We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $82,145,598.67 | Books Available: 672,518 | Members Online: 154

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - English Portraits And Essays

English Portraits And Essays
Author: John. Freeman

ENGLISH PORTRAITS AND ESSAYS but not mythic unmet, perhaps never to be met a representative figure, yet not a public one punctual, yet unhurried capable of reasons, yet wisely withholding them patient though pursued, faint yet pursuing silent, an unknown writer as well as unknown editor, subduing himself to his contributors and so subduing them ... more »to himself a badger, noblest of English beasts. I cannot name him, his name is Legion. Features of his show in others looks, his kindness and forbearance appear in their mortal manners I see him in their impulses but not in their misgivings, in their loyalties but not in their timidities. I am full of gratitude to him, to them, and if an all but unknown contributor may record particulars I will add that the following essays owe their first appearance to the editors of The Quarterly Review, The London Mercury , and The Bookman. I A CANTERBURY PILGRIM I A CANTERBURY PILGRIM for was he not among those that set out in showery April from Southwark at the Tabard, though unaccountably missed by Chaucer in his catalogue of pilgrims He rode an ass, amusing the others by the contrast of his cheerful bulk swaying over the waggish ears, with the thin strong corpse of the pathetic beast, but amusing himself most of all. Sometimes he or the ass urged forward, some times strayed to the rear, but most often he was to be found talking to the Franklin and the liveried Haberdasher, Carpenter, and the rest, or shouting at the som-del deef Wife of Bath yet not always talking or shouting, but at whiles listening and then letting his head fall into thoughtfulness equally brief. Often had he dreamed of such a pilgrimage, for, like many townsmen, he hated the town because he feared it, and dreams are born of fears. In a vision of the future he had seen, clearly and painfully, great cities scurfing the land, grey obscure blotches on the green, black islands on every river, smoking and increasing clouds at every port and in all these cities men huddled together, no longer eager to escape but contented to dwell in them and breed in them and die in yet larger cities than they were born in, if only their homes might be made a little more comfortable, the sense of insecurity diminished, and hunger removed a thought farther away. That vision a recurring vision like the fear of insanity and that vision alone had power to sadden him, for although he was nearing fifty he still wondered equally at mens failure to obey their impulses and the failure to follow their reason and so before he had ridden a mile from London he found himself suddenly shaken from dismal thoughts by the voice of the Franklin and only then realised that he had been wandering. He answered the Franklin with a smile and returned jest for jest as they all moved slowly and disorderly forward. But of the talk that took place I do not now intend to speak some of it is written in The Canterbury Tales, and what is lost will never be recovered now. An obstinate fate kept him apart from that silent pilgrim of elvish countenance who at the bidding of the seemly host began the Tale of Sir Thopas and the same fate deprived us of the tale told by our friend as he hung over the slender spine of his ass. It was a merry story of unreasonable nonsense, at which the choleric Reeve scoffed, the Clerk listened in critic wise thinking he had heard parts of it before but never so fantastically told, and the Wife of Bath and various others chuckled. It is a lost tale, but I would rather recover it than much else that was said on this mirthfully pious pilgrimage...

ISBN-13: 9781406702590
ISBN-10: 1406702595
Publication Date: 3/15/2007
Pages: 248
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Gebert Press
Book Type: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Back to the Top ↑

Search - English Portraits And Essays

Loading...