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The pen flowing in love, or dipped black in hate,

Or tipped with delicate courtesies, or harshly edged with censure,

Hath quickened more good than the sun, more evil than the sword,

More joy than woman's smile, more woe than frowning fortune;

And shouldst thou ask my judgment of that which hath most profit in the world,

For answer take thou this, The prudent penning of a letter.
2660
Tupper: Proverbial Phil. Of Writing
A letter, timely writ, is a rivet to the chain of affection;
And a letter, untimely delayed, is as rust to the solder.
Tupper: Proverbial Phil. Of Writing

2661

Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid;

They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires,
Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires;
The virgin's wish without her fears impart,
Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart -
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole.

2662

Pope: Eloisa to A. Line 51

Letters admit not of a half-renown;
They give you nothing, or they give a crown.
No work e'er gained true fame, or ever can,
But what did honor to the name of man.

2663 Good by

Young: Epis. to Pope. Epis. ii. Line 197. my paper's out so nearly,

I've only room for

2664

LIBERTY

Yours sincerely.

Moore: Fudge Family in Paris. Letter vi.

see Freedom, Slavery.

I must have liberty

Withal, as large a charter as the wind,

To blow on whom I please.

2665

Shaks.: As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.

In liberty's defence, my noble task,

Of which all Europe rings from side to side;

This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask, Content, though blind- had I no better guide.

2666

Milton: Sonnet xxii. To Cyriack Skinner.

License they mean when they cry Liberty.

2667

The love of liberty with life is given,

And life itself th' inferior gift of heaven.

Milton: Sonnet xii

2668

Dryden: Palamon and Arcite. Pt. ii Line 901

When liberty is gone,

Life grows insipid and has lost its relish. 2669

Addison: Cato. Act ii. Sc. 3

A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty

Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.

Addison: Cato. Act ii. Sc 1

2670
Converse familiar with th' illustrious dead!
With great examples of old Greece or Rome
Enlarge thy free-born heart, and bless kind heaven
That Britain yet enjoys dear Liberty,

That balm of life, that sweetest blessing, cheap
Tho' purchas'd with our blood.

2671

Somerville: Chase. Bk. i. Line 388.

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free,
They touch our country and their shackles fall.
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of their blessing.

2672

Liberty, like day,

Cowper: Task. Bk. ii. Line 40

Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from Heaven
Fires all the faculties with glorious joy.

2673

Cowper: Task. Bk. v. Line 882.

But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought
Of freedom, in that hope itself possess

All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength,
The scorn of danger, and united hearts,
The surest presage of the good they seek.
2674

Cowper: Task. Bk. v. Line 373.

'Tis liberty alone that gives the flow'r Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume, And we are weeds without it.

2675

Cowper: Task. Bk. v. Line 445.

Oh, could I worship aught beneath the skies,
That earth has seen or fancy can devise,
Thine altar, sacred Liberty, should stand,
Built by no mercenary vulgar hand,

With fragrant turf and flow'rs as wild and fair
As ever dress'd a bank or scented summer air.
2676

Cowper: Charity. Line 254.

The wish, which ages have not yet subdued In man, to have no master save his mood. 2677

Byron: Island. Canto i. St. 2

Oh! if there be, on this earthly sphere,

A boon, an offering heaven holds dear, "Tis the last libation Liberty draws

From the heart that bleeds and breaks in her cause.

2678

Moore: Lalla Rookh. Paradise and the Pert

LIBRARIES -see Books.

Here you must bide, my friends, with me entombed
In this dim crypt, where shelved around us lie
The mummied authors.

2679

Bayard Taylor: Poet's Journal. Third Evening

I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubt
If one be better with them or without,
Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed,
Knows the high art of what and how to read.
2680

As great a store

J. G. Saxe: The Library

Have we of books as bees of herbs or more. 2681

Henry Vaughan: To His Books.

LIES -see Defiance, Fiction..

The Lie circumstantial," and the "Lie direct."

2682

Shaks.: As You Like It. Act v. Sc. 4.

These lies are like the father that begets them, gross as a

mountain, open, palpable.

2683

Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,

Shaks.: 1 Henry IV. Act ii. Sc. 4.

Shaks.: Richard II. Act i. Sc. 1.

Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest!

2684

You told a lie; an odious, damned lie:
Upon my soul, a lie; a wicked lie.

2685

Shaks.: Othello. Act v. Sc. 2.

Some truth there was, but dash'd and brew'd with lies,
To please the fools, and puzzle all the wise.

2686 Dryden Absalom and Achitophel. Pt. i. Line 114.

The man of pure and simple heart

Through life disdains a double part;

He never needs the screen of lies
His inward bosom to disguise.

2687

Dare to be true.

Gay: Fables. Pt. ii. Fable $

Nothing can need a lie;

A fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.

2688

Herbert: Temple. Church Porch. St. 13.

And he that does one fault at first,

And lies to hide it, makes it two. 2689

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Watts: Divine Songs. No. xv

see Adversity, Child, Death, Despair, Dissolution Providence, Retirement.

We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

2690

Shaks.: Tempest. Act iv. Sc. 1

Reason thus with life;

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art, (Servile to all the skiey influences,)

That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,

Hourly afflict.

2691

Shaks.: M. for M. Act iii. Sc 1

'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine;

And after one hour more, 'twill be eleven:
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe;
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.

2692

Shaks.: As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.

The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.

2693

Shaks.: Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 3.

Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

2694

Shaks.: Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 5.

The time of life is short!

To spend that shortness basely were too long
If life did ride upon a dial's point
Still ending at the arrival of an hour.

2695

Shaks.: 1 Henry IV. Act v. Sc. 2.

I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die.
2696
Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou livest,
Live well; how long or short, permit to Heav'n.

Shaks.: Richard III. Act v. Sc. 4.

2697

Milton: Par. Lost. Bk. xi. Line 553

Circles are prais'd, not that abound
In largeness, but th' exactly round:
So life we praise, that does excel
Not in much time, but acting well.
2698

Waller: Long and Short Life.

Like pilgrims to th' appointed place we tend;

The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.

2699 Dryden Palamon and Arcite. Bk. iii. Line 2163

Take not away the life you cannot give,

For all things have an equal right to live.

2700 Vain hopes and empty joys of human kind; Proud of the present, to the future blind!

Dryden: Of the Pyth. Philosophy. Line 705.

2701

Dryden: Cymon and Iphigenia Line 323

Must we count

Life a curse and not a blessing, summed-up in its whole

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Live while you live, the epicure would say,
And seize the pleasures of the present day;
Live while you live, the sacred preacher cries,
And give to God each moment as it flies :
Lord, in my views let both united be;
I live in pleasure, when I live to thee.

2704

Doddridge: Epigram on his Family Arms Life can little more supply,

Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. i. Line 3.

Than just to look about us and to die.
2705
O thoughtless mortals! ever blind to fate,
Too soon dejected, and too soon elate!
2706
Even so luxurious men unheeding pass
An idle summer-life in fortune's shine;
A season's glitter! Thus they flutter on
From toy to toy, from vanity to vice;
Till blown away by death, oblivion comes

Pope: R. of the Lock. Canto iii. Line 101.

Behind, and strikes them from the book of life.

2707

Thomson: Seasons. Summer. Line 346

I hear a sound of life - of life like ours

Of laughter and of wailing, of grave speech,

Of little plaintive voices innocent,

Of life in separate courses flowing out

Like our four rivers to some outward main.

I hear life-life!

2708 Mrs. Browning: Drama of Exile. Sc. Farther On Life's little stage is a small eminence,

Inch-high the grave above; that home of man,
Where dwells the multitude: we gaze around;
We read their monuments; we sigh; and while
We sigh, we sink; and are what we deplor'd;
Lamenting, or lamented, all our lot!

2709

Young: Night Thoughts. Night ii. Line 362

Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour?
What tho' we wade in wealth, or soar in fame?
Earth's highest station ends in "Here he lies: "
And dust to dust" concludes her noblest song.

66

2710

Young: Night Thoughts. Night iv Line 97

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