Ontario. Department of Education

“ Our fingers are too few, it seems, to twist together some poor covering for our bodies. We set our streams to work for us, and choke the air with fire, to turn our spinning-wheels,—and—are we yet clothed? Are not the streets of the capitals of Europe foul with the sale of cast clouts and rotten rags? Is not the beauty of your sweet children left in wretchedness of disgrace, while, with better honor, nature clothes the brood of the bird in its nest, and the suckling of the wolf in her den? ”

“ Rise, hill and glen! rise, crag and wood! rise up on either hand,—
Again upon the Garry's banks, on Scottish soil we stand!
Again I see the tartans wave, again the trumpets ring;
Again I hear our leader's call: 'Upon them for the King!'
Stay'd we behind that glorious day for roaring flood or linn?
The soul of Græme is with us still,—now, brothers, will ye in?"
No stay,—no pause. With one accord, they grasp'd each other's
hand,
Then plunged into the angry flood, that bold and dauntless band. ”

“ Is it all a dream then—the desire of the eyes and the pride of life—or, if it be, might we not live in nobler dream than this? The poets and prophets, the wise men, and the scribes, though they have told us nothing about a life to come, have told us much about the life that is now. They have had—they also,—their dreams, and we have laughed at them. They have dreamed of mercy, and of justice; they have dreamed of peace and good-will; they have dreamed of labor undisappointed, and of rest undisturbed; they have dreamed of fulness in harvest, and overflowing in store ”

“ The Constitution has not been the offspring of the thought of man. The Cabinet, and all the present relations of the Constitutional powers in this country, have grown into their present dimensions, and settled into their present places, not as the fruit of a philosophy, not in the effort to give effect to an abstract principle; but by the silent action of forces, invisible and insensible, the structure has come up into the view of all the world. It is, perhaps, the most conspicuous object on the wide political horizon; but it has thus risen, without noise, like the temple of Jerusalem. ”

“ Even one flight comprises myriads upon myriads passing imagination, to which the drops of rain or the sands of the sea are the only fit comparison; and hence it is almost a proverbial mode of expression in the East, by way of describing a vast invading army, to liken it to the locusts. So dense are they, when upon the wing, that it is no exaggeration to say that they hide the sun, from which circumstance indeed their name in Arabic is derived. And so ubiquitous are they when they have alighted on the earth, that they simply cover or clothe its surface. ”

“ Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. ”

“ Life did change for Tom and Maggie; and yet they were not wrong in believing that the thoughts and loves of these first years would always make part of their lives. We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it—if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass—the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows—the same red-breasts that we used to call "God's birds," because they did no harm to the precious crops. ”

“ It is not easy to find words of admiration commensurate to the energetic hardihood of a slave—who, by way of answer and reprisal to an edict summarily consigning him to persecution and death, determines to cross Europe in quest of its author, though no less a person than the master of the world—to seek him out in the inmost recesses of his capital city, of his private palace, of his consecrated bed-chamber—and there to lodge a dagger in his heart, as the adequate reply to the imperial sentence of proscription against himself. ”

“ Is it possible to draw all our passions inward? Shall the boiling heat of youth be sunk in pleasures, the ambition of manhood in selfish intrigues? Shall all that is glorious, all that is worth the pursuit of great minds, be so easily rooted out? When the universal bent of a people seems diverted from the sense of their common good, and common glory, it looks like a fatality, and crisis of impending misfortune. ”

“ There remained of spiritual conviction only the common and human sense of justice and morality; and out of this sense some ordered system of government had to be constructed, under which quiet men could live, and labor, and eat the fruit of their industry. Under a rule of this material kind there can be no enthusiasm, no chivalry, no saintly aspirations, no patriotism of the heroic type. It was not to last forever. A new life was about to dawn for mankind. Poetry, and faith, and devotion were to spring again out of the seeds which were sleeping in the heart of humanity. ”

“ Can Parliament be so dead to its dignity and its duty as to be thus deluded into the loss of the one and the violation of the other? To give an unlimited credit and support for the steady perseverance in measures not proposed for our parliamentary advice, but dictated and forced upon us—in measures, I say, my Lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to ruin and contempt! "But yesterday, and England might have stood against the world: now none so poor to do her reverence." I use the words of a poet; but, though it be poetry, it is no fiction. ”

“ And this ring I will give, a fresh guerdon to thee—
Never jewels more precious shone up from the mine—
If thou'lt bring me fresh tidings, and venture again,
To say what lies hid in the innermost main."
Then out spake the daughter in tender emotion:
"Ah! father, my father, what more can there rest?
Enough of this sport with the pitiless ocean:
He has serv'd thee as none would, thyself hast confest.
If nothing can slake thy wild thirst of desire,
Let thy knights put to shame the exploit of the squire!" ”

“ And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars,
As when fire is with water commix'd and contending;
And the spray of its wrath to the welkin up-soars,
And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending,
And as with the swell of the far thunder-boom,
Rushes roaringly forth from the heart of the gloom.
And, lo! from the heart of that far-floating gloom,
Like the wing of the cygnet—what gleams on the sea?
Lo! an arm and a neck glancing up from the tomb!
Steering stalwart and shoreward: O joy, it is he!
The left hand is lifted in triumph; behold,
It waves as a trophy the goblet of gold! ”

“ But the Grand Master of the Temple, more deeply concerned in the event of the combat, was early before the tent of Conrade of Montserrat. To his great surprise, the attendants refused him admittance.
"Do you not know me, ye knaves?" said the Grand Master in great anger.
"We do, most valiant and reverend," answered Conrade's squire; "but even you may not at present enter—the Marquis is about to confess himself."
"Confess himself!" exclaimed the Templar, in a tone where alarm mingled with surprise and scorn—"and to whom I pray thee?" ”

“ Earl of Huntingdon, and generously congratulated him upon prospects, which seemed to have interfered with and overclouded those which he had himself entertained.
"But think not," said the Soldan, "thou noble youth, that the Prince of Scotland is more welcome to Saladin, than was Kenneth to the solitary Ilderim when they met in the desert, or the distressed Ethiop to the Hakim Adonbec. A brave and generous disposition like thine hath a value independent of condition and birth, as the cool draught which I here proffer thee, is as delicious from an earthen vessel as from a goblet of gold." ”

“ But, ascending from lowest to highest, through every scale of human industry, that industry worthily followed, gives peace. Ask the laborer in the field, at the forge, or in the mine; ask the patient, delicate-fingered artisan, or the strong-armed, fiery-hearted worker in bronze, and in marble, and with the colors of light; and none of these, who are true workmen, will ever tell you, that they have found the law of heaven an unkind one—that in the sweat of their face they should eat bread, till they return to the ground ”

“ Duke. How shalt thou hope for mercy, rend'ring none?
Shylock. What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?
You have among you many a purchas'd slave,
Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules,
You use in abject and in slavish parts,
Because you bought them: shall I say to you,
Let them be free, marry them to your heirs?
Why sweat they under burdens? let their beds
Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates
Be season'd with such viands? You will answer,
"The slaves are ours:" so do I answer you:
The pound of flesh, which I demand of him,
Is dearly bought ”

“ The Manzinis and Ducs de Crequi, with their splendors, and congratulations about Dunkirk, interesting to the street-populations and general public, had not yet withdrawn, when at Hampton Court there had begun a private scene, of much deeper and quite opposite interest there. The Lady Claypole, Oliver's favorite Daughter, a favorite of all the world, had fallen sick we know not when; lay sick now,—to death, as it proved. Her disease was of a nature, the painfullest and most harassing to mind and sense, it is understood, that falls to the lot of a human creature. ”

“ Can even our ministers sustain a more humiliating disgrace? Do they dare to resent it? Do they presume even to hint a vindication of their honor, and the dignity of the State, by requiring the dismission of the plenipotentiaries of America? Such is the degradation to which they have reduced the glories of England! The people whom they affect to call contemptible rebels, but whose growing power has at last obtained the name of enemies ”

“ From Ostia's walls the crowd shall mark the track of thy
destroying bark.
No more Campania's hinds shall fly to woods and caverns when
they spy.
Thy thrice accursèd sail."
But now no sound of laughter was heard among the foes.
A wild and wrathful clamor from all the vanguard rose.
Six spears' lengths from the entrance halted that deep array,
And for a space no man came forth to win the narrow way.
But hark! the cry is Astur: and lo! the ranks divide;
And the great Lord of Luna comes with his stately stride. ”

“ All the heights and the depths which belong to man's frailty, all the contrasts of glory and meanness, the extremities of what is highest and lowest in human casualties, meeting in the station of the Roman Cæsar Semper Augustus—have combined to call him into high marble relief, and to make him the most interesting study of all whom history has emblazoned with colors of fire and blood, or has crowned most lavishly with diadems of cyprus and laurel. ”

“ It is not the least of our national misfortunes that the strength and character of our army are thus impaired. Infected with the mercenary spirit of robbery and rapine, familiarized to the horrid scenes of savage cruelty, it can no longer boast of the noble and generous principles which dignify a soldier, no longer sympathize with the dignity of the royal banner, nor feel the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war, "that make ambition virtue!" ”

“ America and France cannot be congenial.
My Lords, to encourage and confirm that innate inclination to this country, founded on every principle of affection, as well as consideration of interest; to restore that favorable disposition into a permanent and powerful reunion with this country; to revive the mutual strength of the empire; again to awe the House of Bourbon, instead of meanly truckling, as our present calamities compel us, to every insult of French caprice and Spanish punctilio; to re-establish our commerce; to reassert our rights and our honor ”