"English language" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... undertook to teach the English language. It is true he was ignorant of the Dutch, but he had a smattering of the French, picked up among the Irish priests at Ballymahon. He depicts his whimsical embarrassment in this respect, in his account in the Vicar of Wakefield of the philosophical vagabond ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... he began here a work that should be of peculiar interest to us: a treatise on Tagalog verbs, in the English language. Did his knowledge of America's growing feeling toward Cuba lead him to foresee—as no one else seems to have done—her appearance in the Philippines, or ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... the number of nights, not of days; and observe birthdays and the beginnings of months and years in such a manner, that the day seems to follow the night." (Bell. Gall. vi. 18.) The vestiges of this method of computation still appear in the English language, in ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... in the narrative style, as being much better suited to the tastes and capacities of my colored readers, and I have used simple and plain English language, discarding the idiomatic and provincial language of the southern slaves and ignorant whites, expecting thereby to help educate the blacks in the use of ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson
... simple, fervent, and touching appeal and resignation to the will of Him Who governs all things has been seen in the English language. It is quite unorthodox in its construction, and impresses us with the idea that he is already realizing the bitterness of death, and that he is in the presence of a great Mystery, speaking to his own parting soul. The desire to live is there, but he does not ignore ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... wife, Grace Carey, will collect from my library whatever books in the English language she wishes for, and keep them for her ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... neighbourhood:—"Rates and charges for different sorts of binding and gold work will be settled by the undersigned and the party and the undersigned will ever pray for him, who will call him up by a Post Card." The comicalities to be found in shop signboards in the English language are endless. ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... last poem which Clare wrote—the last, and, we think, the noblest of all his poems. Clare's swan-song, we fervently hope, will live as long as the English language. ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... well done. I enjoyed his surprise, while I informed him that I knew who was the reviewer and translator; and explained the reason for the verses giving pleasure in an English dress, to be the superior simplicity of the English language over modern French, for which he has a great contempt, as unfitted for lyrical composition. He inquired of me respecting Burns, to whom he had been likened; and begged me to tell him something of Moore. The delight of himself and his wife was amusing, at having discovered ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... Shakespeare's 'King Lear' and 'Cymbeline' came from Geoffrey's 'Historia Britonum,' as did also the story of 'Gorboduc,' the first tragedy in the English language. Milton intended at one time that the subject of the great poem for which he was "pluming his wings" should be King Arthur, as may be seen, in his 'Mansus' and 'Epitaphium Damonis.' Indeed, he did touch the lyre upon this theme,—lightly, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the same distinction at Cambridge. He, for many years, presided over the theatre of Dublin; and, at Drury Lane, he in public estimation stood next to David Garrick. In the literary world he was distinguished by numerous and useful writings on the pronunciation of the English language. Through some of his opinions ran a vein of singularity, mingled with the rich ore of genius. In his manners there was dignified ease;—in his spirit, invincible firmness;—and in his habits ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... reader of Meredith's later verse. It is not merely that Meredith's meaning is not obvious at a glance, it is, when obscure, ugly in its obscurity, not beautiful. There is not an uglier line in the English language than: ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... wanted his children to speak French and it was my duty to teach them. I was the private companion of 3 girls and one small boy, each day I had to talk French and write French for them. They became very proficient in French and I in the rudiments of the English language. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Maryland Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... by Cassell's for use as an English language course-book. At the end of the book is printed a sixteen-page set of questions and exercises to guide pupils into learning how to read and appreciate the book better. I do wish that more books were printed with such an appendix, as this one, at ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... slid from me as easily as running water over a smooth stone, leaving me as innocent of the classics in the original as Field. But, unlike Field, when our fortunes threw us together, I had kept up a close and continuous reading and study of English language and literature. The early English period had always interested me, and we had not been together for two months before Field was inoculated with a ravenous taste for the English literature of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... three-volume novels in three years (the term of her literary activity, at the time of which I write) could hardly be called "a small way," she would smile modestly and say that it was not really much; and if she were told that the English language embraced no such word as "authoress," she would smile again and say that it ought to; a position toward the bugbear of correctness with which, I confess, I sympathize in some degree. She was very diligent; she worked from ten to one every day while she was ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... is precious to a small people. I have never been able to work myself