Books with author Algernon Charles

TO THEODORE WATTS-DUNTONAs it has pleased you to disinter this buried bantling of your friend's literary youth, and to find it worth resurrection, I must inscribe it to you as the person responsible for its revival. Were it not that a friend's judgment may always seem liable to be coloured by the unconscious influence of friendship, I should be reassured as to its deserts by the approval of a master from whose verdict on a stranger's attempt in the creative art of fiction there could be no reasonable appeal — and who, I feel bound to acknowledge with gratitude and satisfaction, has honoured it by the sponsorial suggestion of a new and a happier name. As it is, I can only hope that you may not be for once mistaken in your favourable opinion of a study thrown into the old epistolary form which even the giant genius of Balzac could not restore to the favour it enjoyed in the days of Richardson and of Laclos. However that may be, I am content to know that you agree with me in thinkingthat in the world of literary creation there is a legitimate place for that apparent compromise between a story and a play by which the alternate agents and patients of the tale are made to express what befalls them by word of mouth or of pen. I do not forget that the king of men to whose hand we owe the glorious history of Redgauntlet began it in epistolary form, and changed the fashion of his tale to direct and forthright narrative when the story became too strong for him, and would no longer be confined within the limits of conceivable correspondence: but his was in its ultimate upshot a historic and heroic story. And I have always regretted that we have but one specimen of the uncompleted series of letters out of which an earlier novel, the admirable Fortunes of Nigel, had grown up into immortality. The single sample which Lockhart saw fit to vouchsafe us is so great a masterpiece of dramatic humour and living imagination that the remainder of a fragment which might well suffice for the fame of any lesser man ought surely to have been long since made public. We could not dispense with the doubtless more generally amusing and interesting narrative which superseded it: but the true and thankful and understanding lover of Scott must and will readily allow or affirm that there are signs of even rarer and finer genius in the cancelled fragment of the rejected study. But theseare perhaps too high and serious matters to be touched upon in a note of acknowledgment pre-fixed to so early an attempt in the great art of fiction or creation that it would never have revisited the light or rather the twilight of publicity under honest and legitimate auspices, if it had not found in you a sponsor and a friend.-----Love's Cross-currentsPROLOGUEIN the spring of 1849, old Lord Cheyne, the noted philanthropist, was, it will be remembered by all those interested in social reform, still alive and energetic. Indeed, he had some nine years of active life before him —public baths, institutes, reading - rooms, schools, lecture-halls, all manner of improvements, were yet to bear witness to his ardour in the cause of humanity. The equable eye of philosophy has long since observed that the appetite of doing good, unlike those baser appetites which time effaces and enjoyment allays, gains in depth and vigour with advancing years—a cheering truth, attested alike by the life and death of this excellent man. Reciprocal amelioration, he was wont to -say,was the aim of every acquaintance he made— of every act of benevolence he allowed himself. Religion alone was^wanting to complete a character almost painfully perfect. The mutual moral friction of benefits bestowed and blessings received had, as it were, rubbed off the edge of those qualities which go to make up the religious sentiment. The spiritual cuticle of this truly good man was so hardened by the incessant titillations of charity, and of that complacency with which virtuous people look back on ...

"The Age of Shakespeare" by Algernon Charles Swinburne. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

PrefaceA the close of his life approached, Swinburne frequently expressed his intention to extract from his various volumes those poems which were addressed to children, or were descriptive of cliild life, and to publish them in a separate collection. He died without having found occasion to carry out this plan, and he left no directions with regard to the way in which it ought to be done. But I have felt that there should be as little further delay as possible in currying out m's wish and design, and in preparing the r r eser.t anthology I have been actuated by the sole tbovglit of what would have commended itself to him. : '"I have taken no liberties with the text; I have simply selected from the four volumes iu wluch they mainly occur—namely, from Poems and Ballads, Second Series (1878), Tristram of Lyonesse and Other Poems (1882), A Century of Roundels (1883), and Poems and Ballads, Third Series (1889)—the pieces which are definitely concerned with infancy. I have omitted one or two in which there was a close repetition of subject or form ofaddress, and I have rearranged them all in some rough chronological order, beginning with the songs of birth and proceeding to those which celebrate the maturity of nine years. I supplement the whole with the impassioned cycle of poems called " A Dark Month."One reason why Swinburne never brought out such a collection was his failure to find an artist who could interpret to his satisfaction the simplicity and freshness of his verses. We are fortunate in having secured, in Mr. Arthur Rackham, one whose delicate and romantic fancy is in sensitive harmony with Swinburne's, and who understands, no less than he did, how " Heaven lies aboutus in our infancy."------HerseWHEN grace is given us ever to beholdA child some sweet months old, Love, laying across our lips his finger, saith,Smiling, with bated breath, Hush ! for the holiest thing that lives is here,And heaven's own heart how near ! How dare we, that may gaze not on the sun,Gaze on this verier one ? Heart, hold thy peace ; eyes, be cast down forLips, breathe not yet its name, [shame ; In heaven they know what name to call it; we,...

The first great English poet was the father of English tragedy and the creator of English blank verse. Chaucer and Spenser were great writers and great men: they shared between them every gift which goes to the making of a poet except the one which alone can make a poet, in the proper sense of the word, great. Neither pathos nor humor nor fancy nor invention will suffice for that: no poet is great as a poet whom no one could ever pretend to recognize as sublime. Sublimity is the test of imagination as distinguished from invention or from fancy: and the first English poet whose powers can be called sublime was Christopher Marlowe. The majestic and exquisite excellence of various lines and passages in Marlowe’s first play must be admitted to relieve, if it cannot be allowed to redeem, the stormy monotony of Titanic truculence which blusters like a simoom through the noisy course of its ten fierce acts. With many and heavy faults, there is something of genuine greatness in "Tamburlaine the Great"; and for two grave reasons it must always be remembered with distinction and mentioned with honor. It is the first poem ever written in English blank verse, as distinguished from mere rhymeless decasyllabics; and it contains one of the noblest passages perhaps, indeed, the noblest in the literature of the world ever written by one of the greatest masters of poetry in loving praise of the glorious delights and sublime submission to the everlasting limits of his art. In its highest and most distinctive qualities, in unfaltering and infallible command of the right note of music and the proper tone of color for the finest touches of poetic execution, no poet of the most elaborate modern school, working at ease upon every consummate resource of luxurious learning and leisurely refinement, has ever excelled the best and most representative work of a man who had literally no models before him, and probably or evidently was often, if not always, compelled to write against time for his living.

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Formatted for the Kindle. Linked Contents:THE AGE OF SHAKESPEAREI. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWEII. JOHN WEBSTERIII. THOMAS DEKKERIV. JOHN MARSTONV. THOMAS MIDDLETONVI. WILLIAM ROWLEYVII. THOMAS HEYWOODVIII> GEORGE CHAPMANIX. CYRIL TOURNEURA STUDY OF SHAKESPEAREI. FIRST PERIOD: LYRIC AND FANTASTICII. SECOND PERIOD: COMIC AND HISTORICIII. THIRD PERIOD: TRAGIC AND ROMANTICAPPENDIX I. NOTE ON THE HISTORICAL PLAY OF KING EDWARD III.APPENDIX II. REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS ON THIS FIRST ANNIVERSARY SESSION OF THE NEWEST SHAKESPEARE SOCIETYAPPENDIX III. ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS

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Excerpt from The Springtide of Life: Poems of ChildhoodWhich there was a close repetition of subject or form of vaddress, and I have rearranged them all in some rough chronological order, beginning with the songs of birth and proceeding to those which celebrate the maturity of nine years. I supplement the whole with the impassioned cycle of poems called A Dark Month.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.