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4. I have seen young girls smile, with a smile as pure as the dawn, on him they had chosen for a husband; but not one smiled on me. The exile is everywhere alone! I have seen young men. heart to heart, embrace each other, as if they wished to have only one existence; but not one pressed my hand. The exile is everywhere alone! There are friends, wives, fathers, brothers, only in one's own country. The exile is everywhere

alone!

5. Poor exile! cease to lament. Every one is banished like thyself; every one beholds father, mother, wife, friend, pass away and vanish. Our country is not here below; man seeks for it here in vain; that which he mistakes for it is only a restingplace for a night. Heaven guide the poor exile! He goes wandering over the earth.

LAMENNAIS

XIX.- THE SEASONS.

1. WHEN Spring comes with suns and showers,
What gives beauty to the bowers?

2. When the glowing Summer's born,
What pours156 Nature from her horn?

3. When mild suns in Autumn shine,
Then, O Earth, what gifts are thine?

4. When gray Winter comes, what glow
Makes the round earth sparkle so?

Buds and flowers.

Hay and corn

Fruit and wine

5. Hay and corn and buds and flowers,
Snow and ice and fruit and wine;
Spring and Summer, Fall and Winter,
With their suns and sleets and showers,
Bring in turn these gifts divine.

6 Spring blows, Summer glows,
Autumn reaps, Winter keeps.
Spring prepares, Summer provides,
Autumn hoards, Winter hides.

7. Come, then, friends, their praises sound;
Spring and Summer, Autumn, Winter,
Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring,
As they run their yearly round,
Each in turn with gladness sing!
Time drops blessings as he flies,
Time makes ripe, and Time makes wise.

Ice and snow

SCHOTIEL.

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1. FULL many a light thought man may cherish,
Full many an idle deed may do;
Yet not a deed or thought shall perish,
Not one but he shall bless or rue.

2. When by the wind the tree is shaken,91
There's not a bough or leaf can fall,
But of its falling heed is taken

By One that sees and governs all.

3. The tree may fall and be forgotten,
And buried in the earth remain;
Yet from its juices rank and rotten
Springs vegetating life again.

4. The world is with creation teeming,
And nothing ever wholly dies;
And things that are destroyed in seeming
In other shapes and forms arise.

5. And nature still unfolds the tissue

Of unseen works by spirit wrought;
And not a work but hath its issue

With blessing or with evil fraught.

6. And thou mayst seem to leave behind thee
All memory of the sinful past;

Yet, O! be sure thy sin shall find thee,
And thou shalt know its fruit at last

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THE mere lapse of years is not life. To eat, and drink, and sleep; to be exposed to darkness and the light; to pace around the mill of habit and turn the wheel10 of wealth; to make reason our book-keeper, and turn thought into an implement of trade,181 this is not life. In all this, but a poor fraction of the consciousness of humanity is awakened; and the sanctities still slumber which make it most worth while to be.

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Knowledge, truth, love, beauty, goodness, faith, alone give vitality to the mechanism of existence The laugh of mirth which vibrates through the heart; the tears which freshen1 the dry wastes within; the music which brings childhood back; the

prayer that calls the future near; the doubt which makes us meditate; the death which startles us with mystery; the hardships that force us to struggle; the anxiety that ends in trust, these are the true nourishments of our natural being.

2.- ENDURING INFLUENCE OF HUMAN ACTIONS.

We see not in life the end of human actions. The influence

never dies. In ever widening circle it reaches beyond the grave. Death removes us from this to an eternal world; time determines what shall be our condition in that world. Every morning, when we go forth, we lay the moulding hand on our destiny; and every evening, when we have done, we have left a deathless impression upon our character. We touch not a wire but vibrates in eternity—a voice but reports at the Throne of God. Let youth especially think of these things; and let every one remember that in this world character is in its formationstate—it is a serious thing to think, to speak, to act.

3.- Now.

"Now" is the constant syllable ticking from, the clock of time. "Now" is the watch-word of the wise. "Now" is on the banner of the prudent. Let us keep this little word always in our mind; and, whenever anything presents itself to us in the shape of work, whether mental or physical, let us do it with all our might, remembering that "Now" is the only time for us. It is indeed a sorry way to get through the world by putting off a duty till to-morrow, saying, "Then I will do it." No! this will never answer. "Now" is ours; "then" may never be.

4.- FIDELITY IN LITTLE THINGS.

