Get your enemies to read your works, in order to mend them; for your friend is so much your second-self, that he will judge, too, like you. There is nothing wanting to make all rational and disinterested people in the world of one religion, but that they should talk together every day. A short and certain way to obtain the character of a reasonable and wise man is, whenever any one tells you his opinion, to comply with him. The character of covetousness is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardliness or ill grace in little and inconsiderable things, than in expenses of any consequence. A very few pounds a year would ease that man of the scandal of avarice. [GEORGE BERKELEY, BISHOP OF CLOYNE. A MAN who hath no sense of God or conscience, would you make such a one guardian to your child? If not, why guardian to the state? [PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 1792-1822.] POETRY lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar. It reproduces all that it represents; and the impersonations clothed in its Elysian light stand thenceforward in the minds of those who have once contemplated them, as memorials of that gentle and exalted content which extends itself over all thoughts The and actions with which it coexists. great secret of morals is love, or a going A fop, or man of pleasure, makes but out of our own nature, and an identificaa scurvy patriot. He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave. The patriot aims at his private good in the public. The knave makes the public subservient to his private interest. The former considers himself as part of a tion of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another, and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is imagination; and poetry adminis ters to the effect by acting upon the cause. -Essays. All of us, who are worth anything, spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth.-Letters. [RICHARD SHARP.] [LORD LYTTON.] ADMIRATION OF GENIUS. THERE is a certain charm about great superiority of intellect that winds into deep affections, which a much more constant and even amiability of manners in lesser men often fails to reach. Genius makes many enemies, but it makes sure friends-friends who forgive much, who endure long, who exact little; they partake of the character of disciples as well as friends. It appears to me indisputable that benevolent intention and beneficial tendency must combine to constitute the moral goodness of an action. To do as much good and as little evil as we can, is the brief and intelligible principle that comprehends all subordinate maxims. Both good tendency and good will are indispensable; for conscience may be erroneous as well as callous, may blunder as well as sleep. Perhaps a man cannot be thoroughly mischievous unless he is It is a divine pleasure to admire ! adhonest. In truth, practice is also neces-miration seems in some measure to approsary, since it is one thing to see that a priate to ourselves the qualities it honours line is crooked, and another thing to be in others. able to draw a straight one. It is not quite so easy to do good as those may imagine who never try. There lingers about the human heart a strong inclination to look upward-to revere in this inclination lies the source of religion, of loyalty, and also of the worship and immortality which are rendered so cheerfully to the great of oid. Satirical writers and talkers are not half so clever as they think themselves, nor as they ought to be. They do winnow the corn, 'tis true, but 'tis to feed upon the chaff. I am sorry to add that they who are always speaking ill of others, are also very apt to be doing ill to them. It requires some talent and some generosity to find out talent and generosity in others; though nothing but self-conceit and malice are needed to discover or to imagine faults. The most gifted men that I have known have been the least addicted to depreciate either friends or foes. Dr. Johnson, Mr. Burke, and Mr. Fox were always more inclined to overrate them. Your shrewd, sly, evil-speaking fellow is generally a shallow personage, and frequently he is as venomous and as false when he flatters as when he reviles-he seldom praises John but to vex Thomas. Trifling precautions will often prevent great mischiefs; as a slight turn of the wrist parries a mortal thrust. When a great man, who has engrossed our thoughts, our conjectures, our homage, dies, a gap seems suddenly left in the world; a wheel in the mechanism of our own being appears abruptly stilled; a portion of ourselves, and not our worst portion - for how many pure, high, generous sentiments it contains!-dies with him.-Eugene Aram. As man's genius to him, is woman's heart to her. Doth not the heart create-invent? Doth it not dream? Doth it not form its idol out of air? Goeth it not forth into the future, to prophesy to itself? And, sooner or later, in age or youth, doth it not wake itself at last, and see how it hath wasted its all on follies?— The Last of the Barons. Despotic, absolute, uncontrolled power Books and newspapers are slow weapons is unhealthy, unwholesome, and dangerous for overthrowing error, but they are to its possessor: it overworks, overweights, sure. and inflames the brain. All great tyrants who escape the summary vengeance of communities or individuals become insane. Happy for them and the world if they die before that otherwise inevitable consummation. There are four things to be detested -a "lady" sucking the handle of her parasol, a 'gent" sucking his walking-stick, a boy smoking, and a fool fishing in a punt. There are three things that will stretch -a story often repeated, a scrupulous man's point, and a hypocrite's conscience. There are three things that will not stretch-a publican's measure, a mercer's yard, and a cabman's mile. Death is but a valet, who, after a hard ride through bog and mud, takes off our dirty garments, and clothes us in purple and fine linen. Cannon balls are excellent logicians, only they have this defect-they will not be reasoned with. Revenge is but the debasement of yourself to a lower level than that of your ad versary Some very wild and apparently unreasonable opinions are but the shadows of unrecognised truths. If you want oil for the hinges of the tongue, there is nothing so good as strong drink-except that stronger drink, Vanity and that still stronger-" CONCEIT.” If poetry be thought in flower, goodness is thought in fruit. There is no one so credulous as a little child-except an inventor taking out a patent. A snob per se-a snob quiescent and unaggressive-is not a pleasant object to look upon; but when a snob is aggressive when he twirls his moustache--dresses himself in the extreme absurdity of the fashion-talks slang-and laughs and sneers at a noble deed or thought-he is an abomination so great that nothing can refresh the spirit after him but a gulp of pure air-a long walk—a bath-or a dip into Shakspeare. If you truly love God you truly love Nature; and if you truly love Nature you love Man. So that after all which the fathers and the preachers may allege to the contrary, these three loves are but one. A religious man is not a man who merely says his prayers and sing psalms; just as a poet is not a man who merely writes verses. Both require feeling, sincerity, faith, and passion-without these they cannot become either Christian or poet. Every man's experience of to-day is that he was a fool yesterday-and the day before yesterday. To-morrow he will most likely be of exactly the same opinion. Many a seeming farce played on the great stage of the world is in reality a tragedy, if we could but see into the heart of it. Beware, O young man and over-ardent philosopher, who would seek to reform the world! If you have committed any fault or error in your life-be it ever so trivial or venial, or so far back as your school-days-ay, even if your most distant relatives have sinned-the sin will be hunted out, and magnified to your discomfiture. The people will say "This man a reformer and a renovator of society! he who once told a lie at school! who stole a lump of sugar! who failed in business! whose grandfather's fifth cousin's wife's brother was hanged? Psha! Let him reform himself." And truly this is the wisest policy-for if every man would reform himself the world's reformation would be accomplished, and philosophers would be needless. There is horse-power and thoughtpower, but what has horse-power done? It was thought-power which made Christendom and discovered America. Horsepower may send a steamer over the Atlantic in seven or eight days, but thought-power shall send a message across it in as many seconds. And besides all this, thought-power discovered horsepower, and used it. There is not in the universe any such thing as absolute greatness or absolute littleness. A man is as wonderful as a planet; and a blade of grass or a microscopic animalcule is quite as wonderful as a man. What right have you, O passer by the way, to call any flower a weed? Do you know its merits? its virtues? its healing qualities? Because a thing is common, shall you despise it? If so, you might despise the sunshine for the same reason. There is no vice or crime that does not originate in self-love; and there is no virtue that does not grow from the love of others out of and beyond self. chief in the ordinary run of civilised life. Deeds do but comparatively small misIt is words that wound, that rankle, that poison, and that kill. The world invariably hates a man of genius-when he is alive. He disturbs the notions of the multitude. He throws stones into the still puddle of their existlike; but when he is dead they cry, ence, but creates ripples which they don't "God is great, and Jenkins was his prophet!" Old age! The words are comparative, not positive. There are times when I feel myself to be as old as Methuselah; and others when I know that I am a mere baby-having everything to learn and to suffer. There is no such thing as love at first sight. There may be a liking at first sight; but love is a great tree, that cannot spring from the acorn in one day. Time is the soil in which it must grow, and the winds of heaven and the rays of the sun must A country must always be either gain- feed it. ing or losing its liberty. I cannot look upon the ocean and the mountains without loving them; and I am greater than they, because I can do so. Life is the best thing going, and too much of that is death. If you want to gain a reputation for eccentricity, and to be universally dreaded, if not hated, blurt out the plain truth on all occasions. Is there no straight line? Are all things on the bend for ever and ever? The man who cannot sometimes endure his own company must have a bad heart or a deficient intellect. Plagiarism is an accusation often made by fools against wise men. Did the lark that sang to me last summer copy his song from a lark in the days of Homer? And if so, what larks did Homer's copy from? |