Anonymous

“ With all this gentleness, there is exceeding force; with all this meekness, there is imperative command; but the force is the force of wisdom, and the command is the command of love. And, yet, the authority which rules so effectually, never gathers an angry or an irritable cloud over the brow of the ruler; and this sway, which admits of no resistance, does not oppress one honest impulse of nature, one movement of the soul’s high freedom, one bound of joy from the heart’s unbidden gladness, in the spirit of the governed. ”

“ The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. [387] Every other wound we seek to heal, every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open; this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament?
2. Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? ”

“ Is there any obligation, either to a prince, or to a constitution, which it does not enforce? What, my lord, is the allegiance of man divided who gives to Cæsar what belongs to Cæsar, and to God what belongs to God? Is the allegiance of the priest divided who yields submission to his bishop and his king?—of the son who obeys his parent and his prince? And yet these duties are more distinct than those which we owe our sovereign and spiritual head. Is there any man in society who has not distinct duties to discharge? ”

“ It may come upon us—poverty may—with such crushing force that we will have to lie down and die; but then it will be our path to heaven, our road home. Home! Oh, Alfred, what comfort in that word! There we will meet father, mother, sisters, brothers, and all will be joy and happiness. Every tear will be wiped away, and all the sorrow and wretchedness of the way-side forgotten. ”

“ But the industrious mother of helpless and depending children, far from the reach of human charity, has none of these to console her. And such a one was the widow of the Pine Cottage; but as she bent over [93] the fire, and took up the last scanty remnant of food, to spread before her children, her spirits seemed to brighten up, as by some sudden and mysterious impulse, and Cowper’s beautiful lines came uncalled across her mind:
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning Providence
He hides a smiling face. ”

“ I pressed my rosary to my breast on this occasion, and repeatedly touched with my lips that part of it which had received the kiss of the most venerable pontiff. I preserve it with a kind of hallowed feeling, as the memorial of a man whose sanctity, firmness, meekness, and benevolence, are an honor to his Church and to human nature: and it has not only been useful to me, by its influence upon my own mind, but it has enabled me to give pleasure to others; and has, I believe, been sometimes beneficial in insuring my personal safety. ”

“ By a single glance of her eye, they know her meaning, and are afraid to displease her.
3. The orders she gives are precise; she commands nothing but what can be performed; she reproves with kindness, and in reproving encourages. Her father’s heart reposes upon her as a traveler, fainting beneath the sun’s sultry rays, reposes himself upon the tender grass under a shady tree.
4. Antiope is a treasure worth seeking in the most remote corners of the earth. Neither her person nor her mind is set off with vain ornaments; and her imagination, though lively, is restrained by her discretion. ”

“ Edmund Burke was born in Ireland in 1728, and died in 1797. Such was the transcendent ability of Burke, that, at a time when England was richest in brilliant orators, and great statesmen, he rose from his obscure position, as a young and unknown Irishman, to be the great central figure in the array of great names which shed a lustre over the closing years of the Eighteenth century. But to his unrivaled merits as an orator and statesman, can be added the still higher praise of being a man of unblemished honor and probity. ”

“ To Americans the name of Washington will be ever dear; a savor of sweet incense, descending to every succeeding generation. The things which he has done are too great, too interesting, ever to be forgotten. Every object which we see, every employment in which we are engaged, every comfort which we enjoy, reminds us daily of his character. The general peace, liberty, religion, safety, and prosperity, strongly impress, [274] in every place, what he has done, suffered, and achieved. ”

“ No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh! the grave! It buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment! From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down even upon the grave of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious [388] throb, that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies moldering before him! ”

“ If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent; if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms, to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth; if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged in thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee ”

“ No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst [172] of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection, when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who could root out such a sorrow? ”

“ I have seen, at school and at college, a great many young men completely destroyed by having been so unfortunate as to produce an excellent copy of verses. Their genius being now established, all that remained for them to do, was to act up to the dignity of the character; and as this dignity consisted in reading nothing new, in forgetting what they had already read, and in pretending to be acquainted with all subjects by a sort of off-hand exertion of talents, they soon collapsed [593] into the most frivolous and insignificant of men. ”

“ Yes, he is a miracle of genius, because he is a miracle of labor; because, instead of trusting to the resources of his own single mind, he has ransacked a thousand minds; because he makes use of the accumulation of ages, and takes, as his point of departure, the very last line and boundary to which science has advanced; because it has ever been the object of his life to assist every intellectual gift of nature, however munificent, [598] and however splendid, with every resource that art could suggest, and every attention diligence could bestow. ”

