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“ Although I do not know whether you are now at Paris or ranging the regions of Asia to acquire more knowledge for the use of men, I cannot deny myself the gratification of an endeavor to recall myself to your recollection, and of assuring you of my constant attachment, and of renewing to you the just tribute of my affectionate esteem and high respect and consideration. ”

“ He suddenly sprang up and went over to my study-table—sat straight down there as if to write me my passport. Then it was—at the mere sight of his back, which was turned to me—that I felt the spell work. I simply sat and watched him with the queerest, deepest, sweetest sense in the world—the sense of an ache that had stopped. ”

“ You don't seem surprised at that?”
“No, sir,” said she, in the same quiet, grave fashion.
“What's the reason, young lady,” said I, somewhat sternly, “that you persist in saying 'sir' on every occasion that you address me? The ease of that intercourse that should subsist between us is marred by this Americanism. The pleasant interchange of thought loses the charming feature of equality. ”

“ I have read and re-read that part of your letter wherein you speak of your wish to come and live abroad, so soon as the fruits of your life of labor will enable you. Oh, my dear kind governess, with what emotion the words filled me,—emotions very different from those you ever suspected they would call up; for I bethought me how often I and others must have added to that toilsome existence by our indolence, our carelessness, and our wilfulness. ”

“ Be assured that no one mingles with them more regret at separating from you. I will ask your permission to inquire of you by letter sometimes how our country agrees with your health and your expectations, and will hope to hear it from yourself. The imitation of European manners, which you will find in our towns, will, I fear, be little pleasing. I beseech you to practice still your own, which will furnish them a model of what is perfect. ”

“ These elaborate preludes and interludes may, to the strenuous ever-in-a-hurry American, seem useless and superfluous, but they serve a good purpose. Like the common courtesies and civilities of life they pave the way for the speakers, especially if they are strangers; they improve their tempers, and place them generally on terms of mutual understanding. ”

“ When he stopped to take breath, I interposed, that, "whilst I highly valued all his explanations, I was bound to tell him that I was born and bred a Unitarian." "Yes," he said, "I supposed so;" and continued as before. ”

“ The demonstrative or personal pronoun is the substantive in another form.—The two propositions (1) the man is come; (2) he rides= (1) the man is come; (2) the man rides.
4. Hence the relative is the equivalent to a demonstrative pronoun, or to a substantive, indifferently.
5. But the relative is the equivalent to the pronoun and substantive, and something more. In sentences like
The man is come—he rides—
The man is come—the man rides.
The identity between the person mentioned in the two propositions is implied, not expressed. ”

“ So, ask the traveled inhabitant of any nation, In what country on earth would you rather live?—Certainly, in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life. ”

“ Faith is like the primitive granite of old New England. Dig down deep and you come to it below all superimposed strata. Go to the summit of the highest mountains and you find it, on loftiest elevations. Faith begins as the basis of the infants knowledge; it ends in leading us to know the bigness, the grandeur of life. ”

“ A foreigner, unacquainted with the language, could not glean the drift of a conversation in English, except perhaps a trifle from the tone of the voices and more from the natural signs used—the smiles and frowns, the expressions of the faces, the play of eyes, lips, hands and whole body. ”

“ A beggar asking alms under the name of a poor scholar, a gentleman to whom he applied himself, asked him a question in, Latin. The fellow, shaking his head, said he did not understand him. "Why," said the gentleman, "did you not say you were a poor scholar?"—"Yes," replied the other, "a poor one indeed, sir, for I do not understand one word of Latin." ”

“ At this point I think I can see you throw down my letter with more insight into human nature than patience with its foibles. You toss it aside and exclaim: "What does this Englishman drive at? Why does he not at once say what he wants?" ”

“ But we should look into the philosophy of idiom more keenly, for here we are most likely to find a key to the character of every civilised nation.
Another example of this variety may be seen in the form of address adopted in the different countries of Europe. We English speak to one another in the second person plural, even when we address one person. We say ‘you are,’ to one [146] single person, and if we have to address a thousand, we must use the same form. ”

“ Even in the matter of such a harmless affair as a compliment to a foreigner on his knowledge of English, they will precede it with a request for pardon, and speak in a half-apologetic manner, as if complimenting were something personal. The English and the Americans are closely related, they have much in common, but they also differ widely, and in nothing is the difference more conspicuous than in their conduct. ”

“ To you, generous, noble-minded men and women, of the South,—you, whose virtue, and magnanimity and purity of character, are the greater for the severer trial it has encountered,—to you is her appeal. Have you not, in your own secret souls, in your own private conversings, felt that there are woes and evils, in this accursed system, far beyond what are here shadowed, or can be shadowed? ”

“ Now, though the world be divided into many nations, each of which, for the most part, has a peculiar language, speech, or dialect, yet have they ever concurred in the same numbers and persons, as much of the ground of right speech. For instance; I love, thou lovest, he loveth, are of singular number, importing but one whether in the first, second, or third person: also we love, ye love, they love, are of the plural number, because in each is implied more than one. ”

“ XXVIII. Whether thou speak in the Senate or whether thou speak to any particular, let thy speech In always grave and modest. But thou must not openly and vulgarly observe that sound and exact form of speaking, concerning that which is truly good and truly civil; the vanity of the world, and of worldly men: which otherwise truth and reason doth prescribe. ”

“ There is an inborn dignity in his bearing which consists in the absence of all dignity assumed. But what strikes me most in this Englishman is an expression of countenance which the English depict by the word ‘open,’—that expression which inspires you with a belief in the existence of sincerity. ”

“ I much prefer the condition of an English gentleman of the better class, to that of any potentate in Europe, – whether for travel, or for opportunity of society, or for access to means of science or study, or for mere comfort and easy healthy relation to people at home. ”

“ Univ. is “persons”; m = persons who have read the letter; x = the Class of Johns; y = persons who know what the letter is about.
i.e. No one, but John, knows what the letter is about.
3. Those who are not old like walking;
You and I are young.
Univ. is “persons”; m = old; x = persons who like walking; y = you and I. ”

“ I am offering you, dear friend, that which is vastly higher than the union of the merely animal, which is based wholly upon the purely physical and material attraction. I am proposing marriage of our souls—a union, if you please, of our higher intellectual and spiritual selves. ”

“ Wash thyself, and let water run over thy fingers. I would that thou shouldst be ready to return an answer to the man who addresseth thee, and to speak to the King [from] thy heart, and assuredly thou must give thine answer promptly and without hesitation. The mouth of a man delivereth him, and his words provide a covering for [his] face. Act thou according to the promptings of thine heart, and when thou hast spoken [thou wilt have made him] to be at rest. ”

“ Our persons are near to each other; but should I not greatly deceive myself, were I to suppose that our opinions were as near together as our persons? We are within shaking-hands’ distance of each other; still, our convictions and sentiments on certain subjects may be wide asunder as the poles. ”

“ His companions asked him, "What are you thinking about?" And he said, "I am thinking about this—When people put on new clothes, where do the old ones go to?" And his companions said, "These words are true." ”

“ I have to eat, drink, and try to be merry, or to-morrow I die, so to postpone to-morrow I am working on a new dictionary. Somebody has to work on dictionaries, you know, and justify the pronunciation of America to man. I’m sort of learned, in a mild, harmless, anti-militant way. It isn’t fair to keep the truth from you–I have a degree in philology! ”

“ When a person in speaking upon any matter, says, it was before I was married, or before my son was born, or before I went to America, or before I went to France, it is absolutely understood, and intended to be understood, that he has been married, that he has had a son, that he has been in America, or been in France. ”

“ For the first time in one's experience one had experienced a genuine, whole-hearted, common feeling running through all the English people—every man, woman and child, without distinction, bound in one common interest which, for the time being, was moving the whole nation. ”

“ For my life in America has been, and is a journey of familiar visits, to homes which have opened themselves to me in every State throughout America, and where I have lived, not as a stranger, but as a sister with brothers and sisters, conversing openly with them on all subjects, as people may converse in heaven. I there met with more than I have words to tell, of true Christian life, of the love of truth, of kindness, of minds earnest for and receptive of everything which is great and good in humanity. ”

“ I considered myself quite fortunate to have fallen in with such a querist, for the Americans are usually too much taken up with their own business to trouble themselves about yours, beyond such questions as, "Are you bound west, stranger?" ”

“ We see our public men, almost without exception, in every speech they make, allude fondly in round set terms to their 'kin beyond the seas.' Will nothing open your eyes? Will you not see that these people are not your kin? ”

“ I returned to England on the receipt of a letter from my Lord L’Estrange, and with a view, it is true, of claiming at his hands the satisfaction which men of our birth accord to each other, where affront, from what cause soever, has been given or received. ”

“ They were, in their strange, final union—if union it could be called—very natural and very touching; but he was visibly stricken—he had his ailment in his eyes. She moved about him like a sister of charity—at all events like a sister. ”

“ Everything is in favor of my going, my improvement, my expenses, and, last though not least, the state of my feelings. I shall be ruined in my feelings if I stay longer in England. I cannot endure the continued and daily insults to my feelings as an American. ”

“ The habit of constant intercourse in society, which constitutes their greatest pleasure, and has made them, in their own opinion, the most polished nation on earth, appears not merely to have assimilated their manners to one another, in the manner so finely illustrated by the celebrated simile of Sterne [2] , but to have engendered a kind of conventional standard character, by which all those we observe are more or less modelled. ”

“ I debated for a moment, "asking the man to call and see her—or—accepting a present from him, or—telling him she is fond of his mother."
I paused; and my companion looked at me in dumb amazement. He must think the Americans a very curious and wonderful people! ”

“ Foreigners, the French in particular, take from us precisely that which is least ours, that which least clashes with their spirit, and, naturally enough, that which best accommodates itself to the idea that they have formed of us, an idea that is always and necessarily superficial. ”

“ My Dear Sir, My Dear Sir, From my former letters on the human body, I trust, you are already convinced, not only of its astonishing mechanism, which, of itself, is a sufficient indication of a wisdom surpassing all human conception, but also of the figurative character of ail its parts and operations, as pointing to the mind within ”

“ REMARK.—In the above examples the words "venture," "friend," "ah," etc., may be considered as interrogatory exclamations, because if the sense were carried out it would be in the form of question; as, "Do you ask who would venture'?" "Do you say that he is the friend' of virtue?" "Is it possible'?" and thus they would receive the rising inflection according to this rule. ”

“ Imagine a German or Italian wife announcing to her spouse that she had decided to run over to England for a year with her children, that they might learn English. The mind recoils in horror from the idea of the catastrophe that would ensue. ”

“ Howbeit, though no scholar, I am not one of those who misuse the English speech, and, being foolishly led by the hasty custom of scriveners and printers to write the letters "T" and "H" joined together, which resembleth a "Y," do incontinently jump to the conclusion the THE is pronounced "Ye,"—the like of which I never heard in all England. ”

“ An astute friend had once said of him that he had made his success by combining innate American qualities—or qualities Americans like to think are theirs—of activity and daring and imagination, with an English method of presenting himself—a calm, imperturbable, superior, English manner. ”