Word: certain
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...sane and sure a judge. Ruskin has been accused of inconsistency only because he has made us partakers of his separate processes of study instead of waiting till he could give us the precipitate of assured wisdom which would deposit itself from the combination of all. Perhaps a certain amount of such inconsistency is inevitable in a mind like his. He is the Demosthenes of criticism, who always has a client to defend or a criminal to attack, and he is perfectly right in saying that he is never illogical, if by that he means that his individual syllogisms...
...style of prose as much as of poetry; it is lucid, harmonious, earnest, eloquent, but it has not received that peculiar kneading, heightening, and recasting which is observable in the style of the passage from Milton,- a style which seems to have for its cause a certain pressure of emotion, and an ever-surging, yet bridled, excitement in the poet, giving a special intensity to his way of delivering himself. In poetical races and epochs this turn for style is peculiarly observable; and perhaps it is only on condition of having this somewhat heightened and difficult manner, so different from...
recasting and heightening, under a certain condition of spiritual excitement, of what a man has to say, in such a manner as to add dignity and distinction to it; and dignity and distinction are not terms which suit many acts or works of Luther. Deeply touched with the Gemeinheit which is the bane of his nation, as he is at the same time a grand example of the honesty which is his nation's excellence, he can seldom even show himself brave, resolute, and truthful, without showing a strong dash of coarseness and commonness all the while; the right definition...
...common belief among a certain class of people that the Catholic church cannot exist in the neighborhood of American freedom. In fact fifty years ago every one thought of America as a Protestant country. But ever since the first small group of Catholics came to this country, fourteen years after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, the Catholic power has been struggling bravely and successfully for its existence...
...Lorna Doone we have a book which charms us all at first reading but which we would not care to read through a second time. It is beautiful but to a certain extent dull...