Various

“ Setting aside the services rendered by the Crow to agriculture, I esteem him for certain qualities which are agreeably associated with the charms of Nature. It is not the singing-birds alone that contribute by their voices to gladden the husbandman and cheer the solitary traveller. The crowing of the Cock at the break of day is as joyful a sound, though not so musical, as the voice of the Robin who chants his lays at the same early hour. To me the cawing of the Crow is cheering and delightful, and it is heard long before the majority of birds have left their perch. ”

“ It would be no mean task to enumerate all the acts of mischief perpetrated by this bird; and I cannot but look upon him as one the most guilty of the feathered tribe. He plunders the cornfield both at seed-time and harvest; he steals everything that is eatable, and conceals it in his hoarding-places; he destroys the eggs of smaller birds and devours their young; he quarrels with all other species, and his life is a constant scene of contentions. He is restless, pugnacious, and irascible, and always seems like one who is out on some expedition. ”

“ It is common to speak disparagingly of the little Hair-Bird, as if he were good for nothing, without beauty and without song, and, what is of still more consequence in the eyes of the sordid epicure, too small to be eaten, his weight of flesh not being worth a charge of powder and shot. We can never sufficiently rejoice that there are some birds too small to excite the avaricious feelings of these knights of the fowling-piece and the rifle. The Hair-Bird is not to be despised, except by epicures. ”

“ How narrowly did Coleridge escape being the greatest preacher, philosopher, poet, or author of his time! Almost everything was possible to him; and one can but marvel how he went through life avoiding in turn each of his highest possibilities. It is the glory of Charles Lamb and Sydney Smith, that, as far as it can be said of any men, they did the best that was possible with their circumstances and endowments. The old fancy which says of every person, that there is an ideal character which he can attain, in which he shall be peculiar and unsurpassed, was in their cases realized. ”

“ The Chicadees and the little speckled Woodpeckers, that tarry with us in midwinter, and make the still cold days lively and cheerful by their merry voices, are, in animated nature, what flowers would be in inanimate nature, if they were found blooming under the snow. Nature does not permit, at any season, an entire dearth of those sources of enjoyment that spring from observation of the external world; and as there are evergreen mosses and ferns that supply in winter the places of the absent flowers, in like manner there are chattering birds that linger in the wintry woods ”

“ She finds consolation in the very pranks that hinder her humble task. Death enters,—there is no door to keep him out,—and, seizing the hand of the younger child, who turns and stretches out the other imploringly to his mother, carries him off, remorseless and exulting, leaving her frantic with grief. We may look with comparative indifference, and sometimes even with sympathy, upon his other feats,—but who is there that does not hate that grinning skeleton?—And yet, perhaps, he exults that he has saved one soul, yet pure, from misery and crime. ”

“ If he had been taken up to the pinnacle of a mountain, instead of entertaining one of Wordsworth's sublime contemplations, he would have been very likely to flap his arms and crow like chanticleer. Indeed, in middle age he was accustomed to boast that he had never seen a mountain. Born in London, and always residing in London till the last years of his life, esteeming man the crown and purpose of the universe, he was much inclined to regard the love of Nature, which figures so largely in modern literature, as a popular delusion. ”

“ The Crow is commonly regarded as a homely bird; yet he is not without beauty. His coat of glossy black with violet reflections, his dark eyes and sagacious expression of countenance, his stately and graceful gait, and his steady and equable flight, combine to give him a proud and dignified appearance. The Crow and the Raven have always been celebrated for their gravity, a character that seems to be the result of their black sacerdotal vesture, and of certain manifestations of intelligence in their ways and general deportment. ”

“ If ever you have had a romantic, uncalculating friendship,—a boundless worship and belief in some hero of your soul,—if ever you have so loved, that all cold prudence, all selfish worldly considerations have gone down like drift-wood before a river flooded with new rain from heaven, so that you even forgot yourself, and were ready to cast your whole being into the chasm of existence, as an offering before the feet of another, and all for nothing,—if you awoke bitterly betrayed and deceived, still give thanks to God that you have had one glimpse of heaven. ”

