Various

“ Had I all countries where the Scottish tribes Have made their dwelling, I would choose a cell In my own beauteous Derry, which I love For its unbroken peace and sanctity. There, seated on each leaf of those old oaks, I see a white-winged angel of the sky. O forests dear! home and cell beloved! O thou Eternal in the highest heaven! From hands profane my monasteries shield, My Derry and my Durrow, Rapho sweet, Drumhorne in forests prolific. Swords, and Kells, Where sea-birds scream and flutter o'er the sea, Sweet Derry, when my boat rows near the shore, All is repose and most delicious rest. ”

“ True that this earth must pass away with all the starry worlds of light, With all the glory of the day, and calmer tenderness of night, For in that radiant home can shine alone the immortal and divine. Earth's lower things—her pride, her fame, her science, learning, wealth, and power, Slow growths that through long ages came, or fruits of some convulsive hour, Whose very memory must decay—heaven is too pure for such as they. ”

“ When I think how useless, my Effie, Then my tears only fall the more. "All to-day I struggled against it, But that does not make sorrow cease; And now, dear, it such a comfort To be able to cry in peace. "Though wise people would call that folly, And remonstrate with grave surprise, We won't mind what they say, my Effie; We never professed to be wise. "But my comforter knows a lesson Wiser, truer than all the rest, That to help and to heal a sorrow, Love and silence are always best. ”

“ Safer than on an islet in a lake I walk with thee; my life is thine to give Or to withhold, and none but thou canst add Or take an hour from its appointed time. What are the guards? they cannot guard from death. I will forget my poor and peaceful cell, And cast myself on the world's charity; For he who gives will be repaid, and he Who hoards will lose his treasure. God of life. Woe be to him who sins! The unseen world Will come when all he sees has passed away. ”

“ Men of this order are the ones who achieve fame and famine. Their blossoms of promise are bright, their early graves are green on all the paths of human progress. History kindles at their high hopes and deeds, and blushes for the petty failings that suffice to drag them down. Literature, above all, is a very Golgotha, all the ghastlier for its glory, of their self-conscious sensitiveness, their refined self-torture, their blasted lives and miserable deaths. Yet there is hardly one but has his little day, longer or shorter, but with always some little sunshine and flowers of popular favor. ”

“ Thou hast said that in our childhood thou lovedst me as a sister. Let me still be thy sister. I will never be thy wife. I will neither lie nor forswear myself. I would shelter myself behind the grating of the cloister of Lichtenthal or sleep in yonder cemetery rather than give thee my hand, because with it I should not give my heart, and thou wouldst not see remorse and regret in the heart of thy wife. Johann! let us be friends, and, if thou lovest me, try to forget thy dream."
"I may never forget it," murmured the young sculptor. "My love is as old as I, Mina; it forms part of my life. ”

“ What a spectacle presented itself to the eye of the all-seeing Creator as he gazed downward over that vast empire! What corruption of truth and justice, of morality and religion filled society and corroded its vitals in all its parts! Rotten and rotting systems of philosophy and the monstrous principles and practices born thereof swarmed and spread on every side. It was only natural that the whole corrupted mass would swell and boil with fury as the little yeast of Christian truth destined to impregnate and cure it was being infused. ”

“ Hath my spirit enough of inspiration, are my hands pure enough to reproduce those holy features? to give to stone, or marble, or wood the charm and majesty of those divine forms which from their golden halos call and smile on me? to express the sweetness of the Christ-child, the tenderness of Christ the Mediator, or the virginal motherhood of his holy mother? No; to inspiration must be added the heart of a Christian ”

“ Those little hands stretched down to draw her ever Nearer to God by mother love: we all Are blind and weak, yet surely she can never, With such a stake in heaven, fail or fall. She knows that, when the mighty angels raise Chorus in heaven, one little silver tone Is hers forever; that one little praise, One little happy voice, is all her own. We may not see her sacred crown of honor, But all the angels flitting to and fro Pause smiling as they pass—they look upon her As mother of an angel whom they know ”

“ I thought to see the cross unfurled Upon the hills of a far-off world! To bear the faith of the Crucified Far o'er the wild Atlantic's tide! To see adored the Christian's God Where Christian foot hath never trod! Sure brighter dreams from heaven ne'er fell And I wake in this cold, dim cell! "And were they, too, but dreams—— Those lands far in the West, Where robed in sunset beams The Seven Cities rest? Far, far beyond the blue Azores, I thought to press the ocean's shores; The heaving, restless main to span, And give—and give—a world to man! ”

“ Excellent Christians, you are not heard of on earth; but what a festival is in preparation for you in heaven! The love of God for ever! Let us talk of this love; let us act in everything for the sake of it; let us act only through it. To live without loving is to languish; to live without loving is to die. Ah! let us live to love, and let us desire death in order to love still more. Let us live to get love for what is alone supremely lovable, our dear Master, our best of fathers. ”

“ Nothing is our own; we hold our treasures Just a little time ere they are fled: One by one life robs us of our treasures: Nothing is our own except our dead. They are ours, and hold in faithful keeping, Safe for ever, all they took away. Cruel life can never stir that sleeping; Cruel time can never seize that prey. Justice pales, truth fades, stars fall from heaven: Human are the great whom we revere; No true crown of honor can be given, Till we place it on a funeral bier. ”

“ Philosophy, history, and poesy divine in exile, in prison, or in the tombs! Never was there an age that had more, purer, or nobler names to inscribe on the roll of fame! And all at the whim of one man who calls himself a god, and who thinks he proves his divinity by having the road to the capitol crowded with the flocks to be immolated to his statue!"
"It is the story of arbitrary authority invested in individuals from the monarch to the slave-owner, when its influence is not directed by humanity or religion," said Aurelian. ”

“ My foot is on the deck, my bleeding heart Aches as I think of Erin, and my eyes Turn ever thither; but while life endures— So runs my vow—these eyes will never see The noble race of Erin; and the tear Fills my dim eyes when looking o'er the sea Where Erin lies—loved Erin, where the birds Sing such sweet music, and the chant of clerks Makes melody like theirs. O happy land! Thy youths are gentle, thine old men are wise, Thy princes noble, and thy daughters fair. ”

“ Love may strive, but vain is the endeavor All its boundless riches to unfold; Still its tenderest, truest secret lingers Ever in its deepest depths untold. Things of time have voices, speak and perish: Art and love speak, but their words must be Sighings of illimitable forests, Waves of an unfathomable sea.
The positive merit of this—passing the odious business of comparison—is, to our mind, the well-managed amplification of the main thought, and the swell both of sense and sound at the close, which we find a beauty of high order. ”

“ Why, if men are so blessed with a divine religion, is the world so bad? History gives us saints, sublime ones, who make our very souls thrill with the recital of their unselfish spirt, exemplified in act; but, on the other hand, the same history tells us of multitudes of bad men for one good one. The men who attempted to poison St. Benedict, were monks, men who had renounced all for Christ; and the multitudes were Catholic up to the fifteenth century, yet what fearful struggles for power, and indulgence of luxury in high places, and of crime among all, high and low! ”

“ Have you never been on the mountains in summer, at three o'clock in the morning, when the first rays of the sun appear? How limpidly they seem to come! They have not passed through other breasts; the purest essence of the planet of day is ours, and thus we seem to realize our union with God while most men are asleep. On these divine mountains the soul has the first-fruits of celestial favors; she is penetrated with light, love, and strength ”

“ As in many a sacred painting the divine persons are seen descending upon earth, attended by angels who, with trumpets, unheard by men, announce the visitation; so religion, revealed to prepare men for the next world, sits enthroned in this with all the arts, its ministers and servants. It is a glory of the Catholic Church that it has recognized to the utmost the spirituality of art. It has denied the dogma, of all dogmas the most absurd, that with the use of the highest powers of the imagination, and with delight in the beauty with which God has clothed the world, his worship is incompatible. ”

“ Better, then, enjoy the present and leave the future to fate," said Aurelian.
"No hope, no certainty!" repeated Sisinnius twice over, "no hope, no certainty! And death approaching with his inevitable lance set! It may be to-day, it may be to-morrow. Oh! is it not a wretched destiny that keeps us thus in the dark? We come we know not whence, we go we know not whither. Like persons lowered into a deep pit, we see a little sky above, but our gaze cannot penetrate on either side of us. Is there no delivery from this state of prison and anguish? ”

“ No great thinker ever lived and taught you All the wonder that his soul received; No true painter ever set on canvas All the glorious vision he conceived. No musician ever held your spirit Charmed and bound in his melodious chains, But be sure he heard, and strove to render Feeble echoes of celestial strains. No real poet ever wove in numbers All his dream, but the diviner part, Hidden from all the world, spake to him only In the voiceless silence of his heart. ”

“ Nobility and riches seek each other; in former times they were sisters, in these they are not even cousins. The house porch, the court, and all the apartments, even to the inferior offices, were paved with magnificent blocks of blue and white marble. Columns of jasper supported the four galleries which surrounded the court, and in the area, in the midst of towering plants and alabaster statues, a fountain flowed unceasingly, singing the same pure and infantile melody to the bud half opened in hope, and to the flower falling in leafless despair. ”

“ O Verheyden! go to the Lord with your burden, and he will give you rest. Do not fill your soul with discord because your hand can no more awaken harmony. That loftier harmony nothing can disturb without your consent. Is it not beautiful to think of—the security of the soul? Remember, Verheyden, the lightnings may strike us, but our souls shall not be smitten; and they shall not be drowned though the waters cover us; the earth may burn, but our souls shall not be consumed; and they shall not be crushed though the heavens fall on us. ”

“ What a horrible thing war is! I did not enter the service until the time had come when men no longer went forth to meet the enemy through patriotism, but moved merely by the desire of winning rank or fortune, or by the love of glory and honor. I was present at some frightful butcheries and routs still more frightful; I have seen nearly all the miracles of the emperor's genius, and I bore my part in the reverses fickle fortune inflicted upon him. Well, after all, what did it amount to? The fortune of war is one of the chances of the trade. You conquer or are conquered, kill or are killed. ”

“ The amphitheatre and the beasts, the prison, the rack, and other tortures may await us. But we are not like those who have no hope, no security of the unseen hereafter. We depend on that love which induced him to allow himself to be nailed in agony on the cross, and, what is more, to be yoked, as it were, not only for time, but for eternity, to a body of flesh and blood like ours. ”

“ His hand is pressed on his aching brow, And veils his eyes' dark light, And a twinkling cresset's dim red glow, When the lightning pales, doth sadly flow O'er locks where many a thread of snow Tells of time's troubled flight. He stands—a fading, a clouded star, Half-hid in the rack of heaven's war; Or, like a vanquished warrior, one Whose heart is crushed, whose hopes are gone After many a gallant fight. ”

“ To progress is, everywhere, to combat. The human race maintains a perpetual and tremendous strife with the fatality of material things, whether it be in the form of the stubborn elements, the overwhelming forces of nature, or the subtle, inexorable laws that govern the material world. Barbarism is a defeat, from cowardice of spirit; civilization, a triumph over them. And nowhere else is the conflict more terrible than where it is attempted to control the floods that sweep down the valley of the Mississippi from the very heart of the continent. ”