# data[].attributes.body
The sinking sun dissolves into air so clear
a flight of doves ripples it like a pond;
a sort of halo guilds birches, guilds bulls!
while bluish incense blurs the hillside, and
splendid quagmires stagnate in the sky.
Riders, mount! Pink plumes are tossed
by busts that swell the prodigal blond curls
and bring the same pink to every cheek.
Lured by glowing fields and creeks, they trot
past indifferent herds of oxen and wrapped
in a golden mist of sleep—galloping now,
breathing the timeless minutes, breathing deep.

# data[].attributes.body
Do not let your vanity and self-love make you suppose that people become your friends at first sight, or even upon a short acquaintance. Real friendship is a slow grower and never thrives unless engrafted upon a stock of known and reciprocal merit.

(Chesterfield)

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Courts and camps are the only places to learn the world in.

(Chesterfield)

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The scholar, who in the dust of his closet talks or writes of the world, knows no more of it, than that orator did of war, who judiciously endeavored to instruct Hannibal in it.

(Chesterfield)

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...the world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description...

(Chesterfield)

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Search, therefore, with the greatest care, into the characters of those whom you converse with; endeavor to discover their predominant passions, their prevailing weaknesses, their vanities, their follies, and their humors, with all the right and wrong, wise and silly springs of human actions, which make such inconsistent and whimsical beings of us rational creatures.

(Chesterfield)

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...the greatest fools are the greatest liars.

(Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.headline
What can we rely on to carry us through the world?

# data[].attributes.subject
What can we rely on to carry us through the world?

# data[].attributes.body
Remember, then, as long as you live, that nothing but strict truth can carry you through the world, with either your conscience or your honor unwounded.

(Chesterfield)

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There is another sort of lies, inoffensive enough in themselves, but wonderfully ridiculous...

(Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.body
It is the man who tells, or who acts a lie, that is guilty, and not he who honestly and sincerely believes the lie.

(Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.body
Every man seeks for truth; but God only knows who has found it.

(Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.body
The blindness of the understanding is as much to be pitied as the blindness of the eye; and there is neither jest nor guilt in a man’s losing his way in either case. Charity bids us set him right if we can, by arguments and persuasions; but charity, at the same time, forbids, either to punish or ridicule his misfortune.

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...errors and mistakes, however gross, in matters of opinion, if they are sincere, are to be pitied, but not punished nor laughed at...

(Chesterfield)

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At Vienna men always make courtesies, instead of bows, to the emperor; in France nobody bows at all to the king, nor kisses his hand; but in Spain and England, bows are made, and hands are kissed.

(Chesterfield)

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Do you dress well, and not too well? Do you consider your air and manner of presenting yourself enough, and not too much? Neither negligent nor stiff?

(Chesterfield)

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‘A propos’ of letter-writing, the best models that you can form yourself upon are, Cicero, Cardinal d’Ossat, Madame Sevigne, and Comte Bussy Rebutin. Cicero’s Epistles to Atticus, and to his familiar friends, are the best examples that you can imitate, in the friendly and the familiar style. The simplicity and the clearness of Cardinal d’Ossat’s letters show how letters of business ought to be written; no affected turns, no attempts at wit, obscure or perplex his matter; which is always plainly and clearly stated, as business always should be. For gay and amusing letters, for ‘enjouement and badinage,’ there are none that equal Comte Bussy’s and Madame Sevigne’s. They are so natural, that they seem to be the extempore conversations of two people of wit, rather, than letters which are commonly studied, though they ought not to be so.

(Chesterfield)

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...though I do not desire that you should immediately turn author, and oblige the world with your travels; yet, wherever you go, I would have you as curious and inquisitive as if you did intend to write them.

(Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.body
The Pensionary de Witt, who was torn to pieces in the year 1672, did the whole business of the Republic, and yet had time left to go to assemblies in the evening, and sup in company. Being asked how he could possibly find time to go through so much business, and yet amuse himself in the evenings as he did, he answered, there was nothing so easy; for that it was only doing one thing at a time, and never putting off anything till to-morrow that could be done to-day.

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There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.

(Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.body
A man is fit for neither business nor pleasure, who either cannot, or does not, command and direct his attention to the present object, and, in some degree, banish for that time all other objects from his thoughts.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.body
Mr. Harte tells me that you attend, that you apply to your studies; and that beginning to understand, you begin to taste them.

# data[].attributes.headline
How does a rich and learned man spend his day?

# data[].attributes.subject
How does a rich and learned man spend his day?

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I would pass some of my time in reading, and the rest in the company of people of sense and learning, and chiefly those above me; and I would frequent the mixed companies of men and women of fashion, which, though often frivolous, yet they unbend and refresh the mind, not uselessly, because they certainly polish and soften the manners.

(Chesterfield)

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A real man of fashion and pleasures observes decency: at least neither borrows nor affects vices: and if he unfortunately has any, he gratifies them with choice, delicacy, and secrecy.

(Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.headline
What would we change if we could live again?

# data[].attributes.subject
What would we change if we could live again?

# data[].attributes.body
Were I to begin the world again, with the experience which I now have of it, I would lead a life of real, not of imaginary pleasures.

(Chesterfield)

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Follow nature and not fashion...

(Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.body
Thus seduced by fashion, and blindly adopting nominal pleasures, I lost real ones; and my fortune impaired, and my constitution shattered, are, I must confess, the just punishment of my errors.

# data[].attributes.body
Pleasure is the rock which most young people split upon: they launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, but without a compass to direct their course, or reason sufficient to steer the vessel; for want of which, pain and shame, instead of pleasure, are the returns of their voyage.

(Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.body
Many of them want common sense, many more common learning

# data[].attributes.body
Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their luster; and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.

(Chesterfield)

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...the English crust of awkward bashfulness, shyness, and roughness...

(Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.body
Adieu! and be persuaded that I shall love you extremely, while you deserve it; but not one moment longer.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.body
The true pleasures of a gentleman are those of the table, but within the bound of moderation; good company, that is to say, people of merit; moderate play, which amuses, without any interested views; and sprightly gallant conversations with women of fashion and sense.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.body
As to running after women, the consequences of that vice are only the loss of one’s nose, the total destruction of health, and, not unfrequently, the being run through the body.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.body
Many young people adopt pleasures, for which they have not the least taste, only because they are called by that name.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.body
to talk of natural affection is talking nonsense

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'Letters to His Son' (Chesterfield)

# data[].attributes.body
a Frenchman, who, with a fund of virtue, learning and good sense, has the manners and good-breeding of his country, is the perfection of human nature

# data[].attributes.body
No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison;
We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage.
When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness. So we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;
And take upon ’s the mystery of things
As if we were God’s spies; and we’ll wear out,
In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.

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We that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

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Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,
And thou no breath at all?

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Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither.

# data[].attributes.body
I am a man
More sinned against than sinning

# data[].attributes.body
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

# data[].attributes.body
Some of us rush through life; and some of us saunter through life. Mrs. Vesey sat through life.

# data[].attributes.body
I sadly want a reform in the construction of children. Nature's only idea seems to be to make them machines for the production of incessant noise.

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a frail, languidly-fretful, over-refined look

# data[].attributes.body
no woman does think much of her own sex, although few of them confess it as freely as I do.

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a filtrable, danceable, small-talkable creature of the male sex

# data[].attributes.body
that essentially feminine malady, a slight headache

# data[].attributes.body
She left the window - and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps - and I said to myself, The lady is young. She approached nearer - and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express), The lady is ugly!

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the distant coasts of Scotland fringed the horizon with its lines of melting blue

# data[].attributes.body
He was in that state of highly-respectful sulkiness which is peculiar to English servants.

# data[].attributes.body
as large as life, as hot as fire, and as happy as a king!

# data[].attributes.body
Without being actually a dwarf - for he was perfectly well-proportioned from head to foot - Pesca was, I think, the smallest human being I ever saw, out of a show-room.

# data[].attributes.body
the dark blue starless sky

# data[].attributes.body
Faces sometimes tell truth...

(W.Collins)

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Never was the old conventional maxim, that Nature cannot err more flatly contradicted - never was the fair promise of a lovely figure more strangely and startlingly belied by the face and head that crowded it.

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you English begin everything in this blessed world that you have to say, with a great O

# data[].attributes.body
a fine man once, but seeing that he has got a naked head and two chins, fine no longer at the present time

# data[].attributes.body
this man of phlegm and money

# data[].attributes.body
A Mamma, fair and fat; three young Misses, fair and fat; two young Misters, fair and fat; and a Papa, the fairest and fattest of all

# data[].attributes.body
I know no more than a man in the moon

# data[].attributes.body
we of the young generation are nothing like so hearty and so impulsive as some of our elders

# data[].attributes.body
if I had been big enough to reach up to him, I should have put my arms round his neck, and pressed him to my bosom in a long and grateful hug! As it was, I only bounced upon my chair.

# data[].attributes.body
'the overflowing happiness bursts out of me at every pore of my skin, like a perspiration...'

# data[].attributes.body
I saw nothing between me and the beach but two little white arms

# data[].attributes.body
invariably carrying an umbrella, and invariably wearing gaiters and a white hat

# data[].attributes.body
the small pulse of life within me and the great heart of the city around me seemed to be sinking in unison, languidly and more languidly, with the sinking sun

# data[].attributes.body
the book which I was dreaming over rather than reading

# data[].attributes.body
we, the weary pilgrims of the London pavement

# data[].attributes.body
This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and of what a Man's resolution can achieve.

# data[].attributes.body
Her book a churchyard tomb.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd' (Keats)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd' (Keats)

# data[].attributes.body
if we may not let the Muse be free,
She will be bound with garlands of her own.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd' (Keats)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd' (Keats)

# data[].attributes.body
Misers of sound and syllable

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'Lines on the Mermaid Tavern' (Keats)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'Lines on the Mermaid Tavern' (Keats)

# data[].attributes.body
Nobody knew whither, till

An astrologer's old quill

To a sheepskin gave the story

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'Lines on the Mermaid Tavern' (Keats)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'Lines on the Mermaid Tavern' (Keats)

# data[].attributes.body
Or are fruits of Paradise

Sweeter than those dainty pies

Of venison?

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cloudward

# data[].attributes.body
Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves

To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves

His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings

He furleth close; contented so to look

On mists in idleness—to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.

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Thetis of the shining breasts
Cried out in dismay
At what the god had wrought
To please her son, the strong
Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
Who would not live long.

# data[].attributes.body
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.

# data[].attributes.body
But there on the shining shield
His hands had set no dancing-floor
But a weed-choked field.

# data[].attributes.body
a sky like lead

# data[].attributes.body
Column by column in a cloud of dust
They marched away enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.body
When we no longer look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as something wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of nature as one which has had a long history; when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, in the same way as any great mechanical invention is the summing up of the labour, the experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen; when we thus view each organic being, how far more interesting—I speak from experience—does the study of natural history become!

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.body
It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.body
The mind cannot possibly grasp the full meaning of the term of even a million years; it cannot add up and perceive the full effects of many slight variations, accumulated during an almost infinite number of generations.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.body
Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.body
Nature may be said to have taken pains to reveal her scheme of modification, by means of rudimentary organs, of embryological and homologous structures, but we are too blind to understand her meaning.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.body
We need not marvel at the sting of the bee causing the bee’s own death; at drones being produced in such vast numbers for one single act, and being then slaughtered by their sterile sisters; at the astonishing waste of pollen by our fir-trees; at the instinctive hatred of the queen bee for her own fertile daughters; at ichneumonidæ feeding within the live bodies of caterpillars; and at other such cases. The wonder indeed is, on the theory of natural selection, that more cases of the want of absolute perfection have not been observed.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.body
How strange it is that a bird, under the form of woodpecker, should have been created to prey on insects on the ground; that upland geese, which never or rarely swim, should have been created with webbed feet; that a thrush should have been created to dive and feed on sub-aquatic insects; and that a petrel should have been created with habits and structure fitting it for the life of an auk or grebe!

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.body
More individuals are born than can possibly survive. A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die...

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.body
Man does not actually produce variability; he only unintentionally exposes organic beings to new conditions of life, and then nature acts on the organisation, and causes variability. But man can and does select the variations given to him by nature, and thus accumulate them in any desired manner. He thus adapts animals and plants for his own benefit or pleasure.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.body
...the more important objections relate to questions on which we are confessedly ignorant; nor do we know how ignorant we are.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.body
It is, no doubt, extremely difficult even to conjecture by what gradations many structures have been perfected, more especially amongst broken and failing groups of organic beings...

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.body
...there is a struggle for existence leading to the preservation of each profitable deviation of structure or instinct.

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.body
...much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure...

# data[].attributes.headline
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.subject
from 'On the Origin of Species' (Darwin)

# data[].attributes.body
No doubt errors will have crept in...

# data[].attributes.body
Il n'y eut pas jusqu'à frère Gironflée qui ne rendît service; il fut un très bon menuisier, et même devint honnête homme.

# data[].attributes.body
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother

# data[].attributes.body
an all-eating shame and thriftless praise

# data[].attributes.body
only herald to the gaudy spring