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12. And let no one imagine, as too many are apt to do, that it is a matter of indifference what thoughts he entertains in his heart, since the reason of things concurs with the testimony of Scripture, to assure us that "the thought of foolishness," when allowed by us, "is itself sin." Therefore, in the excellent words of an excellent poet,

"Guard well thy thoughts—our thoughts are heard in heaven."

"Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." HORNE (ABRIDGED).

XXXI.

SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE.

1. ULYSSES '141 DOG.- Anon.

--

WHEN wise Ulysses, from his native coast
Long kept by wars, and long by tempests tost,
Arrived at last, poor, old, disguised, alone,131 —
To all his friends, and even his queen, unknown';
Changed as he was with age, and toils, and cares,
Furrowed his reverend face, and white10% his hairs';
In his own palace forced to ask his bread',
Scorned by those slaves his former bounty fed',
Forgot of all his own domestic crew;
The faithful dog alone his master knew`:
Unfed, unhoused, neglected, on the clay,
Like an old servant, now cashiered, he lay :
And, though even then expiring on the plain,
Touched with resentment of ungrateful man,
And longing to behold his ancient lord again,
Him when he saw, he rose, and crawled to meet,
'T was all he could, and fawned, and licked his feet
Seized with dumb joy; then, falling by his side,
Owned his returning lord, looked up, and died.

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Horatio, of ideal courage vain,

Was flourishing in air his father's cane;
And, as the fumes of valor swelled his pate,
Now thought himself this hero, and now that,
"And now," he cried, "I will AchillesEI be;
My sword I brandish; see the Trojans flee!
Now I'll be Hector, when his
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angry blade

A lane through heaps of slaughtered Grecians made!
And now, by deeds still braver, I'll evince

I am no less than Edward the Black Prince.

Give way, ye coward French!" As thus he spoke,
And aimed in fancy a sufficient stroke

To fix the fate of Cressy or Poictiers
(The Muse relates the hero's fate with tears65),
He struck his milk-white hand against a nail,
Saw his own blood, and felt his courage fail.
Ah! where103 is now that boasted valor flown,
That in the tented field so late was shown?
Achilles weeps, great Hector hangs his head,
And the Black Prince goes whimpering to bed.

3.-BEAUTY.-Gay.

What is the blooming tincture of the skin
To peace of mind and harmony within?
What the bright sparkling of the finest eye
To the soft soothing of a calm reply?
Can comeliness91 of form, or shape, or air,
With comeliness of words or deeds compare?
No! those118 at first the unwary heart may gain,
But these, these only, can156 the heart retain.

4.THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY. - Rogers. Hail, Memory, hail! In thy exhaustless mine, From age to age, unnumbered treasures shine! Thought, and her shadowy brood, thy call obey, And Place and Time are subject to thy sway! Thy pleasures most we feel when most alone, The only pleasures we can call our own. Lighter than air, Hope's summer-visions die, If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky; If but a beam of sober Reason play, Lo! Fancy's fairy frost-work melts away. But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power, Snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour? These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight, Pour round her path a stream of living light, And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest, Where Virtue triumphs, and her sons are blessed.49

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He who ascends to mountain-tops27 shall find

The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow: He who surpasses or subdues mankind

Must look down on the hate of those below. Though high above the sun of glory glow,

And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests100 on his naked head;

And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.

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Torture thou mayst, but thou shalt ne'er despise me
The blood will follow where the knife is driven,
The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear;
And sighs and cries by nature grow on pain:
But these are foreign to the soul: not mine
The groans that issue,95 or the tears that fall;
They disobey me. On the rack I scorn thee.

7.- AFFECTIONATE REMEMBRANCE.

Wordsworth.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise, and very few to love:
A violet by a mossy stone, half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know when Lucy ceased to be
But she is in her grave, and, O, the difference to me!

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. TALK to the point, and stop when you have reached it Te facuity some possess of making one idea cover a quire of paper is not good for much. Be comprehensive in all you say and write. To fill a volume95 upon nothing is a credit to nobody. There are men who gets one idea into their heads, and but one, and they make the most of it. You can see it, and almost feel it, when103 in their 91 presence.9 On all occasions it is produced, till it is worn as thin as charity.

2. They remind us of a blunderbuss discharged at a hummingbird. You hear a tremendous96 noise, see a volume of smoke, but you look in vain for the effects. The bird is scattered to atoms. Just so with the idea. It is enveloped in a cloud, and lost amid the rumblings of words and flourishes. Short letters, sermons, speeches, and paragraphs, are favorites with us. Commend us to the young man who wrote to his father, "Dear sir, I am going to be married;" and also to the old gentleman, who replied, "Dear son, do it." Such are the men for action; they do more than they say.

3. Eloquence, we are persuaded, will never flourish in any country where the public taste is infantle enough to measure the value of a speech by the hours it occupies, and to exalt copiousness and fertility to the absolute disregard of conciseness. The efficacy and value of compression can scarcely be overrated. The common air, we beat aside with our breath, compressed, has

within the scope of clear reflection; to fix in my mind so very strong an idea of what I have been in this original" period of my time, that I shall most completely possess this idea in ages too remote for calculation.

JOHN FOSTER

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How are thy servants blest, O Lord! How sure is their defence!
Eternal wisdom is their guide, their help Omnipotence.91
In foreign realms and lands remote, supported by thy care,
Through burning climes I passed unhurt, and breathed the tainted air

Thy mercy sweetened every toil, made every region please;
The hoary Alpine hills it warmed, and smoothed the Tyrrhene seas
Think, O my soul, devoutly think, how, with affrighted eyes,
Thou saw'st the wide-extended deep in all its horrors rise.

Confusion dwelt in every face, and fear in every heart,

When waves on waves, and gulfs on gulfs, o'ercame the pilot's art. Yet then from all my griefs, O Lord, thy mercy set me free, Whilst in the confidence of prayer my faith took hold on thee

For, though in dreadful whirls we hung, high on the broken wave,
I knew thou wert not slow to hear, nor impotent to save.
The storm1 101 was laid, the winds retired, obedient to thy will;
The sea, that roared at thy command, at thy command was still.

In midst of dangers, fears, and death, thy goodness! I'll adore,
And praise thee for thy mercies past, and humbly hope for more
My life, if thou preserv'st my life, thy sacrifice shall be;
And death, if death must be my doom, shall join my soul to thee.

ADDISON

XXXVI.

THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD.

THEY grew in beauty, side by side; they filled one house with glee Their graves are severed far and wide, by mount, and stream, and sea The same fond mother bent at night o'er each fair, sleeping brow; She had each folded flower in sight—where are those dreamers now

One, 'midst the forests of the West, by a dark stream is laid;
The Indian knows his place of rest, far in the cedar shade.
The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one; - he lies where pearls lie deep
He was the loved of all, yet none o'er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where southern vines are dressed's above the noble slain : He wrapt his colors round his breast on a blood-red field of Spain. And one-o'er her the myrtle showers its leaves by soft winds fanned She faded midst Italian flowers—the last of that bright band'

And, parted thus, they rest who played beneath the same green tree
Whose voices mingled as they prayed around one parent knee!
They that with smiles lit up the hall, and cheered with song the hearth:*
Alas for love, if thou wert all, and naught beyond, O earth!

MRS. HEMANS

XXXVII.

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- FALL OF A MOUNTAIN IN SWITZERLAND.

1. THE summer of 1806 had been remarkably stormy, and the copious rains had loosened the soil of the mountain of Rossberg, overlooking the valley of Goldau ; but as late as the 2d of September nothing had occurred to presage the danger which menaced us. About two o'clock in the afternoon of that day, I told Louisa, the eldest of my daughters, to go and draw some water from the spring. She took a pitcher and went; but returned in a minute with the news that the spring had stopped flowing. As I had only to cross the garden to satisfy myself in regard to this phenomenon, I went, and found that the spring was in truth dried up.

2. I was about to give three or four thrusts with the spade into the soil, to discover the cause of this disappearance, when the earth seemed to tremble under my feet. I left the spade upright in the ground. What was my astonishment, when103 1 saw it moving off by itself! At the same time a flock of birds rose with sharp cries into the air. I looked up and saw immense rocks detaching themselves and rolling down the mountain. I believed that I was seized with a vertigo. I turned to retrace my steps to the house. Between me and it a fissure40 in the earth had been suddenly formed, the depth of which I could not measure. I leaped over it as if I were in a dream, and ran towards the house. It seemed as if the mountain were sliding from its base, and pursuing me.

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3. Arrived before the door of my house, I met my father, who had just been filling his pipe. He had frequently predicted

*It will be remembered (see T 32, Part I.) that the ea of hearth should be sounded like the ea of heart. To suit the rhyme, in this instance it may be sounded to correspond with the ea of earth. The last line in this poem is an instance of the inversion noticed in ¶ 156. The meaning is, -"Alas for love, if thou, O earth, wert all, and there were not another life beyond thee!" The line is elliptical as well as inverted. See ¶ 166.

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