Great virtues are rare; the occasions for them are very rare: and, when they do occur, we are prepared for them; we are excited by the grandeur of the sacrifice; we are supported either by the splendor of the deed in the eyes of the world, or by the self-complacency that we experience from the performance of an uncommon action. Little things are unforeseen; they return every moment, they come in contact with our pride, our indo lence, our haughtiness, our readiness to take offence; they contradict our inclinations perpetually. It is, however, only by fidelity in little things that a true and constant love to God can be distinguished from a passing fervor of spirit.

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5. - IMPERCEPTIBLE FORMATION OF HABITS,

Like flakes of snow that fall unperceived upon the earth, the seemingly unimportant events of life succeed one another.

As

the snow gathers together, so are our habits formed; no single flake that is added to the pile produces a sensible change; no single action creates,121 however it may exhibit, a man's character; but, as the tempest hurls the avalanche down the mountain, and overwhelms the inhabitant and his habitation, so passion, acting upon the elements of mischief, which pernicious habits have brought together by imperceptible accumulation, may overthrow the edifice of truth and virtue.

6. KINDNESS ITS OWN REWARD.

Good and friendly conduct may meet with an unworthy, with an ungrateful return, but the absence of gratitude95 on the part of the receiver cannot destroy the self-approbation which recompenses the giver. And we may scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindness around us at so little expense! Some of them will inevitably fall on good ground, and grow up into benevolence in the mind of others, and all of them will bear fruit of happiness in the bosom whence they spring. Once blest are all the virtues always; twice blest sometimes.

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1. PROFESSOR PORSON, who was a very learned31 man, of somewhat odd character and appearance, was once travelling in a stage-coach, along with several persons who did not know who he was. A young student,10 from Oxford,EI amused the ladies with a variety of talk, and, amongst other things, with a quotation, as he said, from Sophocles. A Greek quotation, and in a coach too, roused the slumbering professor from a kind of dogsleep in a snug corner of the vehicle.

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2. Shaking his ears, and rubbing his eyes, "I think, young gentleman," said he, "you favored us just now with a quotation from Sophocles; I do not happen to recollect it there." "O, sır," replied our tyro, "the quotation is word for word as I have repeated it, and in Sophocles, too; but I suspect, sir, that it is some time since you were at college."

3. The professor, applying his hand to his great-coat, and taking out a small pocket edition of Sophocles, quietly asked him if he would be kind enough to show him the passage in question in that little book. After rummaging the leaves for some time, the youth replied, "Upon second thoughts, I now recollect that the passage is in Euripides."E Then, perhaps, sir," said the professor, putting his hand again into his pocket, and handing

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nim a similar edition of Euripides, "you will be so good as to find it for me in that little book."

4. The young Oxonian returned again to his task, but with no better success. The tittering of the ladies informed him that he had got into a dilemma. At last, "Bless me, sir,” said he, "how dull I am! I recollect now; yes, yes, I perfectly remember that the passage is in Eschylus." The inexorable professor returned again to his inexhaustible pocket, and was in the act of handing him an Eschylus, when our astonished student vociferated, "Stop the coach!-holloa, coachman! let me out, I say, instantly, let me out! There's a fellow here has got the whole Bodleian library in his pocket."

XXIII. - LEARNING TO WRITE.

1. THE winter I was nine years old, I made another advance toward the top of the ladder, in the circumstance of learning to write. I desired and pleaded to commence the chirographical art the summer, and, indeed, the winter before; for others of my own age were at it thus early. But my father said that my fingers were hardly stout enough to manage a quill from his geese; but that, if I would put up with the quill of a hen, I might try. This pithy satīre put an end to my teasing.

2. Having previously had the promise of writing this winter, I had made all the necessary preparations days before school was to begin. I had bought me a new birch ruler, and had given a third of my wealth-four cents-for it. To this I had appended, by a well-twisted flaxen string, a plummet of my own running, whittling, and scraping. I had hunted up an old pewter inkstand, which had come down from the ancestral eminence of my great grandfather, for aught I knew; and it bore many marks of a speedier and less honorable descent, to wit, from table or desk to the floor.

3. I had succeeded in becoming the owner of a penknife; not that it was likely to be appplied to its appropriate use, that winter, at least; for such beginners generally used the instrument to mar that kind of pens they wrote in, rather than to make or mend those they wrote with. I had selected cne of the fairest quills out of an enormous bunch. Half a quire of foolscap had been folded into the shape of a writing-book by the maternal hand, and covered with brown paper nearly as thick as a sheepskin.

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4. Behold me now, on the first Monday in December, start

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