Here in Wellfleet, this pure sand plateau, known to sailors as the Table-lands of Eastham, on account of its appearance, as seen f...rom the ocean ... stretched away northward from the southern boundary of the town, without a particle of vegetation,--as level almost as a table,--for two and a half or three miles, or as far as the eye could reach; slightly rising towards the ocean, then stooping to the beach, by as steep a slope as sand could lie on, and as regular as a military engineer could desire. It was like the escarped rampart of a stupendous fortress, whose glacis was the beach, and whose champaign the ocean. From its surface we overlooked the greater part of the Cape. In short, we were traversing a desert, with the view of an autumnal landscape of extraordinary brilliancy, a sort of Promised Land, on the one hand, and the ocean on the other. Yet, though the prospect was so extensive, and the country for the most part destitute of trees, a house was rarely visible,--we never saw one from the beach,--and the solitude was that of the ocean and the desert combined. A thousand men could not have seriously interrupted it, but would have been lost in the vastness of the scenery as their footsteps in the sand.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
that warm metamorphosis of snow as gentle as the sort that woodsmen know... who, lost in the white circle, fall at last and dream their way to death.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Even the most incompetent English actor, coming on the stage briefly to announce the presence below of Lord and Lady Ditherege, gi...ves forth a sound so soft and dulcet as almost to be a bar of music. But sometimes that is all there is. The words are lost in the graceful sweep of the notes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The fate of the poor shepherd, who, blinded and lost in the snow-storm, perishes in a drift within a few feet of his cottage door,... is an emblem of the state of man. On the brink of the waters of life and truth, we are miserably dying.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No man is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others, will learn ...how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. While we see multitudes passing before us, of whom perhaps not one appears to deserve our notice or excites our sympathy, we should remember, that we likewise are lost in the same throng, that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne; The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn;... The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depth of the grave.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As the adjective is lost in the sentence, So I am lost in your eyes, ears, nose, and throat--... You have enchanted me with a single kiss Which can never be undone Until the destruction of language.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What a vast advantage has a speech over a written composition. Men are imposed upon by voice and gesture, and by all that is condu...cive to enhance the performance. Any little prepossession in favor of the speaker raises their admiration, and then they do their best to comprehend him; they commend his performance before he has begun, but they soon fall off asleep, doze all the time he is preaching, and only wake to applaud him. An author has no such passionate admirers; his works are read at leisure in the country or in the solitude of the study; no public meetings are held to applaud him.... However excellent his book may be, it is read with the intention of finding it but middling; it is perused, discussed, and compared to other works; a book is not composed of transient sounds lost in the air and forgotten; what is printed remains.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »