Various

“ Scott, too, who took a cordial delight in Campbell's poetry, expressed himself to the same effect. 'What a pity is it,' said he to me, 'that Campbell does not give full sweep to his genius. He has wings that would bear him up to the skies, and he does now and then spread them grandly, but folds them up again and resumes his perch, as if afraid to launch away. The fact is, he is a bugbear to himself. The brightness of his early success is a detriment to all his future efforts. He is afraid of the shadow that his own fame casts before him. ”

“ But he must work and walk worthy of his high vocation, and of the hopes which now lie upon him—hopes which must either be the ribbons of his crown or the cords of his sacrifice. He must discard his tendency to diffusion, and break in that demon-steed of eloquence, who sometimes is apt to run away with him. He must give us next, not scattered scenes, but a whole epic, the middle of which shall be as obvious as the beginning or the end. He should, in his next work, seek less to please, startle, or gain an audience, than to tell them in thunder and in music what they ought to believe and to do. ”

“ It is the affliction of history, that, while raising her monuments to gigantic genius, she is compelled so often to record an immorality of parallel proportions. It is right that the infamy of Mirabeau should be as eternal as his greatness. He was a man who, in his political, as in his private life, had no sense of right for its own sake, and from whom conscience never won a sacrifice. ”

“ John Lawson seemed to feel every word she had uttered in the depths of his soul, but he made a strong effort to restrain the passion which was rising to his lips.
"Augusta, my daughter, you are the wife of my only and most beloved child—I wish to love you—I wish to live in peace with you, and all—give me some money to relieve the wants of the unfortunate woman to whom I have promised relief, and who is waiting without. I ask not for myself, but for the poor and suffering—give me a trifle of money, I say." ”

“ I think it is not patience, but courage, that your poor mother wants, my child. Uncertainty—any thing that is vague—the evils of which are undefined, seems to swell into such terrific magnitude. I am like a poor frightened child, Catherine; the glimmering twilight is full of monstrous spectres to me."
"Yes, mamma, I believe that is a good deal the case with most of us; but more especially with those who have so much sensibility and such delicate nerves as you have. How I adore you, dear mother, for the patient sweetness with which you bear that trying sort of constitution." ”

“ Had you seen our fellows scaling the Alps, with avalanches of snow descending at every fire of the great guns—forcing pass after pass against an enemy, posted on every cliff and crag above us—cutting our way to victory by roads the hardiest hunter had seldom trod; I call that war."
"And I call it the skirmish of an outpost!" said the gruff veteran, as he smoked away, in thorough contempt for the enthusiasm of the other. "I have served under Kleber, Hoche, and Moreau, and I believe they are the first generals of France."
"There is a name greater than them all," cried the hussar with eagerness. ”

“ Leger had loved him so entirely at school; and those days were not so very long since! The impression old Time had not even yet attempted with his busy fingers to efface.
"I am so glad to have found you out, my dear fellow," Edgar began. "Who would have thought of meeting you, of all people in the world, here, ensconsed in such a quiet nook of this busy island—a place where the noise and bustle and stir of the Great Babylon can not even be heard. But what are you doing in this place? for you look ill, I must say, and you seem to be left to yourself without a human being to look after you." ”

“ Leger began to experience a sense of a sweetness, solace, and enjoyment, in the presence of Lettice Arnold, that he had not found upon this earth for years, and which he never had hoped to find again.
But all this time he never dreamed of falling in love. His imagination never traveled so far as to think of such a thing as appropriating this rare blessing to himself. To live with her was his destiny at present, and that seemed happiness enough; and, indeed he scarcely had got so far as to acknowledge to his own heart, how much happiness that privilege conferred. ”

“ Few will think of attempting the "Fall of Man" after Milton—and Dryden and Galt, alone, have dared, to their own disgrace, to burst within Shakspeare's magic circle. But the great poets have not verily occupied the entire field of poetry—have not counted all the beatings of the human heart—have not lighted on all those places whence poetry, like water from the smitten rock, rushes at the touch of genius—have not exhausted all the "riches fineless" which garnish the universe—nay, they have multiplied them infinitely, and shed on them a deeper radiance. ”

“ Nor, to the vulgar eye, does there seem much poetry in the French Revolution, though it was the mightiest tide of human passion which ever boiled and raved: a great deal, doubtless, in Burke's "Reflections"—but none in the cry of a liberated people, which was heard in heaven—none in the fall of the Bastile—none in Danton's giant figure, nor in Charlotte Corday's homicide—nor in Madame Roland's scaffold speeches, immortal though they be as the stars of heaven—nor in the wild song of the six hundred Marseillese, marching northward "to die." ”

“ My darling mother would not hear of me relinquishing my happiness upon her account—and ought Lettice to be allowed to make such a sacrifice?"
"Well, well, my dear, it is time enough to begin to deprecate such a sacrifice when the opportunity for it occurs, but I own I see little hope of a romance for your poor, dear Lettice, seeing that an important personage in such matters, namely, a hero, seems to me to be utterly out of the question. There is not a young gentleman within twenty miles, so far as I can see, that is in the least likely to think of the good girl." ”

“ And while the brain that was to rule France as a tribune-king, was thus evolving its idle progeny, the womb of a Corsican woman near him was travailing with him who was to be Napoleon! At the instant France, by the sword of her future liberator, was mowing down the new-born liberties of Corsica—Corsica was breathing the breath of life into a child, whose sword was to cleave down the fresh-won freedom of France! As a Cæsar and a Marius sprung from the blood of the Gracchi, there would have been no Corsican exterminator for France, had there been no French exterminators for Corsica. ”

“ Not a partisan either of the old or the new, he should seek to set in song the numerous points in which they agree, and strive to produce a glorious synthesis between them. He should stand (as on a broad platform) on the identity and eternity of all that is good and true—on the fact that "faiths never die, but are only translated"—on the fact that beauty physical and beauty moral are in heart the same; and that Christianity, as rightly understood, is at once the root and the flower of all truth—and, standing on this, should sing his fearless strains to the world. ”

“ Poverty in youth has a purifying tendency, like the "live coal" of old which the angel passed over the lips of Isaiah. It inures the soul to struggling, and the mind to persevering labor and self-confidence: it keeps the imagination away from the temptations of luxury, and the still more fatal one of idleness, that parent of vice. It, moreover, becomes one of the most fruitful sources of happiness to the man whom God permits to come out of the crowd and take his place at the head of science and art. ”

“ Melwyn.
"Why, if something can't be done, the poor lad is in a fair way to be starved to death," was the answer.
"Starved to death! How shockingly you do talk, Edgar," cried Mrs. Melwyn. "I wish you would not say such things—you make one quite start. The idea is too horrible—besides, it can not be true. People don't starve to death nowadays—at least not in a sort of case like that."
"I don't know—such things do sound as if they couldn't be true—and yet," said Catherine, "they do come very nearly to the truth at times." ”

“ He should find in it a work, and not a recreation—an affair of life, not of moments of leisure. And while appealing, by his earnestness, his faith, his holiness, his genius, to the imagination, the heart, and the conscience of man, he should possess, or attain to, the mechanical ingenuity that can satisfy man's constructive understanding, the elegance that can please his sensuous taste, the fluency that can blend ease with instruction, and the music that can touch through the ear the inner springs of his being. ”

“ Much as the greatest minds love fame, and struggle to obtain it, the proudest triumphs of genius and of science, the applause of the world itself, ever loud and obtrusive, is not to be compared to the low and gentle murmurs of pleasure and of pride from those we love. There was one being from whom Galileo had been accustomed to hear those consolations—his child his gentle Maria Galilei. ”

“ The mother frowned, and Esbern Lynge looked sorrowful.
"I wish I could give her all she longs for," sighed the young man, as they proceeded on their way, his duteous arm supporting the widow, while Hyldreda and Resa went bounding onward before them; "She is as beautiful as a queen—I would that I could make her one."
"Wish rather, Esbern, that Heaven may make her a pious, lowly-hearted maid, and, in good time, a wife; that she may live in humility and content, and die in peace among her own people." ”

“ There seemed to be a touch of calm irony in thus making the Washington the first of their Atlantic-crossing steamers, as if the Americans had said, "You doubting Britishers! when you wished to play tyrant over us, did we not raise one Washington who chastised you? and now that you want to monopolize Atlantic navigation, we have raised another Washington, just to let you know that we will beat you again!"
The Washington, however, was only the precursor of greater vessels. These were to sail between New York and Liverpool, carrying the mails under a contract with the American government. ”

“ She strove to impress your infant mind with the very soul of charity; and yesterday she looked down from the heaven of the holy departed, and saw you refusing me, your father, a few shillings to bestow on charity.
"Henry, I can live with you and your wife no more. I should grow avaricious in my old age, were I to remain with you. I should long for money to call my own. Those doled out shillings which I received wakened within me feelings of a dark nature—covetousness, and envy, and discontent—which must have shadowed the happiness of your mother in heaven to look down upon. ”

“ The birds labored with the ardor of two young lovers who are in haste to start in housekeeping. The male bird brought the moistened clay in his beak, which the female kneaded, and with the addition of some chips of straw and hay, she built her little lodging with wonderful skill. As soon as the outside was finished, the betrothed gathered feathers, hair, and soft dry leaves for the inside, and then departed to hide themselves in a neighboring wood, there to enjoy the sweets of repose after their labor, and amid the thick foliage of the trees the mysterious joys of the honeymoon. ”

“ That craving desire of the body for what it is in want of—be it water, be it bread, be it rest, be it change of posture—is so dreadful in its urgency. The most abominable tortures men have in their wickedness invented are founded upon this fact—tortures that render the black history of inquisitors yet blacker: and here it was, in one at least of its numerous forms, daily inflicted upon a set of helpless young women, by a person who thought herself perfectly justifiable, and whose conscience never pricked her in the least. ”