into a passion because there are in parts of South Africa Dutch people who wish to have Dutch teachers to teach Dutch children Dutch. I have not so poor an opinion of the English language, with its priceless literary treasures and its world-wide business connections, as not to believe that it can safely be exposed to the open competition of a dialect like the taal. We believe that the only sure way to preserve ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... daughter and her sister Mrs. Caxton were both entirely crazy. She had never, in her life, heard of anything so utterly absurd and ridiculous as the proposition upon which they had required her to give an opinion. Her opinion found no words in the English language strong enough in which to give it. That Eleanor should be willing to forego every earthly prospect of good or pleasure, was like Eleanor; that is, it was like the present Eleanor; an entirely infatuated, blind, fanatical, unreasonable ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... System of Deception and Hypocrisy.—Has any man a right to pervert the English language, by fixing new meanings to words, entirely different from and contrary to those in common use? If he knows the meaning of the words he uses, and uses them to convey a contrary meaning, he is a deceiver. The name God, used as a proper name, in the English tongue, means "the Supreme Being; ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... that it helps to cultivate a better reading knowledge of these languages, which is in itself a very worthy end for the advanced student of mathematics. This procedure has, however, become less necessary in recent years in view of the publication of various excellent advanced works in the English language. ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... even ready to help him to isolate himself,—and from that time forth all went splendidly. Once more he took up his own education, which, in his opinion, was unfinished, once more he began to read, he even began to study the English language. It was strange to see his mighty, broad-shouldered figure, eternally bent over his writing-table, his full, hairy, ruddy face half concealed by the pages of a dictionary or an exercise-book. Every morning he spent in work, dined capitally (Varvara Pavlovna was an excellent housewife), ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... nationalities and six religions represented in the College, and there are no peculiar difficulties of government. Two forces contribute mainly to unify the whole. (1) All are subject to the daily influence of Christian instruction. (2) All study the English language in the preparatory department, and the College course ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... vulgar little adventures with a glow of poetry, and thought he touched hands with Pericles and Pheidias because to describe the object of his attentions he used the word hetaira instead of one of those, more blunt and apt, provided by the English language. Philip in the daytime had been led by curiosity to pass through the little street near the old bridge, with its neat white houses and green shutters, in which according to Hayward the Fraulein Trude lived; but the women, with brutal faces and painted cheeks, who came ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... juniors, and then waited in silent patience until the latter had summoned Hist to the party. This interruption proceeded from the chief's having discovered that there existed a necessity for an interpreter, few of the Hurons present understanding the English language, and ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... had been very successful, and a capacious church was there built. Every Sunday a large portion of the family went from Sagasta-weekee at least once a day, and there worshipped. The morning service was conducted in the English language. ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... difficult duties. Unfortunately, we had no books, so my mother was compelled to rely entirely upon her own knowledge and experience in the matter of my education and training; but she not only taught me the English language, but also how to read and write it, spending many hours in printing with her own hand long passages containing maxims for my guidance, simply that I might have the means of learning to read English books, should ever any ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... few sweeter words in the English language than the word home. I have thought the three sweetest words are mother, home, and heaven. Home is the dearest place in all the world to the Christian heart. To have a fond love for home is not at all injurious to Christian character. Those ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... more celebrated performance of Gesenius, of which Professor Stuart himself gave to the public a translation, more than twenty years after the publication of his own work; but for some time after its original appearance it was the best Hebrew Grammar in the English language. In 1825 he was associated with Professor Robinson in the production of a Greek Grammar of the New Testament; in 1827 he published his Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews; in 1829 his Hebrew ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... then the little silk Union Jack, made by Lady Roberts, was run up to the truck amid a great sound of cheering. The singing of the National Anthem ended the ceremony. The town seemed altogether English—English shops, English manners, the English language, and English faces. All that day enthusiasm bubbled in the town like water boiling in a pot; all day the troops continued to march in; shabby and dusty and dirty and tired, they were nevertheless all stamped with some nameless quality which ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... orthodox: but in the meantime, he has been presented to the grand jury as a public nuisance for having blasphemed in an alehouse on the Lord's Day. The Scotchman gives lectures on the pronunciation of the English language, which he is now ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is Stateburgh. But so great is the propensity of Americans for introducing the S into the already hissing English language, that it is now ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... living left him no time to take advantage of the public evening school; but he lost nothing of what was to be learned through reading, through attendance at public meetings, through exercising the rights of citizenship. Even here he was hindered by a natural inability to acquire the English language. In time, indeed, he learned to read, to follow a conversation or lecture; but he never learned to write correctly, and his pronunciation remains extremely foreign ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... an exceptional man. Recognising that, I started the subject of words, which is more philosophical. You might quite easily have got off on the degradation of the English language owing to the spread of slang. Then we could have spent an ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... in Terre Haute. Here failure had at least the comfort of finality. The Miss Heffelfinger of his list, whom he found and interviewed within an hour of his arrival, was a teacher of German whose difficulties with the English language immediately eliminated her from the diminishing equation. Broffin got away from the voluble little Berliner as expeditiously as possible and hastened back to the railway station. Kansas came next in his ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... first place, that I had a very great advantage in having some knowledge of the English language. I learned it during the months that I spent before Danzig, from Adjutant Obriant, of the Regiment Irlandais, who was sprung from the ancient kings of the country. I was quickly able to speak it with some facility, for I do not take long ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... upon by Ichi, the little Jap we shipped as cook in Hakodate. Polite, stupid, unfamiliar with the English language, we did not think it necessary to guard our speech against him. Indeed, we never gave him a thought, and we discussed my find pro and con very freely. We dwelt upon the value of the treasure, verified the Good Luck's ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... sets himself to look for the learning in the book is advised that he will best find it in such works as George P. Marsh's "Lectures on the English Language," Fitzedward Hall's "Recent Exemplifications of False Philology," and "Modern English," Richard Grant White's "Words and Their Uses," Edward S. Gould's "Good English," William Mathews' "Words: their Use and Abuse," Dean Alford's ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... know next to nothing of American history, of the American Constitution, of American practical politics, of the American mentality. We scarcely read American newspapers or American books. Even such masters of classical prose as Francis Parkman, perhaps the greatest historian who has used the English language as his vehicle, are almost unknown to the average reader. Our students do not visit American universities as they used before the War to visit German universities. The consequence is that again and again we are running ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... as we are polite; they are not contented as we are contented; and no one for a moment who is even an amateur observer and an amateur philologist combined would claim that the three words, love and amour and Liebe mean the same thing. No word in the English language is used so often from the pulpit as the word love, but this cannot be said of the use of amour in France or of Liebe in Germany. Nations pour themselves into the tiny moulds of words and give us statuettes of themselves. The Anglo-Saxon, the ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... of two contiguous characters would show the first one to be a word of one letter. There are but two words in the English language of one letter—a and i—and in the specimens before me but one character, that of [], which shows shading, ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... and 'general store' dealer of the village, a man who was renowned in the district for the profundity and point of his observations at electoral meetings, and for the entirely original manner in which he 'used' the English language; "Public worship is a necessary evil. It is a factor in vulgar civilisations. Without it, the system of religious politics would fall into cohesion,—absolute cohesion!" And he rapped his fist on the table with a smartness that made his hearers jump. "At the last ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... suppose you don't understand the English language!" Miss White exclaimed, angrily. "I tell you I will neither eat nor drink so long as I am on board this yacht! Go and tell Sir Keith Macleod what I ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... In Government schools no text-books and no oral instruction in the vernacular will be allowed, but all text-books and instruction must be in the English language. No departure from this rule will be allowed, except when absolutely necessary to rudimentary instruction in English. But it is permitted to read from the Bible in the vernacular at the daily opening of school, when English is not understood by ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... believe, my dear, by saying, that it is the art of speaking and writing a language correctly. By parts of speech are meant the different kinds of words of which a language is composed: ours is the English language, and it contains nine parts of speech, ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... minor poems, and less of the old ballads collected by Percy, but he had great admiration for Pope, believed Gray, if he had only written a little more, would have been the greatest poet in the English language, and thought Racine's Phaedrus the finest tragedy extant in any language in the world. His own great test of literary beauty was the principle he lays down in his Essay on the Imitative Arts, that the beauty ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... naturally the highest placed vowel in the English language. U or oo as in you or do is naturally the lowest in color. Sing E with the freedom of action as suggested, and think it high in the face. Make no effort to influence the form. The form of E is naturally ...
— The Renaissance of the Vocal Art • Edmund Myer
... Lions Women and Wives The Italian Opera Lampoons True and False Humour Sa Ga Yean Qua Rash Tow's Impressions of London The Vision of Marraton Six Papers on Wit Friendship Chevy-Chase (Two Papers) A Dream of the Painters Spare Time (Two Papers) Censure The English Language The Vision of Mirza Genius Theodosius and Constantia Good Nature A Grinning ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... England, years which exercised a deep influence on his life. He learned the English language exceptionally well, and practiced writing it in prose and verse. He associated on terms of intimacy with Lord Bolingbroke, whom he had already known in France, with Swift, Pope, and Gay. He drew an epigram from Young. He brought out a new and amended edition of the ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... Steward shall be in the like form as that for the trial of the Lord Viscount Stafford, as entered in the Journal of this House on the 30th of November, 1680: except that the same shall be in the English language."[90] ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... examined his clubbed feet, and then went away and wrote about them. Here was a man with regal gifts of mind—a poet of splendid genius—a titled aristocrat—a man admired and praised wherever the English language was read—a man who knew that he held within himself the power to make his name immortal—a man with wealth sufficient for all grateful luxuries—yet with clubbed feet; and those feet! Ah! how they embittered ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... when I found myself plunged in a hot discussion of the "split infinitive," in which I was ranged with two Americans against a recreant Briton who defended the collocation. "It is a mistake to regard it is an Americanism," said one of the Americans. "It is as old as the English language, or at least as old as Wickliff. But it is unnecessary, and the best modern practice discountenances it." I felt like falling on the neck of an ally of half an hour's standing, and swearing eternal friendship. What matters Alaska, or Venezuela, or Nicaragua, "or all ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... Committee reported that a number of memorials had been received, praying that more hours weekly should be devoted to the English language. Counter memorials had also been received. The Committee advised the Raad not to grant the request ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... SMYTH, late Professor of English Language and Literature in the Central High School, Philadelphia. In ten volumes with ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... "to do it in English. Of course it seems impossible that he should succeed. But then it was absolutely impossible for Shakespeare to do what he did with the English language, wasn't it? ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... worth of text-books were sold in that city in 1902, a single order received by the Presbyterian Press involving a bill of $328 for postage alone, as the buyer insisted that the books should be sent by mail. Mission schools that teach the English language are thronged with students, many of them from the higher classes, and every foreigner who is willing to teach Western learning ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language. Selected and Arranged by ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... country; their complexion is dark, but not disagreeably so; their faces are oval, their features regular, their foreheads rather low, and their hands and feet small. The men are taller than the English peasantry, and far more active. They all speak the English language with fluency, and in their gait and demeanour are easy and graceful; in both points standing in striking contrast with the peasantry, who in speech are slow and uncouth, and in manner ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... is pure insanity. It can hardly spell any large word in the English language with any degree of certainty. Its sillinesses are quite beyond enumeration. English orthography may need reforming and simplifying, but the English alphabet needs it a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... suited to his present capacity. If he says, "Such a book tires me," the preceptor should never answer with a forbidding, reproachful look, "I am surprised at that, it is no great proof of your taste; the book, which you say tires you, is written by one of the best authors in the English language." The boy is sorry for it, but he cannot help it; and he concludes, if he be of a timid temper, that he has no taste for literature, since the best authors in the English language tire him. It is in vain to tell him, that the ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intended to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people. [Footnote: ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... Thursday evenings, or the first night of some new play, the audience will consist almost entirely of city people. The theatre itself is very plain, and there are many things about it that might be bettered. In other respects it is unqualifiedly the best theatre in which the English language is spoken. It is devoted almost entirely to comedy, and the plays presented on its stage are always of a high character. The Star system is not adopted here, but the company consists of the best and most carefully trained actors ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... challenges the highest admiration. At the age