Yet these poems are as perfect as possible in structure; each is, in the highest degree
attainable, an imitation of a single action.
For now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of
attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case eternally.
The opinions which we form upon these subjects must depend upon one common principle: for if what I have said in my treatise on Morals is true, a happy life must arise from an uninterrupted course of virtue; and if virtue consists in a certain medium, the middle life must certainly be the happiest; which medium is
attainable [1295b] by every one.
As he grew to such manhood as is
attainable by a Southerner who does not care which way elections go the attachment between him and his beautiful mother--whom from early childhood he had called Katy--became yearly stronger and more tender.
Measurable by him who hath time, weighable by a good weigher,
attainable by strong pinions, divinable by divine nut-crackers: thus did my dream find the world:--
On that article, truth seemed
attainable. What she was, must be uncertain; but who she was, might be found out; and setting aside the 10,000 l., it did not appear that she was at all Harriet's superior.
There were but few who could be so classed; and it was not all of them that were
attainable. About a mile and a half from the cottage, along the narrow winding valley of Allenham, which issued from that of Barton, as formerly described, the girls had, in one of their earliest walks, discovered an ancient respectable looking mansion which, by reminding them a little of Norland, interested their imagination and made them wish to be better acquainted with it.
In the course of time and things, an equilibrium, as far as it is
attainable in so complicated a subject, will be established everywhere.
Doolittle began to discover that neither architecture nor his law was quite suitable to the growing wealth and intelligence of the settlement; and after exacting the last cent that was
attainable in his compromise, to use the language of the country he “pulled up stakes,” and proceeded farther west, scattering his professional science and legal learning through the land; vestiges of both of which are to be discovered there even to the present hour.
But the chief ground of my satisfaction with thus method, was the assurance I had of thereby exercising my reason in all matters, if not with absolute perfection, at least with the greatest
attainable by me: besides, I was conscious that by its use my mind was becoming gradually habituated to clearer and more distinct conceptions of its objects; and I hoped also, from not having restricted this method to any particular matter, to apply it to the difficulties of the other sciences, with not less success than to those of algebra.
By what means is this object
attainable? Evidently by one of two only.
On the other hand, neither his prolonged steady drinking nor his affair with Dede became public, so the only conclusion
attainable was that the wild financier from Alaska had gone lunatic.