“ Born in the humblest station, he raised himself by his talents and industry, first to the place in society which may be attained with the help only of ordinary abilities, great application, and good luck; but next, to the loftier heights which a daring and happy genius alone can scale; and the printers’ boy who at one period of his life had no covering to shelter his head from the dews of night, rent in twain the proud dominion of England, and lived to be the ambassador of a commonwealth which he had formed, at the court of the haughty monarchs of France, who had been his allies. ”

“ Every ship bears the fruits of his labors on its wings, and exultingly spreads its streamers to his honor. The student meets him in the still and peaceful walk; the traveler sees him in all the prosperous and smiling scenes of his journey; and our whole country, in her thrift, order, safety and morals, bears, inscribed in sunbeams, throughout her hills and her plains, the name and the glory of Washington. ”

“ Therefore, if any young man have embarked his life in pursuit of knowledge, let him go on without doubting or fearing the event; let him not be intimidated by the cheerless beginnings of knowledge, by the darkness from which she springs, by the difficulties which hover around her, by the wretched habitations in which she dwells, by the want and sorrow which sometimes journey in her train; but let him ever follow her as the Angel that guards him, and as the Genius of his life. ”

“ It is obvious from what has been said, that if we understand the meaning of what we read, in the same degree as a person understands the thoughts which he utters, we shall, like him, naturally and spontaneously lay the emphasis on the proper words. It is equally obvious, that if we do not understand the meaning of what we read, we shall either have to pronounce all the words with the same degree of force—which would be absurd—or to run the risk of perverting the meaning of the author, by laying the emphasis on the wrong words. ”

“ Like him whom she loves, to the mansions of grief
She hastes with the tidings of joy and relief.
She strengthens the weary—she comforts the weak,
And soft is her voice in the ear of the sick;
Where want and affliction on mortals attend,
The Sister of Charity there is a friend. ”

“ The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage, while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness. ”

“ ENERGY.
“Energy is intimately allied to the two preceding graces of Elocution; to which it adds force, intensity, and earnestness. As Expression is variety of Intonation, Energy may be called the Emphasis of Expression.
“It is the life, the soul, the animating spirit. Without it, the speaker may be correct, and even agreeable, by a due observance of rule; but if he lack energy, he will be listened to without interest; his voice will fall powerless on the ear, and neither “awake the senses,” nor “stir the blood.”
“Energy, it is true, depends somewhat on individual temperament and constitution. ”

“ If we estimate the character of a sovereign by the test of popular affection, we must rank Edward among the best princes of his time. The goodness of his [233] heart was adored by his subjects, who lamented his death with tears of undissembled grief, and bequeathed his memory as an object of veneration to their posterity. The blessings of his reign are the constant theme of our ancient writers: not, indeed, that he displayed any of those brilliant qualities which attract admiration, while they inflict misery. ”

“ The soul seems to dwell even upon the inanimate things which have shared our destiny: we remain attached to the down on which our prosperity has slumbered, and still more to the straw on which we counted the days of our adversity. The vulgar have an energetic expression, to describe the languor which oppresses the soul when away from our country. ”

“ There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion [369] ; it is this indeed, which gives a value to all the rest, which sets them at work in their proper times and places, and turns them to the advantage of the person who is possessed of them. Though a man has all other perfections, and wants this one, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his particular station of life. ”

“ Impressed with these ideas, he will behold with interest the crosses which frequently mark the brow of a precipice, and the little chapels hollowed out of the rock, where the road is narrowed; he will consider them as so many pledges of security, and rest assured, that so long as the pious mountaineer continues to adore the “Good Shepherd,” and to implore the power of the “Afflicted Mother,” he will never cease to befriend the traveler, nor to discharge the duties of hospitality. ”

“ Each of these men has been recompensed according to his works. Washington, after having raised a nation to independence, slept peacefully, as a retired magistrate, under his paternal roof, amid the regrets of his countrymen, and the veneration of all people, Bonaparte, having robbed a nation of its independence was hurled, a dethroned emperor, into exile, and the terrified earth hardly thought him secure enough under the custody of the ocean. ”

“ The possession of genius alone, is, alas! no certain herald of success; and how many melancholy instances has the world afforded to us all, of how little avail mere natural talents are to the prosperity of their possessors, and of the frequency with which they have led to ruin and disgrace, when unaccompanied with firmness and energy of mind! ”

“ Melody and Cadence require that in reading poetry the inflections be more smooth, or less angular, than in prose. To make the inflections as sharp as they often are in ordinary composition, would interfere with that easy and graceful flow which is the chief charm of poetical composition. But while cadence adds much to the beauty of poetical expression, it must not be carried so far as to supersede the just inflection and emphasis which the sense demands. ”