“ Therefore, man or woman, when thy ideal is shattered,—as shattered a thousand times it must be,—when the vision fades, the rapture burns out, turn not away in skepticism and bitterness, saying, "There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink," but rather cherish the revelations of those hours as prophecies and foreshadowings of something real and possible, yet to be attained in the manhood, of immortality. The scoffing spirit that laughs at romance is an apple of the Devil's own handing from the bitter tree of knowledge;—it opens the eyes only to see eternal nakedness. ”

“ Candace watched the light in Mary's eyes with the instinctive shrewdness by which her race seem to divine the thoughts and feelings of their superiors, and chuckled to herself internally. Without ever having been made a confidante by any party, or having a word said to or before her, still the whole position of affairs was as clear to her as if she had seen it on a map. She had appreciated at once Mrs. Scudder's coolness, James's devotion, and Mary's perplexity,—and inly resolved, that, if the little maiden did not think of James in his absence, it should not be her fault. ”

“ A level table-land extends to the fords of Green River, a clear and rapid stream, whose entire course has never yet been mapped by an intelligent explorer. Here the road becomes entangled again among mountains, and winds its way over steep ridges, across foaming torrents, and through cañons so narrow that only noonday sunshine penetrates their depths, until it emerges, through a rocky gate in the great barrier of the Wahsatch range, upon the bench above Salt Lake City, twelve hundred miles from Fort Leavenworth. The view at this point, from the mouth of Emigration Cañon, is enchanting. ”

“ Death has ever been, and ever will be, the greatest leveller; and at a time when rank had an importance and bestowed advantages of which we can form little idea, while at the same time men had begun to ask why this should be, such a satire as this Dance of Death, sanctioned by the Church, that great protector of established rights and dignities, and yet sparing neither noble nor hierarch, not even the Pope himself, satisfied an eager craving in the breast of poor, envious, self-asserting human nature. ”

“ We have seen him, on still winter-days, flitting from tree to tree, with the liveliest motions and in the most engaging attitudes, examining every twig and branch, and winding over and under and in and out among them, and, after a few lively notes, hopping to another tree to pass through the same manoeuvres. Even those who are confined to the house are not excluded from a sight of these birds; one cannot open a window, on a bright winter's morning, without a greeting from one of them on the nearest tree. ”

“ These birds are quite as remarkable, however, for their power of enduring the cold, and of sustaining the force of the tempest. In the midst of a snow-storm, they may often be seen sporting, as it were, in the very whirlpool of the driving snows, and alighting upon the tall sedges and weeds, and eagerly gathering the produce. The Hemp-Bird often joins their parties, and his cheerful and well-known twitter may be heard, as he hurriedly flits from one bush to another, hunting for the seeds of the golden-rods and asters. ”

“ Chloe was indignant to think "Miss 'Lisbeth" thought she couldn't get supper without help, and Miss 'Lisbeth was vexed with Chloe for being cross. And then, when supper came, the tea seemed to be very unwilling to be swallowed, and the new bread was full of large lumps that choked a person, and the lamps didn't burn clearly at all,—and—and—when Chloe, still sulky, had cleared the table, Lizzy sat down on a low cricket beside her mother's stuffed rocking-chair, and had as good a cry as ever she had in her life, and felt much better for it. ”

“ To those who look upon Nature with the feelings of a poet or a painter, we need not speak of the value of the winter-birds as enliveners of the landscape. Any circumstance connected with scenery, that exercises our feelings of benevolence, adds to the picturesque charms of a prospect; and no man can see a little bird, or any other animal, at this time, without feeling a lively interest in its welfare. ”

“ We think, and with some reason, that we do not need its teachings; for we are freed from the thraldom that gave edge to its democratic satire; and we have learned to look with greater calmness, if not with higher hope, upon the future, to which the grave is but the ever-open portal. But we may yet profit by a thoughtful consideration of the eternal truths embodied by Holbein in his Dance of Death; and in the story of his life there is a lesson for every man, and every woman too, if they will but find it. ”

“ The critic of the company was Francis Jeffrey, whose happiness it was to live just when he was needed. Without capacity to excel either in the realm of ideas or of facts, he was unrivalled in the power of discovering the relations between the two. He was neither a statesman, philosopher, nor poet; but while the heavens and the earth threatened to rush in confusion together, he was an admirable cicerone to the troubled and wandering wits of men. He had no inherent qualities, and, if other people had not existed, would not have been alive himself ”

“ He had some Bâlois failings, and, as Aeneas Sylvius would have said, worshipped Father Bacchus and Dame Venus with too much devotion;—not that he was a drunkard or a debauchee; but he sought in conviviality with men of talent, and in the company of beautiful women, too happy in the caresses of the great painter, who was generous with his florins, that happiness which he could not find at home. For poor Hans was afflicted with what has been the moral and social ruin of many a better, if not greater man than he—a froward, shrill-tongued wife. ”

“ Sydney Smith preferred the legal profession, and esteemed himself a victim in entering the Church. His practical wisdom informed him, that, from the beginning even until then, qualities like his had not found a happy sphere of action in the pulpit, but, on the contrary, had rusted or grown ugly in it. He had as much sentiment as Sterne, and perhaps as much political sagacity as Swift, yet the finest instincts within him recoiled from following in the path of either the one or the other. With a subtile and exuberant wit,—he knew that wit touches not sacred things. ”

“ Indeed, it is quite a mistake to suppose that wit has anything to do with temper or sentiment at all. A man may be perpetually sulky, and yet habitually witty,—may smile, and smile, and smile, and yet be a most melancholy individual. Wit is simply a form of thought, and is as intellectual as scientific study. It differs from other thought only in being a little outré,—a little in excess; it overdoes the thing only because it has so much energy in it. It is what Charles Lamb said a pun was,—"a sole digest of wisdom." ”

“ Silent looks, involuntary starts, things indicated, not expressed, these are the most dangerous, the most seductive aliment of thought to a delicate and sensitive nature. If things were said out, they might not be said wisely,—they might repel by their freedom, or disturb by their unfitness; but what is only looked is sent into the soul through the imagination, which makes of it all that the ideal faculties desire.
In a refined and exalted nature, it is very seldom that the feeling of love, when once thoroughly aroused, bears any sort of relation to the reality of the object. ”

“ There are some who seem made to live;—life is such a joy to them, their senses are so fully en rapport with all outward things, the world is so keenly appreciable, so much a part of themselves, they are so conscious of power and victory in the government and control of material things, that the moral and invisible life often seems to hang tremulous and unreal in their minds, like the pale, faded moon in the light of a gorgeous sunrise. ”

“ Some men put off old houses and put on new ones, like their clothes, without a thought. Others grow into their habitations and become a part of them. You might as well say to a lobster, 'Get out of your shell,' when you know that the poor wretch will die when his naked, quivering members are exposed to the sharp-edged stones. A delicate nature, proud, but gentle, too sensitive to accept charity, and doubtful of a friendly service even, suffers more anguish in one hour, under such circumstances, than your brazen beggar feels from his dirty cradle to his nameless grave."
Mr. Holworthy mused. ”

“ Not only in the Louvre, but in the world, Charles Lamb was the more timid worshipper. The whole character of his mind, the intensity of his thought within a narrow sphere, made him reverent of the Infinite. The thought of departure from the life which he now lived was to him a very solemn one. Religious ideas were so sacred to him that he never referred to them lightly, and seldom at all. ”

“ The sight of a flock of Snow-Buntings descending, like a shower of meteors, upon a field of grass, and eagerly devouring the seeds contained in its drooping pannicles that extend above the snow-drifts,—of a company of Crows rejoicing with noisy sociability over some newly-discovered feast in the pine-wood,—of the party-colored Woodpeckers winding round the trees and hammering upon their trunks,—all these, and many other sights and sounds, are associated with our ideas of the happiness of these creatures ”

“ His heart kept fresh by abiding recollections of love, his faith quickened by and intermingled with the tenderest hopes, his imagination uplifted by the affection which overleaped the boundaries of the invisible world, and his intellect disciplined by study of books and of men, his experience enlarged by constant occupation in affairs, his judgment matured by the quick succession of important events in which he was involved,—every part of his nature was thus prepared for the successful accomplishment of that great and sacred design which he set before himself now in his youth. ”

“ The islands of the Fijians are but small; no Fijian Attila can lead forth his hosts into neighboring countries; no Fijian Goths can pour down from Polynesian Alps into an Oceanic Italy; no Athenians can there send sons and gods to a Coreyra: and no Fijian Miles Standish can there walk up and down before his pipe-clayed bandoleers in foreign colonies. How, then, can an over-increase of population be more harmoniously prevented than by making the young and sleek furnish the starving with a plump existence? ”