Brit Lit II Final Exam Passages

"She, in the midst of all, preserved me still A poet, made me seek beneath that name My office upon earth, and nowhere else."

Book Tenth Wordsworth Speaker

"Be calm! I entreat you hear me, before you give vent to your hatred on my devoted head. Have i not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery? Life although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and i will defend it. Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine; my joints more supple. But i will not be tempted to set myself in opposition to thee. I am a creature, and i will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king, if thou wilt also perform thy part, which thou owest me. Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other, and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due. Remember, that i am thy creature: i ought to be thy Adam; but i am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere i see bliss, from which i alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and i shall again be virtuous.

Frankenstein Shelley Monster

"Begone! I will not hear you. There can be no community between you and me; we are enemies. Begone, or let us try our strength in a fight, in which one must fall."

Frankenstein Shelley Victor

"During these last days i have been occupied in examining my past conduct; nor do i find it blameable. In a fit of enthusiastic madness i created a rational creature, and was bound towards him, to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and well-being. This was my duty; but there as another still paramount to that. My duties towards my fellow-creatures had greater claims to my attention, because they included a greater proportion of happiness or misery. Urged by this view, i refused, and i did right in refusing, to create a companion for the first creature. He shewed unparalleled malignity and selected malignity and selfishness, in evil: he destroyed my friends; he devoted to destruction beings who possessed exquisite sensations, happiness, and wisdom; nor do i know where this thirst for vengeance may end. Miserable himself, that he may render no other wretched, he ought to die."

Frankenstein Shelley Victor

"Even if they were to leave europe and inhabit the desert of the new world, yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror. Had i a right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? I had before been moved by the sophisms of the being i had created; i had been struck senseless by his fiendish threats: but now for the first time, the wickedness of my promise burst upon me; i shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy it's own peace at the price perhaps of the existence of the whole human race."

Frankenstein Shelley Victor

"If this journey had taken place during my days of study and happiness, it would have afforded me inexpressible pleasure. But a blight had come over my existence, and i only visited these people for the sake of the information they might give me on the subject in which my interest was so terribly profound. Company was irksome to me; when left alone, i could fill my mind with the sights of heaven and earth; the voice of henry soothed me, and i could thus cheat myself into transitory peace. But busy uninteresting joyous faces brought back despair to my heart. I saw an insurmountable barrier placed between me and my fellow-men; this barrier was sealed with the blood of william and justine; and to reflect on the events connected with those names filled my soul with anguish.

Frankenstein Shelley Victor

"It was nearly noon when i arrived at the top of the ascent. For some time i sat upon the rock that overlooks the sea of ice. A mist covered both that and the surrounding mountains. Presently a breeze dissipated the cloud, and i descended upon the glacier. The surface is very uneven, rising like the waves of a troubled sea, descending low, and interspersed by rifts that sink deep. The field of ice is almost a league in width, but i spent nearly two hours in crossing it. The opposite mountain is a bare perpendicular rock. From the side where i now stood montanvert was exactly opposite, at the distance of a league; and above it rose Mont Blanc, in awful majesty. I remained in a recess of the rock, gazing on this wonderful and stupendous scene. The sea, or rather the vast river of ice, wound among it's dependent mountains, whose aerial summits hung over it's recesses. Their icy and glittering peaks shone in the sunlight over the clouds. My heart, which was before sorrowful, now swelled with something like joy; i exclaimed- "wandering spirits, if indeed ye wander, and do not rest in your narrow beds, allow me this faint happiness, or take me, as your companion, away from the joys of life.

Frankenstein Shelley Victor

"It was on a dreary night of November, that i beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected my instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated it's limbs. How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care i had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and i had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!- Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips."

Frankenstein Shelley Victor

"No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which i should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as it's creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as i should deserve their's."

Frankenstein Shelley Victor

"She left me, and i continued some time walking up and down the passages of the house, and inspecting every corner that might afford a retreat to my adversary. But i discovered no trace of him, and was beginning to conjecture that some fortunate chance had intervened to prevent the execution of his menaces; when suddenly i heard a shrill and dreadful scream. It came from the room into which Elizabeth had retired. As i heard it, the whole truth rushed into my mind, my arms dropped, the motion of every muscle and fibre was suspended; i could feel the blood trickling in my veins, and tingling in the extremities of my limbs. This state lasted by for an instant; the scream was repeated, and i rushed into the room. Great God! Why did i not then expire! Why am i here to relate the destruction of the best hope, and the purest creature of earth. She was there, lifeless inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down, and her pale distorted features half covered by her hair. Everywhere i turn i see the same figure- her bloodless arms and relaxed form flung by the murderer on it's bridal bier. Could i behold this, and live? Alas! Life is obstinate, and clings closest where it is most hated. For a moment only did i lose recollection; i fainted."

Frankenstein Shelley Victor

"While i watched the storm, so beautiful yet terrific, i wandered on with a hasty step. This noble war in the sky elevated my spirits; i clasped my hands and exclaimed aloud, "william, dear angel! This is thy funeral, this thy dirge!" as i said these words, i perceived in the gloom a figure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me, i stood fixed, gazing intently: i could not be mistaken. A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered it's shape plainly to me; it's gigantic stature, and the deformity of it's aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy daemon to whom i had given life. What did he there? Could he be (i shuddered at the conception) the murderer of my brother? No sooner did that idea cross my imagination, than i became convinced of it's truth; my teeth chattered, and i was forced to lean against a tree for support. The figure passed me quickly, and i lost it in the gloom."

Frankenstein Shelley Victor

"that he should live to be an instrument of mischief disturbs me; in other respects this hour, when i momentarily expected my release, is the only happy one which i have enjoyed for several years. The forms of the beloved dead flit before me, and i hasten to their arms. Farewell, Walton! Seek happiness in tranquillity, and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries. Yet why do i say this? I have myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed."

Frankenstein Shelley Victor

I started my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced it's way through the window shutters, i beheld the wretch- the miserable monster whom i had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but i did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but i escaped, and rushed down stairs. I took refuge in the court- yard belonging to the house which i inhabited; where i remained during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which i had so miserably given life. Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived

Frankenstein Shelley Victor

"His words had a strange effect upon me. I compassionated him, and sometimes felt a wish to console him; but when i looked upon him, when i saw the filthy mass that moved and talked, my heart sickened, and my feelings were altered to those of horror and hatred. I tried to stifle these sensations; i thought, that as i could not sympathize with him, i had no right to withhold him from the small portion of happiness which was yet in my power to bestow. "You swear" i said, "to be harmless; but have you not already shewn a degree of malice that should reasonably make me distrust you? May not even this be a feint that will increase your triumph by affording a wider scope for your revenge?" "how is this? I thought i had moved your compassion, and yet you still refuse to bestow on me the only benefit that can soften my heart, and render me harmless. If i have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion; the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes, and i shall become a thing, of whose existence every one will be ignorant. My vices are the children of a forced solitude that i abhor; and my virtues will necessarily arise when i live in communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being, and become linked to the chain of existence and events, from which i am now excluded."

Frankenstein Shelley Victor and the monster

"We may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. It's productions and features may be without example, as the phaenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle; and may regulate a thousand celestial observations, that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent for ever. I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death, and to induce e to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which i shall confer on all mankind to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine."

Frankenstein Shelley Walton

"They began to scratch their pates, No longer wagging, purring, But visibly demuring, Grunting and snarling. One called her proud, Cross-gained, uncivil; Their tones waxed loud, Their looks were evil. Lashing their tails They trod and hustled her, Elbowed and jostled her, Clawed with their nails, Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking, Tore her gown and soiled her stocking, Twitched her hair out by the roots, Stamped upon her tender feet, Held her hands and squeezed their fruits Against her mouth to make her eat.

Goblin Market Rossetti Narrator

"Would tell them how her sister stood In deadly peril to do her good, And win the fiery antidote: Then joining hands to little hands Would bid them cling together, 'For there is no friend like a sister In calm or stormy weather; To cheer one on the tedious way, To fetch one if one goes astray, To lift one if one totters down, To strengthen whilst one stands'"

Goblin Market Rossetti Narrator and Laura

"Morning and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: 'Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy; Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpecked cherries, Melons and raspberries, Bloom-down-cheeked peaches, Swart-headed mulberries, Wild free-born cranberries, Crab-apples, dewberries, Pine-apples, blackberries, Apricots, strawberries; -- All ripe together In summer weather -- Morns that pass by, Fair eves that fly; Come buy, come buy: Our grapes fresh from the vine, Pomegranates full and fine, Dates and sharp bullaces, Rare pears and greengages, Damsons and bilberries, Taste them and try: Currents and gooseberries, Bright-fire-like barberries, Figs to fill your mouth, Citrons from the South, Sweet to tongue and sound to eye; Come buy, come buy.' Evening by evening Among the brookside rushes, Laura bowed her head to hear, Lizzie veiled her blushes: Crouching close together In the cooling weather, With clasping arms and cautioning lips, With tingling cheeks and fingertips. 'Lie close,' Laura said, Pricking up her golden head: 'We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots?' 'Come buy,' call the goblins Hobbling down the glen."

Goblin Market Rossetti narrator, Goblin Men, Laura

"Early in the morning When the first cock crowed his warning, Neat like bees, as sweet and busy, Laura rose with Lizzie: Fetched in honey, milked the cows, Aired and set to rights the house, Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat, Cakes for dainty mouths to eat, Next churned butter, whipped up cream, Fed their poultry, sat and sewed; Talked as modest maidens should: Lizzie with an open heart, Laura in an absent dream, One content, one sick in part; One warbling for the mere bright day's delight, One longing for the night."

Goblin Market Rossetti Narrator

"She cried 'Laura,' up the garden, 'Did you miss me? Come and kiss me. Never mind my bruises, Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices Squeezed from goblin fruits for you, Goblin pulp and goblin dew. Eat me, drink me, love me; Laura, make much of me: For your sake I have braved the glen And had to do with goblin merchant men.

Goblin Market Rossetti Lizzie

"One may lead a horse to water, Twenty cannot make him drink. Tho' the goblins cuffed and caught her, Coaxed and fought her, Bullied and besought her, Scratched her, pinched her black as ink, Kicked and knocked her, Mauled and mocked her, Lizzie uttered not a word; Would not open lip from lip Lest they should cram a mouthful in:"

Goblin Market Rossetti Narrator

"I am going to take young Mr. Tom back to Coketown, in order to deliver him over to Mr. Bounderby. Sir, I have no doubt whatever that Mr. Bounderby will then promote me to young Mr. Tom's situation. And i wish to have his situation, sir, for it will be a rise to me, and will do me good." "if this is solely a question of self-interest with you-" Mr Gradgrind began. "I beg your pardon for interrupting you, sir," returned Bitzer; "but i am sure you know that the whole social system is a question of self-interest. What you must always appeal to, is a person's self-interest. It's your only hold. We are so constituted. I was brought up in that catechism when i was very young, sir, as you are aware." "what sum of money," said Mr. Gradgrind, "will you against your expected promotion?" "thank you, sir," returned Bitzer, "for hinting at the proposal; but i will not set any sum against it. Knowing that your clear head would propose that alternative, i have gone over the calculations in my mind; and i find that to compound a felony, even on very high terms indeed, would not be as safe and good for me as my improved prospects in the Bank." "Bitzer," Said mr. Gradgrind, stretching out his hands as though he would have said, see how miserable i am! "Bitzer, i have but one chance left to soften you. You were many years at my school. If, in remembrance of the pains bestowed upon you there, you can persuade yourself in any degree to disregard your present interest and release my son, i entreat and pray you to give him the benefit of that remembrance." I really wonder, sir," rejoined the old pupil in an argumentative manner, "to find you taking a position so untenable. My schooling was paid for; it was a bargain; and when i came away, the bargain ended." it was a fundamental principle of the gradgrind philosophy that everything was to be paid for. Nobody was ever on any account to give anybody anything, or render anybody help without purchase. Gratitude was to be abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to be. Every inch of the existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a bargain across a counter. And if we didn't get to heaven that way, it was not a politico-economical place, and we had no business there."

Hard Times Dickens Gradgrind, Bitzer and narrator

"It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next."

Hard times Dickens Narrator

"Is it possible, I wonder, that there was any analogy between the case of the Coketown population and the case of the little Gradgrinds? Surely, none of us in our sober senses and acquainted with figures, are to be told at this time of day, that one of the foremost elements in the existence of the Coketown working-people had been for scores of years, deliberately set at nought? That there was any Fancy in them demanding to be brought into healthy existence instead of struggling on in convulsions? That exactly in the ratio as they worked long and monotonously, the craving grew within them for some physical relief—some relaxation, encouraging good humour and good spirits, and giving them a vent—some recognized holiday, though it were but for an honest dance to a stirring band of music—some occasional light pie in which even M'Choakumchild had no finger—which craving must and would be satisfied aright, or must and would inevitably go wrong, until the laws of the Creation were repealed?

Hard times Dickens narrator

" "do you deny, then, madam that you left your son to- to be brought up in the gutter?" "Josiah in the gutter?" exclaimed Mrs. Pegler. "No such a thing, sir. Never! For shame on you! My dear boy knows, and will give you to know, that though he came of humble parents, he come of parents that loved him as dear as the best could, and never thought it hardship on themselves to pinch a bit that he might write and cipher beautiful, and ive his books at home to show it! aye , have i!" said mrs. pegler, with indignant pride. "And my dear boy knows, and will give you to know, sir, that after his beloved father died, when he was eight years old, his mother, too, could pinch a bit, as it was her duty and her pleasure and her pride to do it, to help him out in life, and put him 'prentice. And a steady lad he was, and a kind master he had to lend him a hand, and well he worked his own way forward to be rick and thriving."

Hard times Dickens Mr. Gradgrind and Mrs. Pegler

"the Horror! the Horror!

Heart of Darkness Conrad Kurtz

"The young man looked at me with surprise. I suppose it did not occur to him that Mr. Kurtz was no idol of mine. He forgot I hadn't heard any of these splendid monologues on, what was it? on love, justice, conduct of life—or what not. If it had come to crawling before Mr. Kurtz, he crawled as much as the veriest savage of them all. I had no idea of the conditions, he said: these heads were the heads of rebels. I shocked him excessively by laughing. Rebels! What would be the next definition I was to hear? There had been enemies, criminals, workers—and these were rebels. Those rebellious heads looked very subdued to me on their sticks."

Heart of Darkness Conrad Marlow

"We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet there. At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day. Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell. The dawns were heralded by the descent of a chill stillness; the wood-cutters slept, their fires burned low; the snapping of a twig would make you start. We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us—who could tell? We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember because we were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign—and no memories. "The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there—there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were—No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it—this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity—like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you—you so remote from the night of first ages—could comprehend. And why not? The mind of man is capable of anything—because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage—who can tell?—but truth—truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder—the man knows, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet that truth with his own true stuff—with his own inborn strength."

Heart of Darkness Conrad Marlow

"They approached again, just as the manager was saying, 'No one, as far as I know, unless a species of wandering trader—a pestilential fellow, snapping ivory from the natives.' Who was it they were talking about now? I gathered in snatches that this was some man supposed to be in Kurtz's district, and of whom the manager did not approve. 'We will not be free from unfair competition till one of these fellows is hanged for an example,' he said. 'Certainly,' grunted the other; 'get him hanged! Why not? Anything—anything can be done in this country. That's what I say; nobody here, you understand, here, can endanger your position. And why? You stand the climate—you outlast them all. The danger is in Europe; but there before I left I took care to—' They moved off and whispered, then their voices rose again. 'The extraordinary series of delays is not my fault. I did my best.' The fat man sighed. 'Very sad.' 'And the pestiferous absurdity of his talk,' continued the other; 'he bothered me enough when he was here. "Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a centre for trade of course, but also for humanizing, improving, instructing." Conceive you—that ass! And he wants to be manager! No, it's—' Here he got choked by excessive indignation," (

Heart of Darkness Conrad Marlow, Manager, Other

"I gave my name, and looked about. Deal table in the middle, plain chairs all round the walls, on one end a large shining map, marked with all the colours of a rainbow. There was a vast amount of red—good to see at any time, because one knows that some real work is done in there, a deuce of a lot of blue, a little green, smears of orange, and, on the East Coast, a purple patch, to show where the jolly pioneers of progress drink the jolly lager-beer. However, I wasn't going into any of these. I was going into the yellow. Dead in the centre. And the river was there—fascinating—deadly—like a snake." (p. 1065-1066)

Heart of Darkness Conrad Marlow

"Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, 'When I grow up I will go there.' The North Pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, I haven't been there yet, and shall not try now. The glamour's off. Other places were scattered about the hemispheres. I have been in some of them, and... well, we won't talk about that. But there was one yet—the biggest, the most blank, so to speak—that I had a hankering after.

Heart of Darkness Conrad Marlow

"'And this also,' said Marlow suddenly, 'has been one of the dark places of the earth'" (1062)

Heart of Darkness Conrad Marlow

"I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago -- the other day ... Light came out of this river since -- you say Knights? Yes; but it is like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker -- may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine -- what d'ye call 'em? --trireme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north; run overland across the Gauls in a hurry; put in charge of one of these craft the legionaries -- a wonderful lot of handy men they must have been too -- used to build, apparently by the hundred, in a month or two, if we may believe what we read. Imagine him here -- the very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina -- and going up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like. Sandbanks, marshes, forests, savages -- precious little to eat fit for a civilised man, nothing but Thames water to drink. No Falernian wine here, no going ashore. Here and there a military camp lost in a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay -- cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death -- death skulking in the air, in the water, in the bush. They must have been dying like flies here." (1062)

Heart of Darkness Conrad Marlow

""Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. Another mine on the cliff went off, followed by a slight shudder of the soil under my feet. The work was going on. The work! And this was the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die. "They were dying slowly—it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now—nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. These moribund shapes were free as air—and nearly as thin. I began to distinguish the gleam of the eyes under the trees. Then, glancing down, I saw a face near my hand. The black bones reclined at full length with one shoulder against the tree, and slowly the eyelids rose and the sunken eyes looked up at me, enormous and vacant, a kind of blind, white flicker in the depths of the orbs, which died out slowly. The man seemed young—almost a boy—but you know with them it's hard to tell. I found nothing else to do but to offer him one of my good Swede's ship's biscuits I had in my pocket. The fingers closed slowly on it and held—there was no other movement and no other glance. He had tied a bit of white worsted round his neck—Why? Where did he get it? Was it a badge—an ornament—a charm—a propitiatory act? Was there any idea at all connected with it? It looked startling round his black neck, this bit of white thread from beyond the seas." (p. 1071)

Heart of darkness Conrad Marlow

"True, by this time it was not a blank space any more. It had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery—a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness. But there was in it one river especially, a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land. And as I looked at the map of it in a shop-window, it fascinated me as a snake would a bird—a silly little bird. Then I remembered there was a big concern, a Company for trade on that river. Dash it all! I thought to myself, they can't trade without using some kind of craft on that lot of fresh water—steamboats! Why shouldn't I try to get charge of one? I went on along Fleet Street, but could not shake off the idea. The snake had charmed me." (p. 1064)

Heart of darkness Conrad Marlow

"This simply because I had a notion it somehow would be of help to that Kurtz whom at the time I did not see—you understand. He was just a word for me. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do. Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream—making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams...." He was silent for a while. "... No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream—alone...."

Heart of darkness Conrad Marlow and Narrator

"Dark house, by which once more I stand Here in the long unlovely street, Doors, where my heart used to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand, A hand that can be clasped no more -- Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door. He is not here, but far away The noise of life begins again, And ghastly through the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day"

In Memoriam A.H.H Tennyson Narrator/Tennyson

"The wish, that of the living whole No life may fail beyond the grave, Derives it not from what we have The likest God within the soul? Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life; That I, considering everywhere Her secret meaning in her deeds, And finding that of fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear, I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope thro' darkness up to God, I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope."

In Memoriam A.H.H Tennyson Speaker/ Tennyson

"A happy lover who has come To look on her that loves him well, Who 'lights and rings the gateway bell, And learns her gone and far from home; He saddens, all the magic light Dies off at once from bower and hall, And all the place is dark, and all The chambers emptied of delight: So I find every pleasant spot In which we two were wont to meet, The field, the chamber, and the street, For all is dark where thou art not. Yet as that other, wandering there In those deserted walks, may find A flower beat with rain and wind, Which once she fostered up with care; So seems it in my deep regret, O my forsaken heart, with thee And this poor flower of poesy Which little cared for fades not yet. But since it pleased a vanished eye, I go to plant it on his tomb, That if it can it there may bloom, Or dying, there at least may die."

In Memoriam A.H.H Tennyson Speaker/Tennyson

"One writes, that "Other friends remain," That "Loss is common to the race" -- And common is the commonplace, And vacant chaff well meant for grain. That loss is common would not make My own less bitter, rather more: Too common! Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break. O father, whereso'er thou be, Who pledgest now thy gallant son; A shot, ere half thy draft be done, Hath stilled the life that beat from thee. O mother, praying God will save Thy sailor -- while thy head is bowed, His heavy-shotted hammock shroud Drops in his vast and wandering grave. Ye know no more than I who wrought At that last hour to please him well; Who mused on all I had to tell, And something written, something thought; Expecting still his advent home; And ever met him on his way With wishes, thinking, "here today," Or "here tomorrow he will come." O somewhere, meek, the unconscious dove, That sittest ranging golden hair; And glad to find thyself so fair, Poor child, that waitest for thy love! For now her father's chimney glows In expectation of a guest; And thinking "this will please him best," She takes a riband or a rose; For he will see them on tonight; And with the thought her color burns; And, having left the glass, she turns Once more to set a ringlet right; And, even when she turned, the curse Had fallen, and her future Lord Was drowned in passing through the ford, Or killed in falling from his horse. O what to her shall be the end? And what to me remains of good? To her, perpetual maidenhood, And unto me no second friend."

In Memoriam A.H.H Tennyson Speaker/Tennyson

"So careful of the type?" but no. From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries, "A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go. "Thou makest thine appeal to me: I bring to life, I bring to death: The spirit does but mean the breath: I know no more." And he, shall he, Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law— Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek'd against his creed— Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills, Who battled for the True, the Just, Be blown about the desert dust, Or seal'd within the iron hills? No more? A monster then, a dream, A discord. Dragons of the prime, That tare each other in their slime, Were mellow music match'd with him. O life as futile, then, as frail! O for thy voice to soothe and bless! What hope of answer, or redress? Behind the veil, behind the veil."

In Memoriam A.H.H Tennyson Speaker/Tennyson

"I held it in truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping stones Of their dead selves to higher things. But who shall so forecast the years And find in loss a gain to match? Or reach a hand through time to catch The far-off interest of tears? Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drowned, Let darkness keep her raven gloss. Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with Death, to beat the ground, Than that the victor Hours should scorn The long result of love, and boast, "Behold the man that loved and lost, But all he was is overworn."

In Memoriam A.H.H Tennyson Speaker/Tennyson

"If one should bring me this report, That thou hadst touched the land today, And I went down unto the quay; And found thee lying in the port; And standing, muffled round with woe, Should see thy passengers in rank Come stepping lightly down the plank And beckoning unto those they know; And if along with these should come The man I held as half divine, Should strike a sudden hand in mine, And ask a thousand things of home; And should I tell him all my pain, And how my life had drooped of late, And he should sorrow o'er my state And marvel what possessed my brain; And I perceived no touch of change, No hint of death in all his frame, But found him all in all the same, I should not feel it to be strange."

In Memoriam A.H.H Tennyson speaker/Tennyson

"Fair ship, that from the Italian shore Sailest the placid ocean-plains With my lost Arthur's loved remains, Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er. So draw him home to those that mourn In vain; a favourable speed Ruffle thy mirrored mast, and lead Through prosperous floods his holy urn. All night no ruder air perplex Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright As our pure love, through early light Shall glimmer on the dewy decks. Sphere all your lights, above; Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow; Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, My friend, the brother of my love; My Arthur, whom I shall not see Till all my widowed race be run; Dear as the mother to the sun, More than my brothers are to me."

