude of texts, or to weary those at our board I with a meaningless long ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... involves the only point of any importance to me personally in this preface—I would say that there will be certain readers who will perhaps think that I have exaggerated my life-work, or blown my own trumpet too loudly. To these I declare in plain honesty, that I believe there have been or are in the United States thousands ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... my husband's intention to substitute this Preface, written a few days before his death, for all former Prefaces. As, however, he had not the opportunity of revising the old prefatory pages himself, they have been allowed to remain just as they ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... the late M. Frederic Bastiat. Translated from the Paris edition of 1863, with Preface by Horace White. New York: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... of this work, details are given the accompanying Preface, by the noble Editor—Lord Braybrooke. The diarist—Mr. Secretary Pepys—was a great virtuoso in collections of English history, both by land and sea, much relating to the admiralty and maritime affairs. He gathered very much from records ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... of prefaces is, for the most part, work thrown away; and the writing of a preface to a novel is almost always a vain thing. Nevertheless, I am tempted to prefix a few words to this novel on its completion, not expecting that many people will read them, but desirous, in doing so, ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... that a preface or introduction of some sort is absolutely necessary to a book; why, I do not know, unless it be that it looks rather abrupt to begin one's story without a word as to the why or wherefore of its being written. This in the present case ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... and more came in as a sort of preface to what Many Bears really wanted to say. He had something very heavy on his mind that morning, and in order to get rid of it he had to tell the whole story of the buffalo-hunt his band had made away ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... lyre is strung to martial strains Of wars which sent our hero o'er the plains, To add the cypress to his laureled brow, Be brave, my Muse, and darker truths avow. Let Justice ask a preface to thy songs, Before the Indian's crimes declare his wrongs; Before effects, wherein all horrors blend, Declare the shameful cause, precursor ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... let me assure the suspicious reader, is his own and not an Erewhonian inversion), in a most informing preface to a new edition, makes two assertions which may serve as my excuse for again endeavoring to explain the fascination for our generation of the work of Samuel Butler. College professors, he avers, have an antipathy ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... him will no longer permit him to devote himself as in former days to discussions of pure reason; this very passion must be called to our aid if his attention is to be given to my teaching. That is why I made use of this terrible preface; I am quite sure he will listen ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... the constitution of Austria-Hungary see Ulbrich's Oesterreich-Ungarn in Marquardsen's Handbuch des Oeffentlichen Rechts; Francis Deak, with preface by M.E. Grant Duff; Home Rule in Austria-Hungary, by David King, in the Nineteenth ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... With Preface to Moliere's Works by Honore de Balzac, Criticisms on the Author by Sainte-Beuve, Portraits by Coypel and Mignard, and ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... prove that they are less concerned with form than are other poets. "The poet must learn his trade in the same manner, and with the same painstaking care, as the cabinet maker," says Amy Lowell. [Footnote: Preface to Sword Blades and Poppy Seed.] The disagreement among poets on this point is proving itself to be not so great as some had supposed. The ideal of most singers, did they possess the secret, is to do ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... a Bernard Shaw play, the preface may be the most important part of this "drama of nerves." Nor is the figure too far-fetched, because, strange as it may seem, every neurosis is in essence a drama. It has its conflict, its villain, ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... heretofore taken up too much room in your useful paper: I shall avoid it at present; and the rather, to afford you the opportunity of inserting an address "to the PROTESTANTS of the three Kingdoms, and the COLONIES"; being the preface to a late publication in London, containing a series of important letters of the Earl of Hillsborough, the Marquiss of Rockingham, and others, from a gentleman whose signature ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... page Preface. Claims and Influence of Evolution vii Introduction. The Meaning of Evolution xix Chapter I Evolution Is an Unproved Theory 5 Chapter II Evolution of the Universe and Earth 17 Chapter III Evolution of Species 26 Chapter IV Evolution of Man ...
— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant
... the least in rank, or the last to be solicited. The words, however, enable us to guess an upward limit for the date of the inception of the work. Absalon became Archbishop in 1179, and the language of the Preface (written, as we shall see, last) implies that he was already Archbishop when he suggested the History to Saxo. But about 1185 we find Sweyn Aageson complimenting Saxo, and saying that Saxo "had 'determined' to set forth all the deeds" of Sweyn Estridson, in his eleventh book, "at ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... honey of the preface, the sweet syrup intended to conceal the bitterness of the medicine that is to follow. Go on, ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... the Elegy in the London Magazine. The full title of that periodical was "The London Magazine: or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer." The editor's name was not given; the publisher was "R. Baldwin, jun. at the Rose in Pater-Noster Row." The volume for 1751 was the 20th, and the Preface (written at the close of the year) begins thus: "As the two most formidable Enemies we have ever had, are now extinct, we have great Reason to conclude, that it is only the Merit, and real Usefulness of our COLLECTION, ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... thought knows that the world only belongs to him as a subject of study, and, even if he could reform it, perhaps he would find it so curious as it is that he would not have the courage to do so."—Ernest Renan, preface to Etudes d'histoire religieuse, 1857. The author has manifested better sentiments in 1859, in the preface to his Essais de ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... treatise, however, takes things as they are. He proposes to save society from the multiplication of its Criminals by a remedy of the most radical kind. When he was good enough to ask me to write a preface for his book I hesitated somewhat. I read the substance of it in MS.S. and was deeply impressed by it. But still I am in some doubt. I am not quite prepared to accept at once Dr. Chapple's proposed remedy. Neither ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple
... Swedenborg is remarked upon by Schubert in his preface to the essay of Kant. He points out that 'it is interesting to compare the circumspection, the almost uncertainty of Kant when he had to deliver a judgment on the phenomena described by himself and as to which he had made inquiry [i.e. in ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... an archaic style in his Sonnets and other verses. In the Preface to the second edition of Poems, etc., he writes, "I think that our Poetry has been continually declining since the days of Milton and Cowley ... and that the golden age of our language is in the reign ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... this book—the sixteenth—having been called for, I have been asked by the publishers to furnish a preface to it. For prefaces I have no love. Books should speak for themselves. Prefaces can scarcely be otherwise than egotistic, and one would not willingly add to the too numerous illustrations of this tendency with which the literature of the day abounds. I would ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... beautiful of all the late Queen's maids of honor. Another solace was the History of the World, the writing of which set his mind free to wander forth at will although his body stayed behind the bars. But the contrast was too poignant not to wring this cry of anguish from his preface: 'Yet when we once come in sight of the Port of death, to which all winds drive us, and when by letting fall that fatal Anchor, which can never be weighed again, the navigation of this life takes end: Then ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy' is intended by Mr Mill (so he tells us in the preface to the sixth published edition of his 'System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive') as a sequel and complement to that system. We are happy to welcome so valuable an addition; but with or without that addition, the 'System of Logic' appears to us to present the most important advance ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote
... With this preface I come to the death of Arthur Wells, our acquaintance and neighbor, and the investigation into that death by a group of six earnest people who call ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... our day, whose books have given me great pleasure, is so far from being of the same mind of Senor Valdes about fiction that he boldly declares himself, in the preface to his 'Pepita Ximenez,' "an advocate of art for art's sake." I heartily agree with him that it is "in very bad taste, always impertinent and often pedantic, to attempt to prove theses by writing stories," and yet if it is true ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... I dont want you to talk. I want you to listen. You do not yet understand my views on the question of the Suffrage. (She rises to make a speech.) I must preface my remarks by reminding you that the Suffraget movement is essentially a dowdy movement. The suffragets are not all dowdies; but they are mainly supported by dowdies. Now I am not a dowdy. ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw |
