hide Sorting

You can sort these results in two ways:

By entity
Chronological order for dates, alphabetical order for places and people.
By position (current method)
As the entities appear in the document.

You are currently sorting in ascending order. Sort in descending order.

hide Most Frequent Entities

The entities that appear most frequently in this document are shown below.

Entity Max. Freq Min. Freq
New England (United States) 160 0 Browse Search
Ralph Waldo Emerson 138 0 Browse Search
Edgar Allan Poe 114 0 Browse Search
Nathaniel Hawthorne 100 0 Browse Search
Walt Whitman 88 0 Browse Search
John Greenleaf Whittier 86 0 Browse Search
Abraham Lincoln 84 0 Browse Search
Benjamin Franklin 66 0 Browse Search
James Russell Lowell 60 0 Browse Search
Washington Irving 56 0 Browse Search
View all entities in this document...

Browsing named entities in a specific section of Bliss Perry, The American spirit in lierature: a chronicle of great interpreters. Search the whole document.

Found 264 total hits in 101 results.

1 2 3 4 5 6 ...
Bowdoin (Montana, United States) (search for this): chapter 9
While her sympathies, like those of her father Lyman Beecher, were anti-slavery, she was not an Abolitionist in the Garrisonian sense of that word. At twenty-five she had married a widowed professor, Calvin Stowe, to whom she bore many children. She had written a few sketches of New England life, and her family thought her a woman of genius. Such was the situation in the winter of 1849-1850, when the Stowes migrated to Brunswick, Maine, where the husband had been appointed to a chair at Bowdoin. Pitiably poor, and distracted by household cares which she had to face singlehandedfor the Professor was a feckless body --Mrs. Stowe nevertheless could not be indifferent to the national crisis over the Fugitive Slave Law. She had seen its working. When her sister-in-law wrote to her: If I could use a pen as you can, I would write something that would make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is, Mrs. Stowe exclaimed: God helping me, I will write something; I will if I
Patrick Henry (Virginia, United States) (search for this): chapter 9
e inheritor of the ideas of Jefferson, Clay, and Webster, perceives and maintains, in the noblest tones of our civic speech, the sole conditions of our continuance as a nation. Let us begin with oratory, an American habit, and, as many besides Dickens have thought, an American defect. We cannot argue that question adequately here. It is sufficient to say that in the pioneer stages of our existence oratory was necessary as a stimulus to communal thought and feeling. The speeches of Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams were as essential to our winning independence as the sessions of statesmen and the armed conflicts in the field. And in that new West which came so swiftly and dramatically into existence at the close of the Revolution, the orator came to be regarded as the normal type of intellectual leadership. The stump grew more potent than schoolhouse and church and bench. The very pattern, and, if one likes, the tragic victim of this glorification of oratory was Henry Clay, Ha
New England (United States) (search for this): chapter 9
ning of the nation's life. There was well-nigh complete solidarity in the single province of New England during a portion of the seventeenth century, and under the leadership of the great Virginianst forth-these aided Webster to awe men or allure them into personal idolatry. Yet outside of New England he was admired rather than loved. There is still universal recognition of the mental capacital and political history, the New Hampshire boyhood and education, the rise to mastery at the New England bar, the service in the House of Representatives and the Senate and as Secretary of State. H It failed, as we know. Whittier, Emerson, Theodore Parker, and indeed most of the voters of New England, believed that Webster had bartered his private convictions in the hope of securing the Presid professor, Calvin Stowe, to whom she bore many children. She had written a few sketches of New England life, and her family thought her a woman of genius. Such was the situation in the winter of
France (France) (search for this): chapter 9
fraternal intention of the book was swiftly forgotten in the storm of controversy that followed its appearance. It had been written hastily, fervidly, in the intervals of domestic toil at Brunswick, had been printed as a serial in The national era without attracting much attention, and was issued in book form in March, 1852. Its sudden and amazing success was not confined to this country. The story ran in three Paris newspapers at once, was promptly dramatized, and has held the stage in France ever since. It was placed upon the Index in Italy, as being subversive of established authority. Millions of copies were sold in Europe, and Uncle Tom's cabin, more than any other cause, held the English working men in sympathy with the North in the English cotton crisis of our Civil War. It is easy to see the faults of this masterpiece and impossible not to recognize its excellencies. If our art has not scope enough to include a book of this kind, said Madame George Sand, we had bette
Freeport (Illinois, United States) (search for this): chapter 9
earching the dictionary, is known to every student of his life. Part of his singular discrimination in the use of language is due to his legal training, but his style was never professionalized. Neither did it have anything of that frontier glibness and banality which was the curse of popular oratory in the West and South. Words were weapons in the hands of this self-taught fighter for ideas: he kept their edges sharp, and could if necessary use them with deadly accuracy. He framed the Freeport dilemma for the unwary feet of Douglas as cunningly as a fox-hunter lays his trap. Gentlemen, he had said of an earlier effort, Judge Douglas informed you that this speech of mine was probably carefully prepared. I admit that it was. The story, too, was a weapon of attack and defense for this master fabulist. Sometimes it was a readier mode of argument than any syllogism; sometimes it gave him, like the traditional diplomatist's pinch of snuff, an excuse for pausing while he studied his
Sangamon County (Illinois, United States) (search for this): chapter 9
that this speech of mine was probably carefully prepared. I admit that it was. The story, too, was a weapon of attack and defense for this master fabulist. Sometimes it was a readier mode of argument than any syllogism; sometimes it gave him, like the traditional diplomatist's pinch of snuff, an excuse for pausing while he studied his adversary or made up his own mind; sometimes, with the instinct of a poetic soul, he invented a parable and gravely gave it a historic setting over in Sangamon County. For although upon his intellectual side the man was a subtle and severe logician, on his emotional side he was a lover of the concrete and human. He was always, like John Bunyan, dreaming and seeing a man who symbolized something apposite to the occasion. Thus even his invented stories aided his marvelous capacity for statement, for specific illustration of a general law. Lincoln's destiny was to be that of an explainer, at first to a local audience in store or tavern or courtroom,
Department de Ville de Paris (France) (search for this): chapter 9
Mrs. Stowe; it will unite North and South. But the distinctly Christian and fraternal intention of the book was swiftly forgotten in the storm of controversy that followed its appearance. It had been written hastily, fervidly, in the intervals of domestic toil at Brunswick, had been printed as a serial in The national era without attracting much attention, and was issued in book form in March, 1852. Its sudden and amazing success was not confined to this country. The story ran in three Paris newspapers at once, was promptly dramatized, and has held the stage in France ever since. It was placed upon the Index in Italy, as being subversive of established authority. Millions of copies were sold in Europe, and Uncle Tom's cabin, more than any other cause, held the English working men in sympathy with the North in the English cotton crisis of our Civil War. It is easy to see the faults of this masterpiece and impossible not to recognize its excellencies. If our art has not scop
Chicago (Illinois, United States) (search for this): chapter 9
remember that he managed nevertheless to read every book within twenty miles of him. These were not many, it is true, but they included The Bible, Esop's Fables, Pilgrim's progress, Robinson Crusoe, and, a little later, Burns and Shakespeare. Better food than this for the mind of a boy has never been found. Then he came to the history of his own country since the Declaration of Independence and mastered it. I am tolerably well acquainted with the history of the country, he remarked in his Chicago speech of 1858; and in the Cooper Union speech of 1860 he exhibited a familiarity with the theory and history of the Constitution which amazed the young lawyers who prepared an annotated edition of the address. He has wit, facts, dates, said Douglas, in extenuation of his own disinclination to enter upon the famous joint debates, and, when Douglas returned to Washington after the debates were over, he confessed to the young Henry Watterson that he is the greatest debater I have ever met,
New Hampshire (New Hampshire, United States) (search for this): chapter 9
erations were conservative, constructive. His lifelong antagonist Calhoun declared that The United States are not a nation. Webster, in opposition to this theory of a confederation of states, devoted his superb talents to the demonstration of the thesis that the United States is, not are. Thus he came to be known as the typical expounder of the Constitution. When he reached, in 1850, the turning-point of his career, his countrymen knew by heart his personal and political history, the New Hampshire boyhood and education, the rise to mastery at the New England bar, the service in the House of Representatives and the Senate and as Secretary of State. His speeches were already in the schoolbooks, and for twenty years boys had been declaiming his arguments against nullification. He had helped to teach America to think and to feel. Indeed it was through his oratory that many of his fellowcitizens had gained their highest conception of the beauty, the potency, and the dignity of human
Illinois (Illinois, United States) (search for this): chapter 9
ental grip, indeed, was the grip of a born wrestler. I've got him, he had exclaimed toward the end of the first debate, and the Protean Little Giant, as Douglas was called, had turned and twisted in vain, caught by that long-armed creature from Illinois. He could indeed win the election of 1858, but he had been forced into an interpretation of the Dred Scott decision which cost him the Presidency in 1860. Lincoln's keen interest in words and definitions, his patience in searching the dictioed stories aided his marvelous capacity for statement, for specific illustration of a general law. Lincoln's destiny was to be that of an explainer, at first to a local audience in store or tavern or courtroom, then to upturned serious faces of Illinois farmers who wished to hear national issues made clear to them, then to a listening nation in the agony of civil war, and ultimately to a world which looks to Lincoln as an exponent and interpreter of the essence of democracy. As the audience
1 2 3 4 5 6 ...