In Memoriam A.H.H Tennyson Speaker/Tennyson

"Oh, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final end of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroy'd, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete; That not a worm is cloven in vain; That not a moth with vain desire Is shrivell'd in a fruitless fire, Or but subserves another's gain. Behold, we know not anything; I can but trust that good shall fall At last—far off—at last, to all, And every winter change to spring. So runs my dream: but what am I? An infant crying in the night: An infant crying for the light: And with no language but a cry."

In Memoriam A.H.H Tennyson Speaker/Tennyson

"A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise."

Kubla Kahn Coleridge Speaker

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery."

Kubla Kahn Coleridge Speaker

"The author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter:"

Kubla Khan Coleridge Speaker

"With blackest moss the flower-plots Were thickly crusted, one and all; The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the pear to the gable wall. The broken sheds looked sad and strange: Unlifted was the clinking latch; Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!"

Mariana Tennyson Narrator and Mariana

"It chanced his lips did meet her forehead cool. She had no blush, but slanted down her eye. Shamed nature, then, confesses love can die: And most she punishes the tender fool Who will believe what honours her the most! Dead! is it dead? She has a pulse, and flow Of tears, the price of blood-drops, as I know, For whom the midnight sobs around Love's ghost, Since then I heard her, and so will sob on. The love is here; it has but changed its aim. O bitter barren woman! what's the name? The name, the name, the new name thou hast won? Behold me striking the world's coward stroke! T hat will I not do, thought the sting is dire. -- Beneath the surface this, while by the fire They sat, she laughing at a quiet joke."

Modern Love Meredith Narrator

"By this he knew she wept with waking eyes: That, at his hand's light quiver by her head, The strange low sobs that shook their common bed Were called into her with a sharp surprise, And strangled mute, like little gasping snakes, Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes Her giant heart of Memory and Tears Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet Were moveless, looking through their dead black years, By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall. Like sculptured effigies they might be seen Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between; Each wishing for the sword that severs all."

Modern Love Meredith Narrator

REV. S. [piteously] Frank, my boy: when I wrote those letters I put myself into that woman's power. When I told you about them I put myself, to some extent, I am sorry to say, in your power. She refused my money with these words, which I shall never forget. "Knowledge is power" she said; "and I never sell power."Thats more than twenty years ago; and she has never made use of her power or caused me a moment's uneasiness. You are behaving worse to me than she did, Frank. FRANK. Oh yes I dare say! Did you ever preach at her the way you preach at me every day? REV. S. [wounded almost to tears] I leave you, sir. You are incorrigible. [He turns towards the gate]. FRANK [utterly unmoved] Tell them I shan't be home to tea, will you, gov'nor, like a good fellow? [He moves towards the cottage door and is met by Praed and Vivie coming out]. VIVIE [to Frank] Is that your father, Frank? I do so want to meet him. FRANK. Certainly. [Calling after his father] Gov'nor. Youre wanted. [The parson turns at the gate, fumbling nervously at his hat. Praed crosses the garden to the opposite side, beaming in anticipation of civilities]. My father: Miss Warren. VIVIE [going to the clergyman and shaking his hand] Very glad to see you here, Mr Gardner. [Calling to the cottage] Mother: come along: youre wanted.[Mrs Warren appears on the threshold, and is immediately transfixed, recognizing the clergyman.]VIVIE [continuing] Let me introduce— MRS WARREN [swooping on the Reverend Samuel] Why it's Sam Gardner, gone into the Church! Well, I never! Don't you know us, Sam? This is George Crofts, as large as life and twice as natural. Don't you remember me? REV. S. [very red] I really—er— MRS WARREN. Of course you do. Why, I have a whole album of your letters still: I came across them only the other day."

Mrs. Warren's Profession Shaw

[Summer afternoon in a cottage garden on the eastern slope of a hill a little south of Haslemere in Surrey. Looking up the hill, the cottage is seen in the left hand corner of the garden, with its thatched roof and porch, and a large latticed window to the left of the porch. A paling completely shuts in the garden, except for a gate on the right. The common rises uphill beyond the paling to the sky line. Some folded canvas garden chairs are leaning against the side bench in the porch. A lady's bicycle is propped against the wall, under the window. A little to the right of the porch a hammock is slung from two posts. A big canvas umbrella, stuck in the ground, keeps the sun off the hammock, in which a young lady is reading and making notes, her head towards the cottage and her feet towards the gate. In front of the hammock, and within reach of her hand, is a common kitchen chair, with a pile of serious-looking books and a supply of writing paper on it.] [A gentleman walking on the common comes into sight from behind the cottage. He is hardly past middle age, with something of the artist about him, unconventionally but carefully dressed, and clean-shaven except for a moustache, with an eager susceptible face and very amiable and considerate manners. He has silky black hair, with waves of grey and white in it. His eyebrows are white, his moustache black. He seems not certain of his way. He looks over the palings; takes stock of the place; and sees the young lady.] THE GENTLEMAN [taking off his hat] I beg your pardon. Can you direct me to Hindhead View—Mrs Alison's? THE YOUNG LADY [glancing up from her book] This is Mrs Alison's. [She resumes her work]. THE GENTLEMAN. Indeed! Perhaps—may I ask are you Miss Vivie Warren? THE YOUNG LADY [sharply, as she turns on her elbow to get a good look at him] Yes. THE GENTLEMAN [daunted and conciliatory] I'm afraid I appear intrusive. My name is Praed. [Vivie at once throws her books upon the chair, and gets out of the hammock]. Oh, pray don't let me disturb you. VIVIE [striding to the gate and opening it for him] Come in, Mr Praed. [He comes in]. Glad to see you. [She proffers her hand and takes his with a resolute and hearty grip. She is an attractive specimen of the sensible, able, highly-educated young middle-class Englishwoman. Age 22. Prompt, strong, confident, self-possessed. Plain business-like dress, but not dowdy. She wears a chatelaine at her belt, with a fountain pen and a paper knife among its pendants]. PRAED. Very kind of you indeed, Miss Warren. [She shuts the gate with a vigorous slam. He passes in to the middle of the garden, exercising his fingers, which are slightly numbed by her greeting]. Has your mother arrived?"

Mrs. Warren's Profession Shaw

"MRS WARREN. Yes, Heaven forgive me, it's true; and you are the only one that ever turned on me. Oh, the injustice of it! the injustice! the injustice! I always wanted to be a good woman. I tried honest work; and I was slave-driven until I cursed the day I ever heard of honest work. I was a good mother; and because I made my daughter a good woman she turns me out as if I were a leper. Oh, if I only had my life to live over again! I'd talk to that lying clergyman in the school. From this time forth, so help me Heaven in my last hour, I'll do wrong and nothing but wrong. And I'll prosper on it. VIVIE. Yes: it's better to choose your line and go through with it. If I had been you, mother, I might have done as you did; but I should not have lived one life and believed in another. You are a conventional woman at heart. That is why I am bidding you goodbye now. I am right, am I not?"

Mrs. Warren's profession Shaw

VIVIE [sitting down with a shrug, no longer confident; for her replies, which have sounded sensible and strong to her so far, now begin to ring rather woodenly and even priggishly against the new tone of her mother] Don't think for a moment I set myself above you in any way. You attacked me with the conventional authority of a mother: I defended myself with the conventional superiority of a respectable woman. Frankly, I am not going to stand any of your nonsense; and when you drop it I shall not expect you to stand any of mine. I shall always respect your right to your own opinions and your own way of life. MRS WARREN. My own opinions and my own way of life! Listen to her talking! Do you think I was brought up like you? able to pick and choose my own way of life? Do you think I did what I did because I liked it, or thought it right, or wouldn't rather have gone to college and been a lady if I'd had the chance? VIVIE. Everybody has some choice, mother. The poorest girl alive may not be able to choose between being Queen of England or Principal of Newnham; but she can choose between ragpicking and flowerselling, according to her taste. People are always blaming circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. MRS WARREN. Oh, it's easy to talk, isn't it? Here! would you like to know what my circumstances were? VIVIE. Yes: you had better tell me. Won't you sit down? MRS WARREN. Oh, I'll sit down: don't you be afraid. [She plants her chair farther forward with brazen energy, and sits down. Vivie is impressed in spite of herself]. D'you know what your gran'mother was? VIVIE. No. MRS WARREN. No, you don't. I do. She called herself a widow and had a fried-fish shop down by the Mint, and kept herself and four daughters out of it. Two of us were sisters: that was me and Liz; and we were both good-looking and well made. I suppose our father was a well-fed man: mother pretended he was a gentleman; but I don't know. The other two were only half sisters: undersized, ugly, starved looking, hard working, honest poor creatures: Liz and I would have half-murdered them if mother hadn't half-murdered us to keep our hands off them. They were the respectable ones. Well, what did they get by their respectability? I'll tell you. One of them worked in a whitelead factory twelve hours a day for nine shillings a week until she died of lead poisoning. She only expected to get her hands a little paralyzed; but she died. The other was always held up to us as a model because she married a Government laborer in the Deptford victualling yard, and kept his room and the three children neat and tidy on eighteen shillings a week—until he took to drink. That was worth being respectable for, wasn't it?

Mrs. Warren's profession Shaw

VIVIE. It would not matter if you did: you would not succeed. [Mrs Warren winces, deeply hurt by the implied indifference towards her affectionate intention. Vivie, neither understanding this nor concerning herself about it, goes on calmly] Mother: you don't at all know the sort of person I am. I don't object to Crofts more than to any other coarsely built man of his class. To tell you the truth, I rather admire him for being strongminded enough to enjoy himself in his own way and make plenty of money instead of living the usual shooting, hunting, dining-out, tailoring, loafing life of his set merely because all the rest do it. And I'm perfectly aware that if I'd been in the same circumstances as my aunt Liz, I'd have done exactly what she did. "I don't think I'm more prejudiced or straitlaced than you: I think I'm less. I'm certain I'm less sentimental. I know very well that fashionable morality is all a pretence, and that if I took your money and devoted the rest of my life to spending it fashionably, I might be as worthless and vicious as the silliest woman could possibly be without having a word said to me about it. But I don't want to be worthless. I shouldn't enjoy trotting about the park to advertize my dressmaker and carriage builder, or being bored at the opera to shew off a shopwindowful of diamonds."

Mrs. Warren's profession Shaw

PRAED [revolted] What a monstrous, wicked, rascally system! I knew it! I felt at once that it meant destroying all that makes womanhood beautiful! VIVIE. I don't object to it on that score in the least. I shall turn it to very good account, I assure you. PRAED. Pooh! In what way? VIVIE. I shall set up chambers in the City, and work at actuarial calculations and conveyancing. Under cover of that I shall do some law, with one eye on the Stock Exchange all the time. I've come down here by myself to read law: not for a holiday, as my mother imagines. I hate holidays. PRAED. You make my blood run cold. Are you to have no romance, no beauty in your life? VIVIE. I don't care for either, I assure you. PRAED. You can't mean that. VIVIE. Oh yes I do. I like working and getting paid for it. When I'm tired of working, I like a comfortable chair, a cigar, a little whisky, and a novel with a good detective story in it.

Mrs. Warrens profession Shaw

"O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," -- that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Ode to a grecian urn Keats Speaker

The rain set early in to-night, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its worst to vex the lake: I listened with heart fit to break. When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up, and all the cottage warm; Which done, she rose, and from her form Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, And laid her soiled gloves by, untied Her hat and let the damp hair fall, And, last, she sat down by my side And called me. When no voice replied, She put my arm about her waist, And made her smooth white shoulder bare, And all her yellow hair displaced, And, stooping, made my cheek lie there, And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair, Murmuring how she loved me — she Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour, To set its struggling passion free From pride, and vainer ties dissever, And give herself to me for ever. But passion sometimes would prevail, Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain A sudden thought of one so pale For love of her, and all in vain: So, she was come through wind and rain. Be sure I looked up at her eyes Happy and proud; at last I knew Porphyria worshipped me; surprise Made my heart swell, and still it grew While I debated what to do. That moment she was mine, mine, fair, Perfectly pure and good: I found A thing to do, and all her hair In one long yellow string I wound Three times her little throat around, And strangled her. No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain. As a shut bud that holds a bee, I warily oped her lids: again Laughed the blue eyes without a stain. And I untightened next the tress About her neck; her cheek once more Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss: I propped her head up as before, Only, this time my shoulder bore Her head, which droops upon it still: The smiling rosy little head, So glad it has its utmost will, That all it scorned at once is fled, And I, its love, am gained instead! Porphyria's love: she guessed not how Her darling one wish would be heard. And thus we sit together now, And all night long we have not stirred, And yet God has not said a word!

Porphyria's Lover Browning Narrator

"I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility: the emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood successful composition generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried on;"

Preface to Lyrical ballads Wordsworth Speaker

"The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing them in, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Low and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings; and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended; and are more durable; and lastly, because in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature."

Preface to lyrical ballads

One end hereby at least hath been attained -- My mind hath been revived -- and if this mood Desert me not, I will forthwith bring down Through later years the story of my life. The road lies plain before me. 'Tis a theme Single and of determined bounds, and hence I chuse it rather at this time than work Of ampler or more varied argument, Where I might be discomfited and lost, And certain hopes are with me that to thee This labour will be welcome, honoured friend."

Prelude Wordsworth Speaker

One evening -- surely I was led by her -- I went alone into a shepherd's boat, A skiff that to a willow-tree was tied Within a rocky cove, its usual home. 'Twas by the shores of Patterdale, a vale Wherein I was a stranger, thither come A schoolboy traveller at the holidays. Forth rambled from the village inn alone, No sooner had I sight of this small skiff, Discovered thus by unexpected chance, Than I unloosed her tether and embarked. The moon was up, the lake was shining clear Among the hoary mountains; from the shore I pushed, and stuck the oars, and struck again In cadence, and my little boat moved on, Leaving behind her still on either side Small circles glittering idly in the moon, Until they melted all into one track Of sparkling light. A rocky steep uprose Above the cavern of the willow tree, And now, as suited one who proudly rowed With his best skill, I fixed a steady view Upon the top of that same craggy ridge, The bound of the horizon -- for behind Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky. She was an elfin pinnace; lustily I dipped my oars into the silent lake, And as I rose upon the stroke my boat Went heaving through the water like a swan -- When from behind that craggy steep, till then The bound of the horizon, a huge cliff, As if with voluntary power instinct, Upreared its head. I struck, and struck again, And, growing still in stature, the huge cliff Rose up between me and the stars, and still With measured motion, like a living thing Strode after me. With trembling hands I turned And through the meadows homeward went with grave And serious thoughts; and after I had seen That spectacle, for many days my brain Worked with a dim and undetermined sense Of unknown modes of being. In my thoughts There was a darkness -- call it solitude Or blank desertion -- no familiar shapes Of hourly objects, images of trees, Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields, But huge and mighty forms that do not live Like living men moved slowly through my mind By day, and were the trouble of my dreams."

Prelude Wordsworth Speaker

"It is an ancient Mariner And he stoppeth one of three. 'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin; The guests are met, the feast is set: May'st hear the merry din.' He holds him with his skinny hand, 'There was a ship,' quoth he. 'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!' Eftsoons his hand dropt he. He holds him with his glittering eyes -- The wedding-guest stood still, And listens like a three years' child: The Mariner hath his will. The wedding-guest sat on a stone: He cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner. 'The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the light house top. The sun came upon the left, Out of the sea came he! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea. Higher and higher every day, Till over the mast at noon --' The wedding-guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon. The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she; Nodding their heads before her goes The merry minstrelsy. The wedding-guest he beat his breast, Yet he cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner."

Rime of the Ancient Mariner Coleridge Narrator, wedding-guest, Mariner

"And I had done a hellish thing, And it would work 'em woe: For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow! Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, The glorious sun uprist: Then all averred, I had killed the bird That brought the fog and mist. 'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, That bring the fog and mist."

Rime of the ancient mariner Coleridge the ancient mariner

"Beyond the shadow of the ship, I watched the water-snakes: They moved in tracks of shining white, And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes. Within the shadow of the ship I watched their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam; and every track Was a flash of golden fire. O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare: A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware: Sure my kind saint took pity on me, And I blessed them unaware The selfsame moment I could pray; And from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea."

Rime of the ancient mariner Coleridge Ancient mariner

"The naked hulk alongside came, And the train were casting dice; 'The game is done! I've won! I've won!' Quoth she, and whistles thrice." (

Rime of the ancient mariner Coleridge Ancient mariner, life-in-death

"They sat them down upon the yellow sand, Between the sun and moon upon the shore; And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland, Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore Most weary seemed the sea, weary the oar, Weary the wandering fields of barren foam, Then some one said, 'We will return no more'; And all at once they sang, 'Our island home Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.'

The Lotus-Eaters Tennyson Narrator, Ulysses, mariners

"Oh there is a blessing in this gentle breeze, That blows from the green fields and from the clouds And from the sky; it beats against my cheek, And seems half conscious of the joy it gives. O welcome messenger! O welcome friend! A captive greets thee, coming from a house Of bondage, from yon city's walls set free, A prison where he hath been long immured. Now I am free, enfranchised and at large, May fix my habitation where I will. What dwelling shall receive me, in what vale Shall be my harbour, under what grove Shall I take up my home, and what sweet stream Shall with its murmurs lull me to my rest? The earth is all before me -- with a heart Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty, I look about, and should the guide I chuse Be nothing better than a wandering cloud I cannot miss my way. I breathe again -- Trances of thought and mountings of the mind Come fast upon me. It is shaken off, As by miraculous gift 'tis shaken off, That burthen of my own unnatural self, That heavy weight of many a weary day Not mine, and such as were not made for me. Long months of peace -- if such bold word accord With any promises of human life -- Long months of ease and undisturbed delight Are mine in prospect. Whither shall I turn, By road or pathway, or through open field, Or shall a twig or any floating thing Upon the river point me out my curse?"

The Prelude Wordsworth Speaker

"Take up the White Man's burden -- Send forth the best ye breed -- Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild -- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child. Take up the White Man's burden -- In patience to abide, To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain, To seek another's profit, And work another's gain."

The White Man's Burden Kipling Speaker/Kipling

"Pile on the brown man's burden To gratify your greed; Go, clear away the "n******" Who progress would impede; Be very stern, for truly Tis useless to be mild With new-caught, sullen peoples, Half devil and half child. Pile of the brown man's burden; And, if ye rouse his hate, Meet his old-fashioned reasons With maxims up to date. With shells and dumdum bullets A hundred times made plain The brown man's loss must ever Imply the white man's gain. Pile on the brown man's burden, Compel him to be free; Let all your manifestoes Reek with philanthropy. And if with heathen folly He dares your will dispute, Then, in the name of freedom, Don't hesitate to shoot."

The brown man's burden Labouchere Speaker/ Labouchere

"Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers And that cannot stop their tears"

The cry of the children Barrett Browning Speaker

"But the young, young children, O my brothers, Do you ask them why they stand Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, In our happy Fatherland?"

The cry of the children Barrett Browning Speaker

"For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning; Their wind comes in our faces, Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning, And the walls turn in their places: Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling, Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling, All are turning, all the day, and we with all. And all the day, the iron wheels are droning, And sometimes we could pray, 'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning) 'Stop! be silent for to-day!'"

The cry of the children Barrett Browning Speaker

Cecily. I can't understand how you are here at all. Uncle Jack won't be back till Monday afternoon. Algernon. That is a great disappointment. I am obliged to go up by the first train on Monday morning. I have a business appointment that I am anxious . . . to miss? Cecily. Couldn't you miss it anywhere but in London? Algernon. No: the appointment is in London. Cecily. Well, I know, of course, how important it is not to keep a business engagement, if one wants to retain any sense of the beauty of life, but still I think you had better wait till Uncle Jack arrives. I know he wants to speak to you about your emigrating.

The importance of being earnest Wilde

Jack. Well, if you want to know, Cecily happens to be my aunt. Algernon. Your aunt! Jack. Yes. Charming old lady she is, too. Lives at Tunbridge Wells. Just give it back to me, Algy. Algernon. [Retreating to back of sofa.] But why does she call herself little Cecily if she is your aunt and lives at Tunbridge Wells? [Reading.] 'From little Cecily with her fondest love.' Jack. [Moving to sofa and kneeling upon it.] My dear fellow, what on earth is there in that? Some aunts are tall, some aunts are not tall. That is a matter that surely an aunt may be allowed to decide for herself. You seem to think that every aunt should be exactly like your aunt! That is absurd! For Heaven's sake give me back my cigarette case. [Follows Algernon round the room.] Algernon. Yes. But why does your aunt call you her uncle? 'From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack.' There is no objection, I admit, to an aunt being a small aunt, but why an aunt, no matter what her size may be, should call her own nephew her uncle, I can't quite make out. Besides, your name isn't Jack at all; it is Ernest. Jack. It isn't Ernest; it's Jack. Algernon. You have always told me it was Ernest. I have introduced you to every one as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn't Ernest. It's on your cards. Here is one of them. [Taking it from case.] 'Mr. Ernest Worthing, B. 4, The Albany.' I'll keep this as a proof that your name is Ernest if ever you attempt to deny it to me, or to Gwendolen, or to any one else. [Puts the card in his pocket.]

The importance of being earnest Wilde

Lady Bracknell. I'm sorry if we are a little late, Algernon, but I was obliged to call on dear Lady Harbury. I hadn't been there since her poor husband's death. I never saw a woman so altered; she looks quite twenty years younger. And now I'll have a cup of tea, and one of those nice cucumber sandwiches you promised me. Algernon. Certainly, Aunt Augusta. [Goes over to tea-table.] Lady Bracknell. Won't you come and sit here, Gwendolen? Gwendolen. Thanks, mamma, I'm quite comfortable where I am. Algernon. [Picking up empty plate in horror.] Good heavens! Lane! Why are there no cucumber sandwiches? I ordered them specially. Lane. [Gravely.] There were no cucumbers in the market this morning, sir. I went down twice. Algernon. No cucumbers! Lane. No, sir. Not even for ready money. Algernon. That will do, Lane, thank you. Lane. Thank you, sir. [Goes out.] Algernon. I am greatly distressed, Aunt Augusta, about there being no cucumbers, not even for ready money. Lady Bracknell. It really makes no matter, Algernon. I had some crumpets with Lady Harbury, who seems to me to be living entirely for pleasure now. Algernon. I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief.

The importance of being earnest Wilde

"Scene -- Morning room in Algernon's flat in Half-Moon Street. The room is luxuriously and artistically furnished. The sound of a piano is heard in the adjoining room. Algernon: Did you hear what I was playing, Lane? Lane: I didn't think it polite to listen, sir. Algernon: I'm sorry for that, for your sake. I don't play accurately -- anyone can play accurately -- but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life. Lane: Yes, sir. Algernon: And, speaking of the science of Life, have you got the cucumber sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell? Lane: Yes, sir. [hands them on a salver] Algernon: [inspects them, takes two, and sits down on the sofa.] Oh! ... by the way, Lane, I see from your book that on Thursday night, when Lord Shoreham and Mr. Worthing were dining with me, eight bottles of champagne are entered as having been consumed. Lane: Yes, sir; eight bottles and a pint. Algernon: Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I merely ask for information. Lane: I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand. Algernon: Good Heavens! Is marriage so demoralizing as that? Lane: I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person. Algernon: [languidly] I don't know that I am much interested in your family life, Lane. Lane: No, sir; it is not a very interesting subject. I never think of it myself. Algernon: Very natural, I am sure. That will do, Lane, thank you. Lane: Thank you, sir. Algernon: Lane's views on marriage seem somewhat lax. Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility."

The importance of being earnest Wilde

"Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, And dear the last embrace of our wives And their warm tears; but all hath suffered change; For surely now our household hearths are cold, Our sons inherit us, our looks are strange, And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. Or else the island princes overbold Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings Before them of the ten years' war in Troy, And our great deeds, as half forgotten things. Is there confusion in the little isle? Let what is broken so remain. The Gods are hard to reconcile; 'Tis hard to settle order once again. There is confusion worse than death, Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, Long labor unto aged breath, Sore tasks to hearts worn out by many wars And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars."

The lotus-eaters Tennyson Mariners

"For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all. -- I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye. --That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompense. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear, -- both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being."

Tintern Abbey Wordsworth Speaker

" This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the scepter and the isle -- Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill This labor, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and through soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offerances of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine."

Ulysses Tennyson Ulysses

"It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought."

Ulysses Tennyson Ulysses