John Donne: the moment of the sermon -- Sir Thomas Browne and meditative prose -- Graces and the muses: Felltham's Resolves -- William Hazlitt: the essayist and the moods of the mind -- VirtĂș of De Quincey -- Emerson and the freedom of the reader -- Thoreau: the concrete vision -- T.S. Eliot: the dialogue of the writer.