of sixteen he commenced his "Pastorals," and when only twenty-one published his "Essay on Criticism," pronounced "the finest piece of argumentative and reasoning poetry in the English language." His reputation was now firmly established, and his literary activity ceased only at his death; although, during the latter portion of his life, he was so weak physically that he was unable to dress himself or even to rise from bed without assistance. Pope's great admiration ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the appearance of the Chinaman the boys had planned to use such uncomplimentary language in his presence as would be likely to excite his anger, if he understood what was being said. They did not believe he was as ignorant of the English language as he ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the honor of the Tuscarora hero. How many among those of the white people who receive a pension would have done likewise, for conscience sake. Cusick could speak the English language very well, but when he made an audible prayer, or said grace at the table, he used his native Tuscarora language, "because," said he, "when I speak in English, I am often at a loss for a word; when, therefore, I speak to the Great Spirit, I do ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... say mowing-machine,—I have gathered some strange sheaves of this sort of humor. Like many provincial newspapers, that to which I am attached makes a feature of printing the social happenings in villages of the surrounding country, and these out-of-town correspondents "don't do a thing to" the English language. One of them invariably refers to the social lights of his vicinity as "our prominent socialists," and describes some individual as "happening to an accident." To another, every festal occasion is "a bower of beauty and a scene of fairyland." ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... not sufficiently familiar with the English language to be properly instructed in the full-time day ...
— Mining Laws of Ohio, 1921 • Anonymous
... regulation gait of the nineteenth century. "Hurry up!" was about the most threadbare phrase in the English language, and rather than "E pluribus unum" should especially have been the motto of the American people, but it was the first time the note of haste had impressed my consciousness since I had been living twentieth-century days. This fact, ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... "native Indian teachers," and at remote points; the inference being that the white teacher of a missionary school, though it may be in a place so remote that neither the pupils nor the people can understand the English language, cannot teach ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., May, 1888., No. 5 • Various
... English language carries an idea: when a word, therefore, strikes the ear, the mind immediately forms a picture, which represents it as faithfully as the looking-glass the face.—Thus, when the word Birmingham occurs, a superb picture instantly expands in the mind, which is best explained by the ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... even so short a period as that between the years 1760 and 1860, we should find a difference possibly sufficient to suggest an explanation of some phenomena at present unaccounted for. For instance, as I have observed in another work, [Footnote: The Origin and History of the English Language, &c., pp. 423, 424.] the phosphorescence of the sea was unknown to ancient writers, or at least scarcely noticed by them, and even Homer—who, blind as tradition makes him when he composed his epics, had seen, and marked, in earlier life, all that ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... Treasury of the best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language. Selected and arranged, with Notes, ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... there any Phonetic Alphabet of the English Language? There have been several published, but they are not ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... and the prejudices which have so effectually kept them apart for so long a time are giving way rapidly now, since most of the younger portion of the Creole-French population are educated in the United States, and away from New Orleans; consequently they speak the English language and form American associations, imbibe American ideas, and essay to rival American enterprise. Still there is a distinct difference in appearance. Perhaps the difference in bearing, and in other characteristics, may ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... made his appearance with a bottle of wine and proved to be a more communicative person in his relations with strangers. Presented in an abridged form, and in the English language, these (as he related them) were the circumstances under which Mount Morven had been closed ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... graces of literature with the formal details of science, and whose works are perused for their literary excellences, independently altogether of their scientific merit. His writings will ever be regarded among the classics of the English language. For obvious reasons we pass over his editorial labors. It is on the republic of science that his death will fall most heavily. There can be little doubt that he has done more to popularize his favorite ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... the steamer Roanoke, about to leave New Orleans for Havana. In response to a request from the General, Don Juan called immediately at the office; but