The value of quotations consists in their appositeness and
their convenience. As the crystallized thought of great
minds they are often needed to give authority to an idea,
or to adorn it. Unless, however, they apply precisely their
effect may be wide of the mark; and unless they may readily
be found they are as useless as unmined gold.
This handbook gives over fourteen hundred quotations
from English and American poetry of the highest grade,
and contains many of the finest lines of Shakespearė, Mil-
ton, Pope, Moore, Young, Cowper, Dryden, and Byron,
⚫ and others of their times, together with those of Tennyson,
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Longfellow, Lowell,
Whittier, Emerson, and other modern poets. One hun-
dred sixty-five authors are quoted, and the lines of each
may be found by consulting the Index of Authors.
The quotations are arranged under almost two hundred
different headings, and comprise an even greater number
of subjects. They cover all the universal experiences in
the emotional and intellectual life, and a complete table
of contents makes the choice of an apposite quotation an
easy matter.
Often the skillfully used quotation gives to the after-
dinner speech, to the lecture or oration, to the sermon or
essay, even to the intimate personal letter, that weight that