Leland Todd Powers

“ So may you paint your picture, twice show truth, Beyond mere imagery on the wall,-- So, note by note, bring music from your mind, Deeper than ever the Adante dived,-- So write a book shall mean, beyond the facts, Suffice the eye, and save the soul besides.
SELF-RELIANCE.
1. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,—that is genius.
Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. ”

“ I trust that in a little while there will be few of our rich men, who, through carelessness or covetousness, thus forfeit the glorious office which is intended for their hands. I said, just now, that wealth ill-used was as the net of the spider, entangling and destroying; but wealth well-used, is as the net of the sacred Fisher who gathers souls of men out of the deep. A time will come—I do not think it is far from us—when this golden net of the world's wealth will be spread abroad as the flaming meshes of morning cloud over the sky ”

“ King Leodogran rejoiced, But musing 'Shall I answer yea or nay?' Doubted, and drowsed, nodded and slept, and saw, Dreaming a slope of land that ever grew, Field after field, up to a height, the peak Haze-hidden, and thereon a phantom king, Now looming, and now lost; and on the slope The sword rose, the hind fell, the herd was driven, Fire glimpsed; and all the land from roof and rick, In drifts of smoke before a rolling wind, Stream'd to the peak, and mingled with the haze And made it thicker; while the phantom king Sent out at times a voice ”

“ Then wise work is Cheerful, as a child's work is. Everybody in this room has been taught to pray daily, "Thy Kingdom come." Now if we hear a man swearing in the streets we think it very wrong, and say he "takes God's name in vain." But there's a twenty times worse way of taking His name in vain than that. It is to ask God for what we don't want. If you don't want a thing don't ask for it: such asking is the worst mockery of your King you can insult Him with. If you do not wish for His kingdom, don't pray for it. But if you do, you must do more than pray for it; you must work for it. ”

“ LEODOGRAN, the King of Cameliard, Had one fair daughter, and none other child; And she was fairest of all flesh on earth, Guinevere, and in her his one delight. For many a petty king ere Arthur came Ruled in this isle and, ever waging war Each upon other, wasted all the land; And still from time to time the heathen host Swarm'd over seas, and harried what was left. And so there grew great tracts of wilderness, Wherein the beast was ever more and more, But man was less and less. ”

“ Now hope succeeds despair on each captain's countenance! Out burst all with one accord, "This is Paradise for hell! Let France, let France's king, Thank the man that did the thing!" What a shout, and all one word, "Hervé Riel!" As he stepped in front once more, Not a symptom of surprise In the frank blue Breton eyes, Just the same man as before. Then said Damfreville, "My friend, I must speak out at the end, Though I find the speaking hard. Praise is deeper than the lips; You have saved the King his ships, You must name your own reward. ”

“ And they crossed themselves for fear, All the knights at Camelot: But Lancelot mused a little space; He said "She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott."
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.
IF WE HAD THE TIME. If I had the time to find a place And sit me down full face to face With my better self, that cannot show In my daily life that rushes so: It might be then I would see my soul Was stumbling still towards the shining goal, I might be nerved by the thought sublime,-- If I had the time! ”

“ So that when (Ah, joy!) our singer For his truant string Feels with disconcerted finger, What does cricket else but fling Fiery heart forth, sound the note Wanted by the throbbing throat? Ay and, ever to the ending, Cricket chirps at need, Executes the hand's intending, Promptly, perfectly,--indeed Saves the singer from defeat With her chirrup low and sweet. Till, at ending, all the judges Cry with one assent "Take the prize--a prize who grudges Such a voice and instrument? Why, we took your lyre for harp, So it shrilled us forth F sharp!" ”

“ Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to it; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. ”

“ A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich;" 5. "Listen to the water-mill; Through the livelong day, How the clicking of its wheels Wears the hours away! Languidly the autumn wind Stirs the forest leaves, From the fields the reapers sing, Binding up their sheaves; And a proverb haunts my mind, As a spell is cast; 'The mill can never grind With the water that is past.'"
6. "Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is good steadily hastening towards immortality. ”

“ IV. With many a curve my banks I fret By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set With willow-weed and mallow. V. I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river; For men may come, and men may go, But I go on forever. VI. I wind about and in and out, With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a lusty trout, And here and there a grayling. ”

“ GREEN THINGS GROWING. The green things growing, the green things growing, The faint sweet smell of the green things growing! I should like to live, whether I smile or grieve, Just to watch the happy life of my green things growing. Oh the fluttering and the pattering of those green things growing! How they talk each to each, when none of us are knowing; In the wonderful white of the weird moonlight Or the dim dreamy dawn when the cocks are crowing. I love, I love them so--my green things growing! ”

“ A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts ”

“ If life were caught by a clarionet, And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed, Should thrill its joy and trill its fret, And utter its heart in every deed, "Then would this breathing clarionet Type what the poet fain would be; For none o' the singers ever yet Has wholly lived his minstrelsy, "Or clearly sung his true, true thought, Or utterly bodied forth his life, Or out of life and song has wrought The perfect one of man and wife ”

“ Our human speech is naught, Our human testimony false, our fame And human estimation words and wind. Why take the artistic way to prove so much? Because, it is the glory and good of Art, That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine, at least. ”

“ Who hath proven him King Uther's son?" And, Arthur, passing thence to battle, felt Travail, and throes and agonies of the life, Desiring to be join'd with Guinevere, And thinking as he rode: "Her father said That there between the man and beast they die. Shall I not lift her from this land of beasts Up to my throne and side by side with me? What happiness to reign a lonely king? ”

“ Blow thro' the living world--"Let the King reign!" 'Shall Rome or Heathen rule in Arthur's realm? Flash brand and lance, fall battle-axe on helm, Fall battle-axe, and flash brand! Let the King reign! 'Strike for the King and live! his knights have heard That God hath told the King a secret word. Fall battle-axe and flash brand! Let the King reign! 'Strike for the King and die! and if thou diest, The king is king, and ever wills the highest. Clang battle-axe, and clash brand! Let the King reign! 'The King will follow Christ, and we the King, In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing. ”

“ O, how our organ can speak with its many and wonderful voices!-- Play on the soft lute of love, blow the loud trumpet of war, Sing with the high sesquialtro, or, drawing its full diapason, Shake all the air with the grand storm of its pedals and stops. ”

“ This is much; but it is yet more, when you have fully achieved the superiority which is due to you, and acquired the wealth which is the fitting reward of your sagacity, if you solemnly accept the responsibility of it, as it is the helm and guide of labor far and near. For you who have it in your hands, are in reality the pilots of the power and effort of the State. It is entrusted to you as an authority to be used for good or evil, just as completely as kingly authority was ever given to a prince, or military command to a captain. ”

“ For many lads went wooing aye Across the fields to Anne. The oaks, they have a wiser look; Mayhap they whispered to the brook: "The world by him shall yet be shook, It is in nature's plan; Though now he fleets like any rook Across the fields to Anne." And I am sure, that on some hour Coquetting soft 'twixt sun and shower, He stooped and broke a daisy-flower With heart of tiny span, And bore it as a lover's dower Across the fields to Anne. While from her cottage garden-bed She plucked a jasmine's goodlihede, To scent his jerkin's brown instead ”

“ I beseech you, which is Justice Shallow?
Shallow.—I am Robert Shallow, sir; a poor esquire of this county, and one of the King's justices of the peace. What is your good pleasure with me?
Bardolph.—My captain, sir, commends him to you; my captain, Sir John Falstaff, a tall gentlemen, by heaven, and a most gallant leader.
Shallow.—He greets me well, sir. I knew him a good backsword man. How doth the good Knight now? Look! here comes good Sir John. (Enter Falstaff.) Give me your good hand, give me your worship's good hand. By my troth you look well and bear your years very well ”

“ Beauty, we say, is given by God—it is a talent; strength is given by God—it is a talent; but money is proper wages for our day's work—it is not a talent, it is a due. We may justly spend it on ourselves, if we have worked for it.
4. And there would be some shadow of excuse for this, were it not that the very power of making the money is itself only one of the applications of that intellect or strength which we confess to be talents. Why is one man richer than another? ”

“ A hundred voices cried: "Away with him! No king of ours!" . . . . . . . . . Yet Merlin thro' his craft, And while the people clamor'd for a king, Had Arthur crown'd; but after, the great lords Banded, and so brake out in open war. . . . . and Merlin in our time Hath spoken also, . . . . . Tho' men may wound him that he will not die, But pass, again to come, and then or now Utterly smite the heathen under foot, Till these and all men hail him for their king.' . ”

“ When public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech farther than as it is connected with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. ”

“ Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. ”

“ So he made himself a statue: Marble stood, life-size; On the lyre, he pointed at you, Perched his partner in the prize; Never more apart you found Her, he throned, from him, she crowned. That's the tale: its application? Somebody I know Hopes one day for reputation Through his poetry that's--Oh, All so learned and so wise And deserving of a prize! If he gains one, will some ticket, When his statue's built, Tell the gazer "'Twas a cricket Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt Sweet and low, when strength usurped Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped? ”

“ Also, it is not to come outside of us, but in our hearts: "The Kingdom of God is within you." Now if we want to work for this Kingdom, and to bring it, and to enter into it, there's one curious condition to be first accepted. We must enter into it as children, or not at all; "Whosoever will not receive it as a little child shall not enter therein." And again, "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." ”

“ Else to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
4. There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. ”

“ Let the dreamers dream Of their faint gleams, and noises from without, And higher and lower; life is life enough." Then swaggering half a hair's breadth, hungrily He seized upon an atom of bug and fed. ”

“ Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. ”