owing to the unfortunate circumstance of his entire ignorance of the English language, and the consequent necessity of conversing through the medium of an interpreter, a serious misunderstanding ensued, and the General, supposing the Consul to be contemptuously setting our Government at defiance, threatened to send him out of the country; but afterwards learning that their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... daughter, and became a Maori in all respects except colour. He was captured by Captain Edwardson, of the "Snapper," and was taken to Sydney, where he seems to have paraded as a savage chief. While he was with the Maoris, he almost forgot the English language, and found much difficulty in making himself understood ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... stirring thoughts. His writings, like his sermons, are full of strong and rugged points, and are frequently interspersed with brilliant passages of exquisite beauty that will compare favorably with many of the finest word-paintings in the English language. ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... and French Voluntarism.] He is descended from a prominent Jewish family of Poland, with a blend of Irish blood from his mother's side. His family lived in London for a few years after his birth, and he obtained an early familiarity with the English language from his mother. Before he was nine years old his parents crossed the Channel and settled in France, Henri becoming a naturalized citizen ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... himself scarcely goes so far as I have done, though I have merely worked out his suggestion. His only revolutionary proposal is to displace the wind star by the "rathe primrose" for Forsaken, on the strength of a quotation familiar to every reader of Mason's little text-book on the English language. For the rest he followed his authorities, and has followed them now to the remote recesses of the literary lumber-room and into the twopenny book-box. From that receptacle one copy of him was disinterred ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... at Gettysburg, and certain other passages, will furnish texts for another hundred years. One thing is certain,—if Chinese students in their universities two thousand years from now translate any oration out of the English language, as we now translate the speeches of Demosthenes, these Chinese students will translate Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg, and his Second Inaugural Address. Contrary to the usual idea, it may be confidently affirmed that Lincoln was a well equipped man, and had the ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... Japanese language to perfection; while with Chinese he was as familiar as with his own tongue. I myself noticed with what facility he picked up English words, and, having taken it into his head that he wished to learn the English language, he set about it, and was able to understand, read, and speak a little, in a very short time—in fact, in a few days. Not only is he talented, but also endowed with a wonderful courage and independence, ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... a time, and not a great while ago, when the gunners and crews of United States men-of-war were, with very few exceptions, aliens, who spoke the English language with difficulty, and who did not have, and could not be expected to have, any of the patriotic spirit which makes effective fighters in naval engagements. While this condition still exists to some extent, the growth of the apprentice system ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... knowledge of the English language, his sweet and serious countenance, and his familiarity with everything pertaining to the sea, he was well received everywhere. They mentioned to him successively several old officers, sailors, and employs, of the Canadian Transportation ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... General Washington, I tell his Excellency that I, and many officers of this army, are not well pleased to see a boy of twenty made a major-general over us, because he is a Marquis, and because he can't speak the English language. If I speak to my old friend, I have to say that he has shown me very little of trust or friendship for the last few weeks; and that I have no desire to sit at your table, and have impertinent remarks made by others there, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you have received, and that you like the diamond buckles. I am very willing that you should make, but very unwilling that you should CUT a figure with them at the jubilee; the CUTTING A FIGURE being the very lowest vulgarism in the English language; and equal in elegancy to Yes, my Lady, and No, my Lady. The word VAST and VASTLY, you will have found by my former letter that I had proscribed out of the diction of a gentleman, unless in their proper signification of sizes and BULK. Not only in language, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... boys nodded and laughed, though, in spite of the pretty good knowledge of the English language which they had picked up from their intercourse with the British settlers, it is doubtful whether they understood the drift. What they did comprehend, however, was, that they should make friends; and this being settled, ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... readers, as almost any one in this region. If I have not heard as many, I have had a chance to hear nearly the extreme in variety. Horace Greeley ought to have been a good reader. Certainly but few, if any, ever knew every word of the English language at a glance more readily than he did, or knew the meaning of every mark of punctuation more clearly; but he could not read proper. 'But how do you know?' says one. From the fact I heard him in the same lecture deliver or produce remarks in his own particular way, that, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... himself, or by deputy to be previously approved by convocation) do read one solemn public lecture on the laws of England, and in the English language, in every academical term, at certain stated times previous to the commencement of the common law term; or forfeit twenty pounds for every omission to Mr Viner's general fund: and also (by himself, or by deputy to be approved, if occasional, by the vice-chancellor ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... have summoned together witnesses to the extent of her powers, which are fit and not few. Yet we are aware that to a class of readers Miss Austen's novels must ever remain sealed books. So be it. While the English language is read, the world will always be provided with souls who can enjoy the rare excellence of that rich legacy left to them ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... that a certain Noah Webster was to publish "A Columbian Dictionary" containing "American corrections of the English language," he had a few suggestions to offer. The Columbian language he understood to be an elegant dialect of the English, but, he went on, "there is one remark which I would wish with deference to submit to our great lexicographer before I finish this paper. As his dictionary, ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... sound-rhyme which are correct letter-rhyme—such as the coupling of move with love, or of star with war; for these, however much some more than commonly purist ears may demur to them, appear to be part and parcel of the rhyming system of the English language. I need hardly say that, if these cases had been included, my list would in every instance have swelled considerably; nor yet that I am conscious how extremely partial and accidental is the test, as to comparative number of laxities, which I ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... ever so poetically attended. Dryden, indeed, as a man discountenanced and deprived, was silent; but scarcely any other maker of verses omitted to bring his tribute of tuneful sorrow. An emulation of elegy was universal. Mary's praise was not confined to the English language, but fills a great part of the ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... days we talk of, it was the common practice of the authorities to brand these life convicts with a hot iron to indicate the character of their crime, and this was in some cases done upon the forehead both in the English language and in the vernacular of the district where the crime was committed. This was very properly put a stop to shortly after the custom became known. We have seen some of those in our jail who, by good conduct, have risen to a ticket of leave, using their utmost endeavours to get rid of the marks, ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... speak the English language; the history of the great agony through which the Republic of Holland was ushered into life must have peculiar interest, for it is a portion of the records of the Anglo-Saxon race—essentially the same, whether in Friesland, England, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... introduced by the Authors by way of bravado, in answer to one who alleged that the English language contained ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... the Medjidie and C.B.). Sir Edward Hamley is the Author of The Operations of War, a work that may confidently be characterised as one of the most valuable modern Military books extant—"There exists nothing to compare with it in the English language for enlightened, scientific, and sober teaching in the general art of war"—vide the Times of 1st November, 1869. Served in the Egyptian War of 1882, in command of the 2nd Division, and was present at the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir, where he led the Division (received the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... rather burden upon the memory, at the very threshold of the school. Grammar I did study to some purpose that year, though never before. I lost two years of my childhood, I think, upon that study, absurdly [27] regarded as teaching children to speak the English language, instead of being considered as what it properly is, the philosophy of language, a science altogether beyond the reach ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... extant will demonstrate the fact that I never learned to write; a glance at the first folios of the plays attributed to me will likewise show that I never learned to spell; and yet I walked into London with one of the most exquisite poems in the English language in my pocket. I am still filled with merriment over it. How was it, the critics of the years since have asked—how was it that this untutored little savage from leafy Warwickshire, with no training and little education, came into London with "Venus and Adonis" in manuscript ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... would be discoursed upon to audiences of 4000 people by a man so well equipped to express an opinion on such a subject as the eloquent and famous 'Gypsy Smith,' and described by him as 'the most trustworthy picture of Romany life in the English language, containing in Sinfi Lovell the truest representative of ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... translated into rowdy journalism. The Abolitionists, believing as they did, that the institution of slavery violated an abstract principle of political justice, felt thereby fully authorized to vilify the Southern slaveholders as far as the resources of the English language would permit. They attempted to remedy one injustice by committing another injustice; and by the violence of their methods they almost succeeded in tearing apart the good fabric of our national life. Hearst is headed in precisely the same direction. He is doing a radical injustice to a ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... the advantages of both countries while discharging the duties of neither. Even worse were the cases of the descendants of such so-called Americans, most of them born in Europe and not able even to speak the English language; worst of all were the cases of sundry Russians—sometimes stigmatized as "predatory Hebrews"—who, having left Russia and gone to America, had stayed just long enough to acquire citizenship, and then ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... powers, or to prolong its existence. Others will entertain a different opinion. They will judge from experience, as well as from the nature of the case, that no measure merely of a literary kind will prevail to hinder the progress of the English language over the Highlands; while general convenience and emolument, not to mention private emulation and vanity, conspire to facilitate its introduction, and prompt the natives to its acquisition. They {viii} will perceive at the same time, ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... had taken a balloon trip above the clouds and across the Channel, but he was only travelling forty miles an hour. He had somewhat a trouble to describe that, but this, of course, gets rather beyond the capabilities of the English language." ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... the English language can be commended with more confidence, it will argue bad taste in a female in this country to be without a complete edition of the writings of one who was an honour to her sex and to humanity, and whose productions, from first to last, contain no syllable calculated to call ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... which we have been familiar from our infancy up, and probably there are few words in the English language that are so often used as this word "GRACE." Many of you at your table "say grace" three times a day. You seldom go into a church without hearing the word mentioned. You seldom read any part of the New Testament, especially the ...
— Sovereign Grace - Its Source, Its Nature and Its Effects • Dwight Moody
... which young Nick Ribsam started for the country school, a half mile away, was one which he can never forget. He was six years old, and had picked up enough of the English language to make himself understood, though his accent was of that nature that it was sure to excite ridicule on the part of ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... of much beauty and poetic spirit, "The Sad Shepherd." There is also the exceedingly interesting 'English Grammar' "made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and 'Timber, or discoveries' "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the times." The 'Discoveries', as it is usually called, ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... from slight to stocky in the same family, there are light, medium, or heavy guns—all bearing the same family name. The difference lies in how the piece was "fortified"; that is, how thick the founder cast the bore walls. The English language has inelegantly descriptive terms for the three degrees of "fortification": (1) bastard, (2) legitimate, and (3) double-fortified. The thicker-walled guns used more powder. Spanish double-fortified culverins were charged ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... Modern historians of Roman literature are merely critics, like Drumann, Schlegel, Niebuhr, Muller, Mommsen, Mure, Arnold, Dunlap, and Thompson. Nor do I know of an exhaustive history of Roman literature in the English language. Yet nearly every great writer has occasional criticisms, entitled to respect. The Germans, in this department, have no equals. As critics and commentators they ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... most popular poem in the English language; it was translated into that of every country in Europe, besides Latin and Greek. It has been more frequently, elaborately and expensively illustrated with pictorial embellishments. The autograph copy of it, in the poet's small, neat hand, written on two small half sheets of paper, was sold ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... o'clock in the afternoon; and they were on their way to the Park. There were four of them, all arm-in-arm, with white kid gloves like so many bridegrooms, light trousers of unprecedented patterns, and coats for which the English language has yet no name—a kind of cross between a great-coat and a surtout, with the collar of the one, the skirts of the other, and pockets ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... if I interrupt you," said Madame Fontaine, pausing modestly on the threshold before she entered the room. She spoke English admirably, and made a point of ignoring Mrs. Wagner's equally perfect knowledge of German, by addressing her always in the English language. ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins |
