The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “public domain”

Stunning, Sensual Illustrations for a Rare 1913 Edition of Walt Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass’ by English Artist Margaret C. Cook
Stunning, Sensual Illustrations for a Rare 1913 Edition of Walt Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass’ by English Artist Margaret C. Cook

“Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death…”

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Eleven Kinds of Blue: Werner’s Pioneering 19th-Century Nomenclature of the Colors, Beloved by Darwin
Eleven Kinds of Blue: Werner’s Pioneering 19th-Century Nomenclature of the Colors, Beloved by Darwin

“It is singular, that a thing so obviously useful, … should have been so long overlooked.”

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A Winter Walk with Thoreau: The Transcendentalist Way of Finding Inner Warmth in the Cold Season
A Winter Walk with Thoreau: The Transcendentalist Way of Finding Inner Warmth in the Cold Season

“Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.”

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On Saying “I Love You” Only When You Mean It: Robert Browning on Protecting the Sincerity of Sentiment from Desecration by Misuse
On Saying “I Love You” Only When You Mean It: Robert Browning on Protecting the Sincerity of Sentiment from Desecration by Misuse

“People would hardly ever tell falsehoods about a matter, if they had been let tell truth in the beginning.”

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The Forgotten Visionary Richard Jefferies on Nature as a Portal to Self-Transcendence
The Forgotten Visionary Richard Jefferies on Nature as a Portal to Self-Transcendence

“The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live, so that the longer we can stay among these things so much the more is snatched from inevitable Time.”

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The Art of Sympathetic Enthusiasm: Goethe on the Only Opinion Worth Voicing About Another’s Life and Creative Labor
The Art of Sympathetic Enthusiasm: Goethe on the Only Opinion Worth Voicing About Another’s Life and Creative Labor

In praise of the “loving sympathy” that makes life worthy of living.

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Germaine de Staël’s Guide to Haters: The First Modern Woman on Meritocracy, the Psychology of Why the Masses Rejoice in Tearing Down Successful Individuals, and the Only True Measure of Genius
Germaine de Staël’s Guide to Haters: The First Modern Woman on Meritocracy, the Psychology of Why the Masses Rejoice in Tearing Down Successful Individuals, and the Only True Measure of Genius

“The life of man, so short in itself, is still of longer duration than the judgment and the affections of his contemporaries.”

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Margaret Fuller on the Power of Music
Margaret Fuller on the Power of Music

“All truth is comprised in music and mathematics.”

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning on the Dangerous Myth of the Suffering Artist and What Makes Life Worth Living
Elizabeth Barrett Browning on the Dangerous Myth of the Suffering Artist and What Makes Life Worth Living

A beautiful clarion call for making creative work “the filling joy of your life” no matter how difficult the cards you’ve been dealt.

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The Haunted Mind: Nathaniel Hawthorne on the Edges of Consciousness Illuminate Time and Eternity
The Haunted Mind: Nathaniel Hawthorne on the Edges of Consciousness Illuminate Time and Eternity

“Yesterday has already vanished among the shadows of the past; to-morrow has not yet emerged from the future. You have found an intermediate space… a spot where Father Time, when he thinks nobody is watching him, sits down by the way side to take breath.”

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