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With power to add, retouch, efface,
The lights and shades, the joy and pain:
How little of the past would stay!
How quickly all should melt away--
All but that freedom of the mind,

Which hath been more than wealth to me:
Those friendships in my boyhood twined,
And kept till now unchangingly;
And that dear home, that saving ark,
Where love's true light at last I've found,
Cheering within, when all grows dark,
And comfortless and stormy round!

WHAT is commonly called genius, for any particular calling or pursuit, is often nothing more than a disposition towards it, generally given by accidental causes; and the superiority attainable in it does not always depend on any innate propensity of the mind, but on the general strength of the intellect, and on the intense and constant application of that strength to a specific purpose.

THE reason why so few marriages are happy is, because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.

SWIFT.

THE SEA.

EARTH has not a plain

So boundless or so beautiful as thine ;
The eagle's vision cannot take it in ;

The lightning's wing, too weak to sweep its space,
Sinks half way o'er it, like a wearied bird.

It is the mirror of the stars, where all
Their hosts within the concave firmament,
Gay marching to the music of the spheres,
Can see themselves at once.

CAMPBELL.

THE restless inanity of minds, which can neither use, retain, nor even receive any of the materials of intellectual enjoyment, require, as the gratifications of sensuality cease, a continued and endless succession of novelties, at once violent and frivolous, to relieve them from the painful sense of that vacancy, which it is impossible to fill, and that lassitude of selfdisgust which it is impossible to fly.

The desires of avarice have an end; but those of prodigality have none: the one is a monogastric bloodsucker, which fills itself, grows torpid, and falls off; the other is a living syphon, which discharges as fast as it receives, and enlarges its tube, and accelerates its transmission, the longer it adheres, and the more copiously it exhausts. It is never satiated, because it never enjoys; and ever covets what is absent, because it can never relish what is

present.

THUS the gay moth, by sun and vernal gales
Call'd forth to wander o'er the dewy vales,
From flower to flower, from sweet to sweet will stray,
Till, tired and satiate with her food and play,
Deep in the shades she builds her peaceful nest,
In loved seclusion pleased at length to rest:
There folds those wings that erst so wildly bore;
Becomes a household nymph, and seeks to range no

more.

AGAINST the threats

Of Malice, or of Sorcery, or that power
Which erring men call Chance, this I hold firm,-
Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt,

Surprised by unjust force, but not enthrall'd:
Yea, even that, which mischief meant most harm,
Shall in the happy trial prove most glory :
But evil on itself shall back recoil,

And mix no more with goodness.

MILTON,

FIRMNESS is as different from its mean substitute, obstinacy, as rashness is from true courage, prudery from virtue, and bigotry from religion.

COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.

LOVE is a plant of holier birth
Than any that takes its root on earth;
A flower from Heav'n, which 'tis a crime
To number with the things of time.
Hope in the bud is often blasted,
And Beauty on the desart wasted ;
And Joy, a primrose early gay,
Care's lightest foot-fall treads away.

But Love shall live for ever,

And chance and change shall meet it never!
Can hearts in which true love is plighted
By want or woe be disunited?

Ah, no! like buds on one stem born,

They share between them even the thorn

Which round them dwells, but parts them not,
A lorn, yet undivided lot!

Can Death dissever or part

The loved one from the lover's heart?

No, no; he does but guard the prize
Sacred from mortal injuries,

Making it purer, holier seem;

As the ice closing o'er the stream,

Keeps, while storms ravage earth and air,

All baser things from mingling there.

L'EXPÉRIENCE du monde brise le coeur ou le bronze.

CHAMPFORT.

I SAW the virtuous man contend
With life's unnumber'd woes;
And he was poor-without a friend-
Press'd by a thousand foes.

I saw the passions' pliant slave
In gallant trim, and gay;

His course was pleasure's placid wave,
His life a summer's day.

And I was caught in Folly's snare
And join'd her giddy train-
But found her soon the nurse of Care,
And Punishment, and Pain.

There surely is some guiding Pow'r,
Which rightly suffers wrong-
Gives Vice to bloom its little hour,
But Virtue, late and long.

STRANG FORD.

He who would do an unworthy act for the sake of power, would do the same for pelf, if he happened to feel the want of it, or to place as high a value upon it; and he that reserves the practice of base arts for the gratification of his ambition alone, proves his estimate of the object to vary, rather than his scrupulousness about the means.

L

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