Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: September 11, 2025
McElwin turned to the window and stood there, looking out, listening, with no ear for the solicitous common-places concerning the health of his household, indulged by the old gentleman. He glanced at the clock on the mantel, and was surprised to find that the hour was no later. He turned to the preacher. "You can do me a service, Mr.
There is not one true tone in his elaborate eloquence, nothing but recipes and only those of a worn-out art, Greek and Roman common-places, Socrates and the hemlock, Brutus and his dagger, classic metaphors like "the flambeaux of discord," and "the vessel of State," s coupled together and beauties of style which a pupil in rhetoric aims at on the college bench; times a grand bravura air, so essential for parade in public; centimes a delicate strain of the flute, for, in those days, one must have a tender heart; in short, Marmontel's method in "Belisarius," or that of Thomas in his "Eloges," all borrowed from Rousseau, but of inferior quality, like a sharp, thin voice strained to imitate a rich, powerful voice.
He must make speeches and write handbills; he must be devoted to the wishes and objects of the society, its creature, its jackal, its busybody, its mouthpiece, its prompter; he must deal in law cases, in demurrers, in charters, in traditions, in common-places, in logic and rhetoric in everything but common sense and honesty.
But, as far as she was aware, she was quite honest in saying that the curate could not comfort him for what attempt even had he made to comfort her? What had he done but utter common-places and truisms about duty?
Dexter heard no more. On the next day he started with his wife for Newport. The journey was a silent one. They had ceased to converse much when alone. And now there were reasons why Mr. Dexter felt little inclination to intrude any common-places upon his wife. They were passing into the hotel, on their arrival, when Mr.
For, Mr. Clay's resolution sweeps by the board all those stereotyped common-places, as "Congress a local Legislature," "consent of the District," "bound to consult the wishes of the District," &c. &c., which for the last two sessions of Congress have served to eke out scanty supplies.
He saw himself sitting side by side with one of the most-eminent theologians of the Roman Church; he recalled the little man, black-haired, lively, corpulent, a trifle underhung, with a pleasant lisp and a merry eye; he remembered the incredible conversation, the sense of difficulty and shame under which he had argued some of the common-places of biology and primitive history, as educated Europe understands them; the half patronising, half impatient glibness of the other.
The pulpit is crowded with goodish "nobodies" men who have no power no unction no mission. They strain their brains to write common-places, and wear themselves out repeating the rant of their sect and the cant of their schools. The bar is cursed with "nobodies" as much as the pulpit. The lawyers are few; the pettifoggers are many.
"I have found out a gift for my fair: I have found where the wood pigeons breed: But let me that plunder forbear, She will say 'twas a barbarous deed: For he ne'er could be true, she averred, Who could rob a poor bird of its young; And I loved her the more when I heard Such tenderness fall from her tongue." In the third he mentions the common-places of amorous poetry with some address:
Mellen had been too profoundly disturbed himself for conjecture regarding this passionate outburst; to him it seemed natural that every one should be agitated, and Elsie soon brought them back to safer common-places by her gayety, which not even the peril from which she had been so recently rescued could entirely subdue.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking