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Preface   /prˈɛfəs/   Listen
Preface

noun
1.
A short introductory essay preceding the text of a book.  Synonyms: foreword, prolusion.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Preface" Quotes from Famous Books



... of an excellent flavor, sound, wholesome and trustworthy; not those warm cheeked and golden pippins of the Red Sea, which 'turn to ashes on the lips'—but something you may bite with all your strength, of a grapy, and oftentimes of a peachy flavor. The preface itself is ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone

... See Paul Scheffer-Boichorst, Florentiner Studien, Leipzig, 1874, Carl Hegel, in his defense of Compagni, Die Chronik des Dino Compagni, Versuch einer Rettung, Leipzig, 1875, admits the proof of spuriousness. See the preface, p. v. The point, however, is still disputed by Florentine scholars of high authority. Gino Capponi, in his Storia della Repubblica di Firenze (vol. i. Appendix, final note), observes that while the Villani are popular in tone ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... of this volume will share our regret that the preface cannot be written by Mr. Nye, who would have introduced his volume with a characteristically appropriate and humorous foreword in perfect ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye

... Preface without expressing my thanks to Messrs. ADLARD for the first-rate style in which this volume has been printed; particularly for the successful manner in which the impressions of the engravings have been produced, superior, in general, to ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey

... time of day, to foretell how the future destinies of Europe may be influenced by the subject of these lines. To use the words of the talented author of the Improvisatrice, "Poetry needs no preface." However in this instance, a few remarks may not be uninteresting. Until I met with the following stanzas, I was not aware that Napoleon had been a votary of the muses. He has certainly climbed the Parnassian ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various

... England "be reformed according to the word of God" (which the Independents would interpret in their own sense), and "after the example of the best reformed churches," among which the Scots could not doubt that theirs was entitled to the first place. In this shape, Henderson, with an appropriate preface, laid[a] the league and covenant before the Assembly; several speakers, admitted into the secret, commended it in terms of the highest praise, and it was immediately approved, without ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... of them encumbered with the debris of their senility. Coventry Patmore was a rare example of a poet who laid down his pen deliberately, not merely as an artist in words, but as an artist in life, having, as he said in the memorable preface to the collected edition of his poems, completed that work which in his youth he had set before him. His readers, therefore, are not saddened by any pathetic gleanings from a once-rich harvest-field, or the carefully picked-up shakings ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... Cervantes's own preface to Don Quixote is a perfect model of the gentle, every where intelligible, irony in the best essays of the Tatler and the Spectator. Equally natural and easy, Cervantes is more spirited than Addison; whilst he blends with the terseness ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... had never before heard the colonel essay a joke, and were by no means sure that his first remark was not the preface to serious condemnation of Joe. Colonel Marker had often been heard to treat the subject of smashed machines in a manner decidedly uncomplimentary to the luckless aviator ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll

... the same kind is thrown upon his methods by the following passage from the preface to the first edition of his ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... years, at least (OF MINE). How the devil do you find the connection between your ideas? It is that that delays me. Moreover this book demands tiresome researches. For instance on Monday; I was at the Jockey Club, at the Cafe Anglais, and at a lawyer's in turn. Do you like Victor Hugo's preface to the Paris-Guide? Not very much, do you? Hugo's philosophy seems ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... Ainsworth, in his preface to Rookwood, claimed tobe "the first to write a purely flash song" he was very wide of themark. As a matter of fact, "Nix my doll, pals, fake away!" had beenanticipated, in its treatment of canting phraseology, by nearly three centuries, and subsequently, ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... felt it. It had been too long the custom of both of them to preface with politeness their deadliest insults to each other. She came on, thinking of a suitable reply: suitable from her point of view, that is. In another moment the truth would be out. A wild, fantastic ...
— Passing of the Third Floor Back • Jerome K. Jerome

... in it," said Lord Colambre. "Only laid siege to it," said the count. "Well, I am glad your heart did not surrender at discretion, or rather without discretion. Then I may tell you, without fear or preface, that the Lady Isabel, who talks of 'refinement, delicacy, sense,' is going to stoop at once, and marry—Heathcock." Lord Colambre was not surprised, but concerned and disgusted, as he always felt, even when he did not care for the individual, from ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... description of, perhaps, the most remarkable portion of the earth's surface. Half of the report of the Colorado Expedition was prepared by Dr. Newberry, and so much importance was attached to his observations by his commanding officer, that in the preface he speaks of them as constituting "the most interesting material gathered ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... weeks before his sudden death the most distinguished of native violinists completed in THE STRAD a series of chats to students of the instrument associated with his name. These chats are now re-issued, with a sympathetic preface and instructive annotations. All who care to listen to what were virtually the last words of such a conscientious teacher will recognise the pains taken by Carrodus to render every detail as clear to the novice as to the advanced pupil. Pleasant gossip concerning provincial festivals ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick

... novel will easily demonstrate his indebtedness to Sterne. Yet Wezel in his preface, anticipating the charge of imitation, asserts that he had not read Shandy when "Tobias" was begun. Possibly he intends this assertion as a whim, for he quotes Tristram at some length.[73] This inconsistency is occasion for censure on ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... to trust to; and when we have obtained a right estimate of our existing resources in manuscripts, we shall then be better able to judge what modern criticism will have to do from its own means towards bringing the text of the ancient writers to the greatest possible state of perfection."—Preface to Thucydides, vol. iii. page iv. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 75, April 5, 1851 • Various

... in March, 1825, with a preface by Sir Richard; but without Borrow's name. The intellectual impressions which this task, reaching 3,600 pages, produced on Borrow's mind were, said the publisher, "mournful." The grisly and sordid stories of crime and criminals he had to ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper

... who have been giving their pennies to help take care of little Belgian children will find this new "Twins" book one of the most appealing that Mrs. Perkins has ever written. The author's Preface states the sources of her inspiration. As usual, her story will be found sympathetic in spirit ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... from that to another new factor in these military and naval operations—the so-called German "blockade" of our coasts. [Cheers.] I shall have to use some very plain language. [Cheers.] I may, perhaps, preface what I have to say by the observation that it does not come upon us as a surprise. [Cheers.] This war began on the part of Germany with the cynical repudiation [cheers] of a solemn treaty on the avowed grounds that when a ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... on Mr Robertson, who has the charge of Lord Findlater's affairs, and was formerly Lord Monboddo's clerk, was three times in France with him, and translated Condamine's Account of the Savage Girl, to which his lordship wrote a preface, containing several remarks of his own. Robertson said, he did not believe so much as his lordship did; that it was plain to him, the girl confounded what she imagined with what she remembered: that, besides, she perceived Condamine and Lord Monboddo forming theories, and she ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... had explained to the Judge, what was the precise truth, that an eccentric gentleman wished to adopt Dennis, under this new name, into his family. It never occurred to him that Dennis might be more than fourteen years old. And thus, to shorten this preface, when we returned at night to my parsonage at Naguadavick, there entered Mrs. Ingham, her new dumb laundress, myself, who am Mr. Frederic Ingham, and my double, who was Mr. Frederic Ingham by as good right ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... of Taylor's new poem, 'Philip van Artevelde.' Melbourne had read and admired it. The preface, he said, was affected and foolish, the poem very superior to anything in Milman. There was one fine idea in the 'Fall of Jerusalem'—that of Titus, who felt himself propelled by an irresistible impulse like that of the Greek dramatists, whose fate ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... which have been usually accounted SPECIFIC, but also those upon which the greater part of the GENERA of this group have been founded, and even in some instances those of its ORDERS" (Foraminifera, Preface, x). Yet this same group had been divided by D'Orbigny and other authors into a number of clearly defined families, genera, and species, which these careful and conscientious researches have shown to have been almost all founded on ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... notice, from the place it holds both in the preface and in the body of this treatise, is the distinct and hearty acknowledgment of the supreme authority of the written Word of God, or "the buiks of the Auld and New Testamentis," which books are briefly but sufficiently defined as those "quhilk of ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... The preface to his attack was brief. This was a State convention to nominate candidates, he said in substance, and the National Administration was not a candidate or in question. He repelled the idea that it suggested ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... is equivalent to our Matchtet, only a little more intelligent. There is a terrible deal of affectation, dreariness, straining after originality, and as little of anything artistic as there was salt in that porridge we cooked in the evening at Bogimovo. In the preface this Rod regrets that he was in the past a "naturalist," and rejoices that the spiritualism of the latest recruits of literature has replaced materialism. Boyish boastfulness which is at the same time coarse and clumsy.... ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... limits which are placed upon free speech. They still cower and tremble before "Southern opinion." Even so late as the recent Atlanta riot those men who were brave enough to speak a word in behalf of justice and humanity felt called upon, by way of apology, to preface what they said with a glowing rhetorical tribute to the Anglo-Saxon's superiority and to refer to the "great and impassable gulf" between the races "fixed by the Creator at the foundation of the world." The question ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson

... preface my narrative with a brief account of the history of the place. The city of Wiesbaden, previous to the Franco-German war of 1870, was the chief town of one of those petty principalities which were plentifully sprinkled over the face of Europe. Since the old Roman days the town ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... partly in Columbia University. Although it contains an unusual amount of original matter and old knowledge originally treated for the kind of book it professes to be, namely a compact manual of approved mining practice, the author's preface is a model of modest appraisement of his work. One of its paragraphs ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg

... no subject too high for Wordsworth's muse. In the preface to "The Excursion," he says ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... aversion; what is more useless than to write something by which we unlearn good writing?' It must be acknowledged that he really flattered as sparingly as possible; the practice was so repulsive to him that in his preface he roundly owned that, to tell the truth, this whole class of composition was not to ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... most valuable publication with regard to Haggart is one that Borrow must have read in his youth. This was a life of Haggart written by himself,[29] a little book that had a wide circulation, and containing a preface by George Robertson, Writer to the Signet, dated Edinburgh, 20th July 1821. Mr. Robertson tells us that a portion of the story was written by Haggart, and the remainder taken down from his dictation. The profits of this book, Haggart arranged, were to go in part to the school of ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... 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

... with all your fortitude. I know you have much of it, and I hope that upon this occasion you will not fail to exercise it. I abhor preface and preamble, and don't know why I have now used it so freely. But I am well aware that what I am going to relate needs much apology from me, and will need much to you. If I am the unwilling, the unfortunate ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... in the views of those who used Dryden as their interpreter. At first the Church of England is mentioned with tenderness and respect, and is exhorted to ally herself with the Roman Catholics against the Puritan sects: but at the close of the poem, and in the preface, which was written after the poem had been finished, the Protestant Dissenters are invited to make common cause with the Roman Catholics against the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... quick-minded hearers had already done, suddenly interrupts himself with a question, which would naturally occur to the audience.] must we do? Many of you, [Footnote: You, [Greek: oi kathaemenoi]. See my observations in the preface. I can not forbear noticing the manner in which Francis translates the following [Greek: nae Di ero]. "Let Jupiter be witness, with what integrity I shall declare my opinion." The original means nothing of the kind. It is rare that [Greek: nae Dia] ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes

... brief preface, I proceed to the analysis of Dickens's last plot. Mr. William Archer has kindly read the proof sheets and made valuable suggestions, but is responsible for ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang

... to cumsider calmly this play and prephiz, and to speak of both with that honisty which, in the pantry or studdy, I've been always phamous for. Let us, in the first place, listen to the opening of the "Preface of the Fourth Edition:" ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Examples of Euphuism. When Lodge wrote "Rosalynde," euphuism was already on the wane. Even among Lodge's contemporaries the fashion was becoming an object of frequent ridicule. Thus Warner, in his "Albion's England" (1589), complains in the preface, which, by the way, is written wholly in the euphuistic manner: "Onely this error may be thought hatching in our English, that to runne on the letter we often runne from the matter: and being over ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... the liberty to send you one or two Notes on your first Number, just as they occur to me in looking it over. I will not trespass on you by preface or apology. ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 2, November 10 1849 • Various

... from the letters of his name being Daniel d'Ancheres), in his vast drama in two parts, Tyr et Sidon, claimed all the freedom of the mysteries in varying the scene, in mingling heroic matter with buffoonery. In the edition of 1628 a preface appears by Francois Ogier, a learned churchman, maintaining that the modern stage, in accordance with altered circumstances, should maintain its rights to complete imaginative liberty against the authority of the Greeks, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... to the Ephesians I have supposed to be his subject. He sees that the first question evidently is, 'Who were the Ephesians?' He finds the city of Ephesus upon the map; and from the preface to the Epistle contained in the commentary, or from any other source to which he can have access, he learns what sort of a city it was—what was the character of the inhabitants, and if possible, what condition the city was in at the time this letter was written. He next ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin

... description of the drawings he made to illustrate the development of the chick. It is quoted in full by Owen (J. Hunter, Observations on certain Parts of the Animal OEconomy, with Notes by Richard Owen. London, 1837. Preface, p. xxvi). We give here the last and clearest sentence—"If we were to take a series of animals from the more imperfect to the perfect, we should probably find an imperfect animal corresponding with some ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

... equally obliged to you for your tribute of putting up shutters and wearing a crape hatband. I suspect your friend and informant, Mr. Livingstone—(it should be Gravestone)—drew his inference from a dark passage in Miss Sheridan's Preface which states that, 'of the three Comic Annuals which started at the same time, the Comic Offering alone remains.' The two defuncts therein referred to are the 'Falstaff' and 'The Humorist,' which I understand have put an end ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various

... vile preface: it contained more forebodings. But I was so eager for an explanation that I had scarcely time for augury. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... tone of my book, and was as much my 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. ——, resident within ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... nominal. He had an abundance of leisure time, and from that leisure was born his masterpiece, "The Scarlet Letter"—the most powerful romance which ever flowed from an American author's pen. It was published in 1850, and in the preface to it the reader will find an excellent description of the author's life in Salem. He held his position in that place for three years, and then the election of General Taylor obliged ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... authority. Mr. Kirke, in the "Rear-guard," p. 313, puts in an account of a battle on Lookout Mountain, wherein Sevier and his two hundred men defeat "five hundred tories and savages." He does not even hint at his authority for this, unless in a sentence of the preface where he says, "a large part of my material I have derived from what may be termed 'original sources'—old settlers." Of course the statement of an old settler is worthless when it relates to an alleged important event which took place a hundred and five ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... two, the conductor of one of these magazines wrote to me, saying that the February issue containing the story had been sold out, while there was still a great demand for it. Would I allow them to reprint "The Bowmen" as a pamphlet, and would I write a short preface giving the exact authorities for the story? I replied that they might reprint in pamphlet form with all my heart, but that I could not give my authorities, since I had none, the tale being pure invention. The priest wrote again, suggesting—to my amazement—that I must be ...
— The Angels of Mons • Arthur Machen

... compliments. It was that of the mind of a bigot to the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it contracts. The simile is a very obvious, and, I suppose I may now say, a happy one; for it has just been shown me that it occurs in a Preface to certain Political Poems of Thomas Moore's published long before my remark was repeated. When a person of fair character for literary honesty uses an image, such as another has employed before him, the presumption is, that he has struck upon it independently, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Such a preface prepares us to learn that a body of experts was appointed to distinguish the true and the false, and to set down the former alone. The Emperor did, in fact, commission a number of princes and officials to compile an authentic history, and we shall presently ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... short sketches. She took it from the shelf and glanced through it, scanning a page here and there, for she was a rapid reader. Then, finding that it bade fair to be entertaining, down she dropped on the rug, and began at the preface. Lunch stopped her for awhile, but, thoroughly interested, she carried the book up to her room and immediately began to ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston

... preface to his work on the "Descent of Man," Mr. Darwin quotes this author as a high authority. We see him elsewhere referred to as one of the first physiologists of Germany. Vogt devotes the concluding lecture ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge

... In the original preface to "Northern Trails" the author stated that, with the solitary exception of the salmon's life in the sea after he vanishes from human sight, every incident recorded here is founded squarely upon personal and accurate observation of animal life and habits. I now repeat ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long

... ever inscribed to Shakespeare by Landor was sent to me with the following preface: "An old man sends the last verses he has written, or probably he may ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... at this point I interrupt you, with a question which I wish to preface with this remark! In the estimation of most women, well-kept hands, are considered as a rule, to indicate the measure of the owners refinement. According to my judgment, there is nothing which so quickly ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... directed against the rage for copying French customs and manners. At the age of eighty-two she collected from her later works her Thoughts on Prayer and re-issued them in a little volume, with a short preface. This was her last literary effort. She said to a friend that the only remarkable thing which belonged to her as an author was that she had written eleven volumes after the ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... rather with the one than with the other—with the former rather than with the latter? Why take from him his own sentiments, to give him those of his hero? That hero can not be called mysterious, since in his preface Byron tells us himself the moral object for which he has selected him. If Childe Harold personifies Lord Byron, who will personify the poet? That poet (and he is no other than Lord Byron) plays a far greater part than the hero. ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... have gotten a book by Sir W. Drummond, (printed, but not published,) entitled Oedipus Judaicus, in which he attempts to prove the greater part of the Old Testament an allegory, particularly Genesis and Joshua. He professes himself a theist in the preface, and handles the literal interpretation very roughly. I wish you could see it. Mr. W * * has lent it me, and I confess, to me ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... wearing—ah—I mean to say, I should have brought myself to the point of telling you a little later on, in any event, but now that you have caught me wearing of them, I dare say this is as good a time as any to get it over with. First of all, Mrs. Thorpe, I must preface my—er—confession by announcing that I am quite sure that you have always considered me to be an honest man and above deception and falsehood. Ahem! That is ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... are an attempt to sketch an attitude towards statecraft. I have tried to suggest an approach, to illustrate it concretely, to prepare a point of view. In selecting for the title "A Preface to Politics," I have wished to stamp upon the whole book my own sense that it is a beginning and not a conclusion. I have wished to emphasize that there is nothing in this book which can be drafted into a legislative proposal and ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... but who was and is and ever will be. Her grave can be easily pointed out, but where is that of Alexander, of Themistocles, of Aristotle, even of the first figure of history—Adam? Mark Twain found it for a joke. Dr. Hale was finally forced to write a preface to "The Man Without a Country" to declare that his hero was pure fiction and that the pathetic punishment so marvelously described was not only imaginary, but legally and actually impossible. It was ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison

... the good God altogether of His Mass, and that is what brings his ruin. By temptation upon temptation, he begins to jump one verse, then two. Then the epistle is too long—he does not finish it; skims the Gospel, passes by the creed without even entering, skips the pater, salutes from afar the preface, and by bounds and jumps precipitates himself into eternal damnation, always following the infamous Garrigou (vade retro, Satanas), who seconds him with marvellous skill; tucks up his chasuble, turns the leaves ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... Nietzsche, the son of a clergyman, was born in Saxony in 1844. In 1869 he became Professor of Classical Philology in Basel, and held this post for ten years, though his work was interrupted by ill-health for a long period. His first book was published in 1871; the preface to the last was dated "on the 30th of September 1888, the day on which the first book of the Transvaluation of all Values was completed." He became hopelessly insane in 1889, and died in 1900. The reader will find a luminous estimate of his work in the essay on "The Life and Opinions of Friedrich ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley

... Clark something to say, but he says it with such force and brevity that the busiest man or woman can find time to listen to him. Moreover, he understands the rare art of writing a preface. The straightaway manner in which he outlines the scope of his book reminds one of the famous first lines in Macaulay's 'History of England,' and promises much which ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... accept the challenge. It rose, according to custom, on its hind legs, and immediately began that slow, but deadly war-dance with which the race is wont to preface an attack, while its upper lip curled in apparent derision, exposing ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... translator of Rabelais, in his preface, "have deservedly gained esteem by translating; yet not many condescend to translate but such as cannot invent; though to do the first well, requires often as much genius as to do the latter. I wish, reader, thou mayest be as willing to ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... priest's own studies. He instances several cases as examples of the classes of persons to which he refers; but his obscurity is further deepened by the action of the zealous and discreet scribe, who, as I have said in the preface, has been careful to omit nearly all the names in Sir John's ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson

... "A new Preface" is, I find, promised with my story. If there are any among my readers who loved Aesop's Fables chiefly on account of the Moral appended, they will perhaps be pleased to turn backward and learn what I have ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Winter, filling two of the cups, "let us preface dry work with a drink of honest vintage, and then ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley

... indeed. Well, I'll look up all the old catalogues I have kept, and let you know about books of reference. Meanwhile, commence somewhere by way of preface. Now, what are you going to do about that fishing-boat? Ormsby says it is certainly a troublesome and may be a ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... simple if the business of the introducer or preface-writer were limited to such a straightforward, honest, and direct expression of opinion; unfortunately that is not so. For most of us, the happier ones of the world, it is enough to say "I like it," or "I don't like it," and there ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... a freeman in mind.' Copernicus knew very well that there were many prepared to challenge his conclusions, and perhaps to bring theological objections to the principles of science which he had been constrained to adopt. "If, perchance," it is said in the preface to his book on astronomy, "there be vain babblers who, knowing nothing of mathematics, yet assume the right of judging, on account of some place of Scripture, perversely wrested to their purpose, and who blame and attack my undertaking, I heed them not, and look upon their judgments as ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... understand the 'variety of perfection.' I think it is impossible and therefore absurd to try to preface for this life, well up on our own inheritance, as you say. There has been too much practical research and study and not enough character building, the result: total lack of balance and maniacs. Anything better that would admit of more possibility of collectedness of peaceful contemplation of the ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff

... came to me while I was lying awake last night. You know Wordsworth's Stepping Westward? I am going to call it Stepping Heavenward—don't you like it? I do." We all felt it was exactly the right name, and she added, "I think I will put in Wordsworth's poem as a preface." ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... says in her preface to the little book, "Notwithstanding the fanciful character of this story, it is, in fact, simply a little lesson in Natural History," and that "she would engage for the truth of all that Piccolissima relates of the manners and customs ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen

... this sounds a portentous preface. Is it possible you imagine it necessary to 'lead up' to a subject, if I can please myself ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... information of Authors not accustomed to Printing, it may be proper to state that the printing of the body of a work is always first in order; the Title, Preface, Contents, &c. being uniformly deferred ...
— The Author's Printing and Publishing Assistant • Frederick Saunders

... Emerging, therefore, from his comfortable abode in the Chaussee d'Antin, he turned his steps in the direction of the royal library, and was soon up to his ears in dusty tomes and jaundiced parchments. After much research, he discovered a folio manuscript, numbered, as he tells us in his preface, 4772 or 4773, and purporting to be a memoir, by a certain Count de la Fere, of events that occurred in France towards the latter part of the reign of Louis the Thirteenth. Upon perusal, he found this MS. so interesting, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... interesting, not only by striking illustrations and complete maps, but by the arrangement of the text and the facts presented in a clear, logical manner. The references to other text-books in history is a commendable feature. I fully agree with the author's statement in the preface as to the best method of studying ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... after this rambling preface, we are arrived at the subject in hand—Mr. John Leech and his "Pictures of Life and Character," in the collection of Mr. Punch. This book is better than plum-cake at Christmas. It is an enduring ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray

... close of his Preface to the Works of Marston, (Vol. I. p. xxii.,) says, "The dramas now collected together are reprinted absolutely from the early editions, which were placed in the hands of our printers, who thus had the advantage of following them without the intervention of a transcriber. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... through the First Protectorate continued: September 1654-June 1657.—SECTION I.: From September 1654 to January 1654-5, or Through Oliver's First Parliament.—Ulac's Hague Edition of Milton's Defensio Secunda, with the Fides Publica of Morus annexed: Preface by Dr. Crantzius to the Reprint: Ulac's own Preface of Self-Defence: Account of Morus's Fides Publica, with Extracts: His Citation of Testimonies to his Character: Testimony of Diodati of Geneva: Abrupt Ending of the Book at this Point, with Ulac's Explanation ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... In my 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 of Nordlingen ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... 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, not onely to discerne Things ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... France, September 17th, 1820, and was intended for the law; but inheriting literary tastes from his grandfather, Pigault Lebrun the romance writer, he devoted himself to letters. When his first play, 'La Cigue' (The Hemlock),—in the preface to which he defended his grandfather's memory,—was presented at the Odeon in 1844, it made the author famous. Theophile Gautier describes it at length in Vol. iii. of his 'Art Dramatique,' and compares it to Shakespeare's 'Timon of Athens.' It is a classic ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... promised to marry Ulic," she says, plunging without preface into her story, with a boldness born ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... this, when he cites as an appropriate tribute to the excellence of the book the practice of the clergyman who used, every Sunday afternoon instead of a sermon to read and interpret to his congregation the poem of the Christian Year for the day. The object of the present publication says the Preface will be attained if any person find assistance from it in bringing his own thoughts and feelings into more entire unison with those recommended and exemplified in the Prayer Book. This connection with the Prayer Book and with the Anglican Calendar, while it has given the book an immense circulation ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... of Mr Badman was published by John Bunyan in 1680, two years after the First Edition of the First Part of The Pilgrim's Progress. In the opening sentence of his preface he tells us it was intended by him as the counterpart or companion picture to the Allegory. But whatever his own intentions may have been, the Public of his own time seem to have declined to accept the book in this capacity. Indeed, another writer, who signs himself T. S., undertook to complete Bunyan's ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan

... is the best thing in the world to take up all 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 ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... Island, 'and his lordship,' he says, 'afterwards introduced them into the Channel Fleet.' Further, he says, he soon after invented the tabular system of flags suggested by the chess-board, and published them in the summer of 1778. To this work he prefixed as a preface the observations of his father, Sir Charles Knowles, condemning the existing form of sailing order, and recommending Pere Hoste's old form in three columns, and this order, he says, Howe adopted for the relief ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett

... introduce ourselves, so to speak, into the circle of his thoughts and ideas. Generally one must seek the man in his work. But into writings so objective as those of a commentator who does not even exert himself to set forth his method and principles in a preface, a man is not apt to put much of his own personality. Moreover, Rashi was disposed to speak of himself as little as possible. From time to time, however, he lets a confidence escape, and we treasure it the more carefully ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... forms an epoch in the history of monasticism. In a short time it superseded all contemporary and older rules of the kind, and became the immortal code of the most illustrious branch of the monastic army, and the basis of the whole Roman Catholic cloister life.[10] It consists of a preface or prologus, and a series of moral, social, liturgical, and penal ordinances, in seventy-three chapters. It shows a true knowledge of human nature, the practical wisdom of Rome, and adaptation to Western customs; and it combines ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... persons, the title affords a slight clue to the drift of the book, which is to show the duty and the benefits of giving the tithe of a man's income to the Lord. The author's bottom thought is based on this statement in the preface: "God pledges himself for the success of that individual who renders obedience to the divine money-claim." In other words, the path to wealth is the path of benevolence. The obligation to give the tithe is earnestly enforced by the ordinary Scripture quotations, and by arguments drawn ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 4, April, 1889 • Various

... hold upon the mind, or in unity, which is effected by the identity of moral interest that places the two personages upon the same footing in the reader's sympathies. My ramble over many parts of Salisbury Plain put me, as mentioned in the preface, upon writing this poem, and left upon my mind imaginative impressions, the force of which I have felt to this day. From that district I proceeded to Bath, Bristol, and so on to the banks of the Wye; where I took again to travelling on foot. In remembrance ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... transfer of a military force from one station to another. Such transfers are not preceded by long hesitation in cabinets, or by long torture of peaceful communities in expectation of their arrival. Yet such was the preface to the landing of this force in Boston. It was sent on an uncommon service,—a service insulting to a loyal people; and though this people had hailed the flag that waved over it with enthusiasm from the fields of Louisburg and Quebec, they now looked upon it with sorrowing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... of death, and though his wife's expression was not to be read at a glance, the look in her eyes arrested Mary. The girl stopped involuntarily, as if Eve had seized her by the arm. "What is the matter?" she asked, without any preface of greeting. A conventional "How do you do?" would have been an insulting mockery flung ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... book appeared. It was the son who wrote the preface: "There needs no Rhetoricating Floscules to set it off. The Authour, as is well known, having been a Person of Eminency for his Learning, and of Exquisite Curiosity in his Researches. Even that Incomparable Sir Kenelme Digbie ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... sum of money. As he spoke, Basil himself appeared; and with brief preface, the matter under debate was reported to him. He glanced at Venantius but could find no counsel in the dark, stern face. Foreseeing the result of the Hun's visit, Basil had hastened to conceal on his own person a considerable ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... much larger than the mere ability to read the name of a street or the number of a railway platform and the destination of a train. When you enable a child to read these, you also enable it to read this preface, to the utter destruction, you may quite possibly think, of its morals and docility. You also expose it to the danger of being run over by taxicabs and trains. The moral and physical risks of education are enormous: every new ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw

... mentioned—too frequently by far, to my infinite vexation at the time, and now to my deep and ineradicable regret. The sonnet-book out of which arose much of the correspondence printed in this chapter, contains in its preface and notes hardly an allusion to him, and yet he was, in my judgment, out of all reach and sight, the greatest sonnet-writer of his time. The sonnet first sent was Pride of Youth, but as this formed part of The ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... tales and poems have been translated into practically all the important languages of modern Europe, including Greek. An important French study of Poe, recently published, is mentioned in the Preface. ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... author of "Rab and his Friends" tells us in the preface, is a re-publication of articles written in 1848, on the death- bed of the author, a man of many accomplishments and of a most lovable nature. He would lie and dictate or write in pencil these happy and wistful memories of days passed by the banks ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... "Fellows," began Hicks, without preface, "I know I've built myself the reputation of being a scatterbrained, heedless nonentity, and it's too late to change now. But tonight, please believe me to be thoroughly in earnest. Bannister faces more than one crisis, more than one tragedy. It is true that the football eleven is ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... progress they must have done about one hundred and fifty miles since they embarked at the lonely spot on the Berbera coast for the other lonely spot on the Aden coast, where certain whisperings with certain mysterious camel-riders would preface their provisioning for the voyage along the weary Hadramant coast to the Ras el Had and Muscat—just a humble boat-load of poor but honest toilers and tradesmen, interested in dried fish, dates, the pearl-fishery and the pettiest trading. ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... and a commendable practice to preface the discussion of the views of a philosophic thinker by some account of the man and of the circumstances which shaped his life and coloured his way of looking at things; but, though Zadig is cited in one of the most important chapters ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... vers-librists 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

... of this book may best be expressed in the words of the author himself, when he says, in the preface: "The following work is a compilation from the colored press of America for the four months [July 1st to November 1st, 1919] immediately succeeding the Washington riot. It is designed to show the Negro's reaction to that and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... observe how constantly throughout the book of Acts mighty works and mighty utterances are connected with this qualification. "Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them" (Acts 4: 8), is the preface to one of the apostle's most powerful sermons. "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the {84} word with boldness" (Acts 4: 31), is a similar record. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, the narrative runs, ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon

... The first of these, originally published in 1846, and brought out in an enlarged form in 1863, is exclusively devoted to nonsense-verses of one type. Mr. Lear is careful to disclaim the credit of having created this type, for he tells us in the preface to his third book that "the lines beginning, 'There was an old man of Tobago,' were suggested to me by a valued friend, as a form of verse leading itself to limitless variety for Rhymes and Pictures." Dismissing the further question ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear

... which a knowledge of science, history, theology, politics, is required; every page should be alive with intelligence and glistening with facts. But then I have remembered that this is only as it were the preface, or forerunner, of a body of literature, which the events and wants of our times will call forth. We have come to the brink of a great intellectual change. Much of the frivolous reading of the present will be supplanted by a thoughtful and austere literature, vivified by endangered ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... throwing some light on the cause of his discontent and subsequent rebellion, and still more from being in strict accordance with the supposed haughty, captious, and uncompromising character of that eminent soldier."—Preface, vol. i. ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... the following from the Chicago Times of October 20, 1864. It will do to keep for reference. The comments which preface the list are from the pen of the editor of that delectable print. The only comment we need make is, that almost every man whose name is upon the list, was a member of the Chicago Temple of the Sons of Liberty, in good and regular ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... Malabar" (Hakluyt edit., pp. 73, &c.). Barbosa was son of Diego Barbosa, who sailed in the first fleet sent out under Joao de Nova in 1501. He gives no dates in his own writings except that he finished his work in 1516 (Preface), after "having navigated for a great part of his youth in the East Indies." It was probably begun about 1514. He was certainly in the Indian Ocean in 1508 — 9. The heading of the work is "Description of the East Indies and Countries on the ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... friends of the late Lord Elgin as to the best mode of giving to the world some record of his life, and having thus contracted a certain responsibility in the work now laid before the public, I have considered it my duty to prefix a few words by way of Preface ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... Old Ironsides, The Last Leaf, The Chambered Nautilus and Homesick in Heaven are secure of places in the anthologies of the future, while his lighter verse has made him one of the leading American writers of "familiar verse." Frederick Locker-Lampson in the preface to the first edition of his Lyra Elegantiarum (1867) declared that Holmes was "perhaps the best living writer of this species of verse." His trenchant attack on Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions (1842) makes us wonder what would have been his attitude toward some of the beliefs ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... with the simplicity and truthfulness of his religious profession, I have not been able to learn that he was ever subjected to censure on account of it. It may be that our modern conjurer defended himself on grounds similar to those assumed by the celebrated knight of Nettesheim, in the preface to his first Book of Magic: "Some," says he, "may crie oute that I teach forbidden arts, sow the seed of heresies, offend pious ears, and scandalize excellent wits; that I am a sorcerer, superstitious and devilish, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... by Syr Thomas Malory," ed. O. Sommer and Andrew Lang, London, 1889, 2 vol. 8vo. Caxton's Preface, p. 3. The book was originally published at Westminster, in 1485, under the title: "The noble and ioyous book entytled Le Morte Darthur notwythstondyng it treateth of the byrth, lyf and actes of the sayd kyng Arthur of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table, theyr marvayllous ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... of the subject of this preface is Jacques-Anatole Thibault. He was born in Paris, April 16, 1844, the son of a bookseller of the Quai Malaquais, in the shadow of the Institute. He was educated at the College Stanislas and published in 1868 an essay upon Alfred de Vigny. This was followed by two volumes of poetry: ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France

... "O yes, and Rapine and Dacier upon Aristotle and Horace." A quarter of a century later Dacier's reputation was still great enough to allow Charles Gildon to eke out the second part of his Complete Art of Poetry (1718) by translating long excerpts from the Preface to the "admirable" Dacier's Aristotle.[1] Addison ridiculed the pedantry of Sir Timothy Tittle (a strict Aristotelian critic) who rebuked his mistress for laughing at a play: "But Madam," says he, "you ought not to have laughed; and I defie any one to show me ...
— The Preface to Aristotle's Art of Poetry • Andre Dacier

... been without one, the first code having been drawn up by a distinguished statesman so far back as 525 B.C. In any case, at the beginning of the reign of Shun Chih a code was issued, which contained only certain fundamental and unalterable laws for the empire, with an Imperial preface, nominally from the hand of the Emperor himself. The next step was to supply any necessary additions and modifications; and as time went on these were further amended or enlarged by Imperial decrees, founded upon current events,—a process which has been going on down to the present day. The code ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... Rheticus, a professor at the Protestant University of Wittenberg and an enthusiastic pupil of Copernicus, urged publication, and undertook to see the work through the press. This, however, he was unable to complete and another Lutheran, Osiander, to whom he entrusted it, wrote a preface, with the apparent intention of disarming opposition, in which he stated that the principles laid down were only abstract hypotheses convenient for purposes of calculation. This unauthorised interpolation may have had its share in postponing the prohibition ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant

... large 8vo. with wide margins. Printed well on good paper. Vol. 1 has map of Oude, 305 pp. text, and at end a printed slip of errata. Vol. 2 has 302 pp. text, with a similar slip of errata. The brief Preface contains the following statements: 'I have had the Diary printed at my own expense in a small parlour press which I purchased, with type, for the purpose. . . . The Diary must for the present be considered as an official document, which may be perused, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... under the names of Musical Instruments has been already displayed in two most pleasing papers which embellish the Tatler, written by Addison. He dwells on this idea with uncommon success. It has been applauded for its originality; and in the general preface to that work, those papers are distinguished for their felicity of imagination. The following paper was published in the year 1700, in a volume of "Philosophical Transactions and Collections," and the two numbers of Addison in the year 1710. It is probable that ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... sensation in literary circles abroad), leads us on to speculative heights from which we may look back upon the whole theory of evolution not as a bar but as a bridge. "My book is intended as a monograph of the emotional life of the human race," he says in the preface, and "I am prepared to meet with rejection rather than with approval." There has been abundance of criticism and controversy, but Lucka has stated his case and drawn his conclusions with such admirable precision and logic, that his work has aroused ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... principles of the vocal action. When only twenty-seven years old, in 1832, Garcia determined to reform the practices of Voice Culture by furnishing an improved method of instruction. (Grove's Dictionary.) His first definite pronouncement of this purpose is contained in the preface to his Ecole de Garcia, 1847. "As all the effects of song are, in the last analysis, the product of the vocal organs, I have submitted the study to physiological considerations." This statement of Garcia's idea ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor

... with no preface. "I am going to leave Alton," she said in her severe voice, "and I want to tell you something first, and to say good-by." She looked at Gordon, then at the others, one after another, then at Gordon again. "I did not think at first that it would be necessary for ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... satire-satyr etymology stated by Isaac Casaubon,[7] scurrilous satire, especially as a political weapon, was a recognizable subspecies in England at least to 1700. The anonymous author, for instance, of A Satyr Against Common-Wealths (1684) contended in his preface that it is "as disagreeable to see a Satyr Cloath'd in soft and effeminate Language, as to see a Woman scold and vent her self in Billingsgate Rhetorick in a gentile and advantageous Garb." But as Harte certainly realized, ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte

... once, that "the surest test of a man's critical power is his judgment of contemporaries." M. Renan, I think, with that exquisite literary sense of his, was the next among the authorities to mention Amiel's name with the emphasis it deserved. He quoted a passage from the Journal in his Preface to the "Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse," describing it as the saying "d'un penseur distingue, M. Amiel de Geneve." Since then M. Renan has devoted two curious articles to the completed Journal in the Journal des ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... in England, is Gesner's "Death of Abel." The translation of that work has been oftener reprinted in England than ever the original was in Germany. I have actually seen the eighteenth edition of it; and if the English preface is to be regarded, it was written by a lady. "Klopstock's Messiah," as is well known, has been here but ill received; to be sure, they say it is but indifferently translated. I have not yet been able to obtain a sight of it. The Rev. Mr. Wendeborn has written a grammar for ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz

... Mr Allworthy returned home, he took Mr Blifil apart, and after some preface, communicated to him the proposal which had been made by Mr Western, and at the same time informed him how agreeable this match ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... Without further preface or apology, therefore, I shall state at once my objections to all the definitions that have hitherto been given of Life, as meaning too much or too little, with an exception, however, in favour of those which mean nothing at all; and even these last must, in certain cases, receive an honour ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... prime; they have many powerful scenes and admirably drawn characters; the pictures of colonial life and manners in "Satanstoe" are animated and delightful; and in all the legal and ethical points for which the author contends he is perfectly right. In his Preface to "The Chainbearer" he says,—"In our view, New York is at this moment a disgraced State; and her disgrace arises from the fact that her laws are trampled under foot, without any efforts—at all commensurate with the object—being made to enforce them." That any commonwealth ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... volcano! You can see that he takes Austrian money; his skin has got to be the exact colour of Munz. He has the greenish-yellow eyes of those elective, thrice-abhorred vampyres who feed on patriot-blood. He is condemned without trial by his villainous countenance, like an ungrammatical preface to a book. His tongue refuses to confess, but nature is stronger:—observe his knees. Now this is guilt. It is execrable guilt. He is a nasty object. Nature has in her wisdom shortened his stature to indicate that it is left to us to shorten the growth of his offending years. Now, you dangling soul! ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... and over-elaboration paramount in this preface to the Letters from America, excess of byword, a strained relationship with his subject, but that would of course be Jamesian, and very naturally, too. It is hardly, this preface, the tribute of the wise telling of beautiful and "blinding youth", surely more the treatise of ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... prodigality of drawings scattered among the text, some glowing in a full page of colour, others in line alone, from the pencil and brush of Mr. CHARLES ROBINSON. Altogether a very gentle book, of which one may echo the hope expressed by the writers in their graceful preface that "some unquiet heart, labouring under the strain of long-drawn suspense," may find in it "a passing ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various

... In the preface to the first edition, in 1875, I used these words: "Nearly ten years have passed since the close of the civil war in America, and yet no satisfactory history thereof is accessible to the public; nor should any be attempted until the Government ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... formal opening, and I begin at once. I want to tell you a story. Don't ask me why; for, even if I answered the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, you would hardly believe me. Let me merely say that I want to tell you a story, and tell it without much further preface. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various

... Introduction following this Preface, the author has summarized the general lesson to be derived from the course of this War of American Independence, as distinct from the particular discussion and narration of the several events which constitute the body of the treatment. These lessons he conceives ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... the performance in a literary point of view, the Author will say nothing. The public will form their own judgment. If they like it, they will read; if not, the most seductive preface ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... may be said for the book, if it ever become one, it must say for itself: preface, more than this, I do not care to write: and the less, because some passages of British history, at this hour under record, call for instant, though ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... was she with that first school that it was the preface to sixteen years of continuous teaching, winter and summer. Her two most interesting experiences as a teacher were in North Oxford and in Bordentown, New Jersey. North Oxford was the mill village where her brother's factories were, ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... Ramusio, in his preface to the narrative of Marco Polo, gives a variety of particulars concerning their arrival, which he compares to that of Ulysses. When they arrived at Venice, they were known by nobody. So many years had elapsed since their departure, without ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... parole femmine,—deeds are masculine, words feminine,—says the Italian proverb. The same thought is found in several of our own writers. George Herbert said bluntly: "Words are women, deeds are men"; Dr. Madden: "Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things"; Dr. Johnson, in the preface to his great dictionary, embodies the saying of the Hindus: "Words are the daughters of earth, things ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... N.T. from the Latin of Erasmus (the first printed in Latin with a translation on the same page, and which is very similar in appearance to Udal's), printed at Zurich in 1535, 4to., with a Preface by Johansen Zwikk of Constance, the 7th verse is given (as it was in the Latin); but is distinguished by being printed in brackets, and in ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various

... dedicated to him for use in the Public Schools of New York. Frederick Betz, head of the Department of Modern Languages in the East High School of Rochester, New York, is the author of a book called, "About a Great King and Others." The author in the preface states that the anecdotes which he prints do not narrate the story of the lives of these famous Germans, but, nevertheless, give glimpses of what they did and may help to show why the Germans held them in such high esteem. The book contains four ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... we say / it is for theyr profyte to laude or prayse the p[er]son. And that we knowe very wel howe moche they haue alwayes loued [B.iiii.r] hym / and that he ought therfore to be prai[-] sed the more for theyr sakes. The maner is also to get vs beneuolence in the preface of our oracion / by pynchyng and blamyng of our aduersarie. As doth Tullie in the o- racion that he made for one Aulus Cecin- na / wherin he begynneth his proeme thus If temerite and lake of shame coulde ...
— The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke • Leonard Cox

... little Tale with a perusal, will probably anticipate in the Preface, the so-often-framed apology, that it was not written with an intention of being published. Yet stale as the assurance may be, it is in ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown

... As a preface to the sketch of the active campaign, I have given some account of our life in the winter quarters camp, the winter before, from which we marched to battle when the ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame



Words linked to "Preface" :   text, preamble, state, prologuize, introduction, prefatorial, prologise, tell, prologize, textual matter, say



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