Various

“ Spruce, the youngest is the wisest; the child remembers throughout years a happy day, and can forget his tears as fast as they evaporate. He grows up, and his budding youth imagines love. Two or three fancies commonly precede his love. As each of these decays, he, in his inexperience, is eloquent about his blighted hopes, his dead first love, and so on. In the first blossom of his manhood, winds are keen to him—at his first plunge into the stream of active life, he finds the water cold. ”

“ Knowledge is power. Well, then shall I have no power to oust this blockhead? Oust him—what from? His father's halls? Well—but if he were dead, who would be the heir of Hazeldean? Have I not heard my mother say that I am as near in blood to this Squire as any one, if he had no children? Oh, but the boy's life is worth ten of mine! Oust him from what? At least from the thoughts of his uncle Egerton—an uncle who has never even seen him! That, at least, is more feasible. 'Make my way in life,' sayest thou, Audley Egerton. ”

“ It was an old Welsh custom; but when David Hughes came in, the sight carried him back to the time when he had seen the chapels in some old Catholic cathedral. Nest sat gazing on the dead with dry, hot eyes.
"She is dead," said David, solemnly, "she died in Christ. Let us bless God, my child. He giveth and He taketh away!"
"She is dead," said Nest, "my mother is dead. No one loves me now."
She spoke as if she were thinking aloud, for she did not look at David, or ask him to be seated.
"No one loves you now? No human creature, you mean. ”

“ Sartor is more of a representative man than Wordsworth, for many have had part at least of his sad experiences, whereas Wordsworth's soul dwells apart: his joys and sorrows, his virtues and his sins, are alike his own, and he can circulate his being as soon as them. Sartor is a brother man in fury and fever—Wordsworth seems a cherub, almost chillingly pure, and whose very warmth is borrowed from another sun than ours. We love and fear Sartor with almost equal intensity—Wordsworth we respect and wonder at with a great admiration. ”

“ Reserve your alarms, your heart-beatings, your prayers to Providence, for the moment when your son enters upon the scene of the world to select a character, which, if sustained with dignity, judgment, and feeling, will render him universally esteemed and approved; or to degrade himself by filling one of those low, contemptible parts, fit only for the vilest actors in the drama of life. Tremble at the moment when your child has to choose between the rugged road of industry and integrity, leading straight to honor and happiness ”

“ And now I approach another reminiscence of this common human anxiety, of which I can not think without deep emotion. We had a young cousin, a fine lad full of spirit and ardor, a midshipman in the royal navy, who was our especial pride and delight. We had no brother, but he supplied the want to us, being, as a child, our constant playmate—as a youth, our merriest and best-loved correspondent. How full of fun, quaint humor, and droll adventures were his letters, and how we used to long for them, especially for that which proclaimed his arrival in the English seas! ”

“ I appeal to the poorest among ye, if the worst burdens are those of the body—if the kind word and the tender thought have not often lightened your hearts more than bread bestowed with a grudge, and charity that humbles you by a frown. Sympathy is a beneficence at the command of us all—yea, of the pauper as of the king; and sympathy is Christ's wealth. Sympathy is brotherhood. The rich are told to have charity for the poor, and the poor are enjoined to respect their superiors. ”

“ Webster closes his letter by urging the people of Virginia to teach their young men to study the early history of the country, the feebleness of the Confederation—and to trace the steps, the votes, the efforts, and the labor by which the present Constitution was formed. He exhorts them to stand by their country, to stand by the work of their fathers, to stand by the Union of the States, "and may Almighty God prosper all our efforts in the cause of liberty, and in the cause of that United Government which renders this people the happiest people upon which the sun ever shone!" ”

“ Elizabeth Younges was perhaps the only one who looked back with boding glances toward the town, and in so doing recognized her father's tall, bending figure on the centre cliff, holding up his hand in an authoritative manner, as if to interdict her voyage. It was her first act of willful disobedience, and her heart sank within her; and though she had triumphed over her bold rival, by securing the company and attentions of Arthur Blackbourne for the day, she felt more dejected than if she had been left alone on the beach. ”

“ The young lady, whose dress and general elegance of appearance seemed to denote that she was a person of superior rank, was disinclined to dance; and as the attendant persisted in urging her forward, she struggled to escape, and at length fell into a paroxysm of grief.
"Let her alone! Let her alone!" said Count Pisani to the attendant. "It is useless to contend with her. Poor girl! I fear she will never endure, to see dancing, or to hear music, without this violent agitation. Come hither, Costanza," said he, beckoning kindly to her. ”

“ Brethren, every man has his burden. If God designed our lives to end at the grave, may we not believe that he would have freed an existence so brief, from the cares and sorrows to which, since the beginning of the world, mankind have been subjected? Suppose that I am a kind father, and have a child whom I dearly love, but I know by a Divine revelation that he will die at the age of eight years, surely I should not vex his infancy by needless preparations for the duties of life. ”

“ The first sight of land to one on sea is always an event of uncommon interest; but how greatly increased is the feeling, when that land is to be the scene of a perilous exploit—the cradle of his ambition, or perhaps his grave! All my speculations about the expedition—all my day-dreams of success, or my anxious hours of dark forebodings—never brought the matter so palpably before me, as the dim outline of a distant headland, which, I was told, was part of the Irish coast. ”

“ Sartor can not, amid a universe of work, find a task fit for him to do, and yet can much less be utterly idle; while to Wordsworth, basking in the sun, or loitering near an evening stream, is sufficient and satisfactory work. To Sartor, Nature is a divine tormentor—her works at once inspire and agonize him; Wordsworth loves her with the passion of a perpetual honeymoon. Both are intensely self-conscious; but Sartor's is the consciousness of disease, Wordsworth's of high health standing before a mirror. ”

“ Eleanor wailed forth in prayer to God, "I would be content. Once it was enough to have my Nest all my own. Then came love, and I knew it would never be as before; and then I thought the grief I felt, when Edward spoke to me, was as sharp a sorrow as could be; but this present grief, Oh Lord, my God, is worst of all; and Thou only, Thou canst help!"
When Nest grew as strong as she was ever likely to be on earth, she was anxious to have as much labor as she could bear. She would not allow her mother to spare her any thing. Hard work—bodily fatigue—she seemed to crave. ”

“ Milton is great inevitably, and inhales with pleasure the proud and rare atmosphere of the sublime; Wordsworth comes up to the great—Milton descends on it; Wordsworth has little ratiocinative, or rhetorical power; Milton discovers much of both—besides being able to grind his adversaries to powder by the hoof of invective, or to toss them into the air on the tusks of a terrible scorn; Wordsworth has produced many sublime lines, but no character approaching the sublime; Milton has reared up Satan to the sky—the most magnificent structure in the intellectual world ”

“ The herd of deer shuns the stag that is marked by the gunner; the flock heedeth not the sheep that creeps into the shade to die; but man has sorrow and joy not in himself alone, but in the joy and sorrow of those around him. He who feels only for himself abjures his very nature as man; for do we not say of one who has no tenderness for mankind that he is inhuman? and do we not call him who sorrows with the sorrowful, humane?
"Now, brethren, that which especially marked the divine mission of our Lord, is the direct appeal to this sympathy which distinguishes us from the brute. ”