. ( J ;7 ■$'#■■ . ' ." V ¥ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Shelf ..^_0_2r. /ffyy . UNITED .STATES OF AMERICA. fh~& BORROWINGS A COMPILATION OF HELPFUL THOUGHTS FROM GREAT AUTHORS JFourtfj (fEfottton San Francisco C. A. Murdock & Company pN^ y 0*- COPYRIGHTED BY SARAH S. B. YULE AND MARY S. KEENE 1893 The compilers acknowledge, with grateful thanks, the courtesy of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Harper Brothers, Roberts Brothers, Dr. Edward W. Emerson, and others, in allowing the insertio7i of selections from works of which they own the copyright. I DO NOT NUMBER MY BORROWINGS ; I WEIGH THEM. And HAD I DESIGNED to raise their VALUE BY THEIR NUMBER, I HAD MADE THEM TWICE AS MANY. —Montaigne. The world does not require so much to be informed as to be reminded. — Hannah More. THE NOBLE NATURE It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be ; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald and sear : A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night, — It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see ; And in short measures life may perfect be. . — Ben Jonsot* We find in life exactly what we put in it. — Emerson . Duty done is the soul's fireside. — Browning: Can a man help imitating- that with which he holds reverential converse ? —Plato. Discretion of speech is more than eloquence. — Bacon. Is anything more wonderful than another, if you consider it maturely? I have seen no man rise from the dead; I have seen some thousands rise from nothing. I have not force to fly into the sun, but I have force to lift my hand, which is equally strange. — Carlyle. As you grow ready for it, somewhere or other you will find what is needful for you, in a book, or a friend, or, best of all, in your own thoughts, the eter- nal thought speaking in your thought. — George Macdonald. A house is no home unless it contain food and fire for the mind as well as for the body. — Margaret Fuller Ossolt. 10 TRUE REST. Rest is not quitting The busy career ; Rest is the fitting Of self to its sphere : 'Tis loving and serving The highest and best ; 'Tis onward, unswerving, And that is true rest. — John S. Dwight. Manners are the happy ways of doing things. . . If they are superficial, so are the dewdrops, which give such a depth to the morning meadow. — Emerson. A higher morality, like a higher intelligence, must be reached by a Slow growth. —Herbert Spencer. Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness, Round our restlessness, His rest. — Mrs. Browning. Then wisely weigh Our sorrow with our comfort. — The Tempest. Books are embalmed minds. — Bovee. Great men seem to be a part of the infinite, brothers of the mountains and the seas. —ingersoil. " Truth can be outraged by silence quite as cruelly as by speech." It was a dark, chill, misty morning, like to end in rain ; one of those mornings when even happy people take refuge in their hopes. —George Eliot. Habit is a cable ; we weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it. —Horace Mann. 12 The wisest man could ask no more of fate Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, Safe from the many, honored by the few ; Nothing to court in Church, or World, or State, But inwardly in secret to be great. — LowelL U A PRAYER FOR LIGHT AND PEACE. Immortal Love, within whose righteous will Is always peace ; O pity me, storm-tossed on waves of ill, Let passion cease ; Come down in power within my heart to reign, For I am weak, and struggle has been vain. The days are gone, when far and wide my will Drove me astray ; And now I fain would climb the arduous hill, That narrow way, Which leads through mist and rocks to Thine abode, Toiling for man and Thee, Almighty God. Whate'er of pain Thy loving hand allot I gladly bear ; Only, O Lord, let peace be not forgot, Nor yet Thy care ; Freedom from storms and wild desires within, Peace from the fierce oppression of my sin. So may I, far away, when evening falls On life and love, Arrive at last the holy, happy halls, With Thee above ; Wounded yet healed, sin laden yet forgiven, And sure that goodness is my only Heaven. — Stopford A. Brooke^ (In MS. not published.) 14 The chief want in life is somebody who shali make US do the best we Can. —Emerson. Man's unhappiness comes, in part, from his great- ness. There is an infinite in him, which, with all his cunning, he cannot quite bury under the finite. — Carlyle. No man can possibly improve in any company for which he has not respect enough to be under some degree of restraint. —Chester find. Faith must become active through works. Deeds must spring spontaneously from the divine life within the SOUl. C. W. Wendte. If any one remain modest under blame, be assured he is SO. —Jean Paul. There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. —Thoreau. If you loved only what were worth your love, Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you. Make the low nature better for your throes, Give earth yourself, go up for gain above. — Browning. That there are so many spiritual capacities in man which he cannot develop in this life, points to a better and more harmonious future. —Goethe. 15 THE WATER-LILY. O star on the breast of the river! marvel of bloom and grace! Did you fall right down from heaven, Out of the sweetest place ? You are white as the thoughts of an angel, Your heart is steeped in the sun : Did you grow in the Golden City, My pure and radiant one ? Nay, nay, I fell not out of heaven ; None gave me my saintly white ; It slowly grew from the darkness, Down in the dreary night. From the ooze of the silent river 1 won my glory and grace. White souls fall not, O my poet! They rise — to the highest place." 16 Genius is eternal patience. — Michael A ngeio* Make each day a critic on the last. — Pope. I am glad you can elevate your life with a doubt, for I am sure that it is nothing but an insatiable faith after all that deepens and darkens its current, and your doubt and my confidence are only a difference Of expression. —Thoreau. What wealth it is to have such friends that we can- not think of them without elevation. —T/wreau. Prejudice corrupts the taste, as it perverts the judg- ment, in all the concerns of life. —Racine. Intend honestly and leave the event to God. — ^Esop. Friendship — one soul in two bodies. — Py th ago ra s. Point thy tongue on the anvil of truth. — Pindar. You should forgive many things in others, nothing in yourself. —Ausonius. Learn to stand in awe of thyself. — Democritus. The will of the present is the key to the future, and moral character is eternal destiny. — Horatio Siebbins. 17 Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. — Wordsworth . Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels. —Longfellow For good ye are, and bad, and like to coin, Some true, some false, but every one of you Stamped with the image of the king. — Tennyson. 18 There is no unbelief. Whoever plants a leaf beneath the sod, And waits to see it push away the clod, He trusts in God. Whoever says, when clouds are in the sky, Be patient, heart, light breaketh by and by," Trusts the Most High. Whoever sees, 'neath winter's field of snow, The silent harvest of the future grow, God's power must know. Whoever lies down on his couch to sleep, Content to lock each sense in slumber deep, Knows God will keep. Whoever says "to-morrow," "the unknown," : The future," trusts unto that Power alone He dares disown The heart that looks on when the eyelids close, And dares to live when life has only woes, God's comfort knows. There is no unbelief; And, day by day and night, unconsciously The heart lives by that faitrrthe lips deny. God knOWS the why. —Lizzie York Case. A face that had a story to tell. How different are faces in this particular ! Some of them speak not; they are books in which not a line is written, save perhaps a date. —Longfellow. Only in the loves we have for others than our- selves, can we truly live — or die. —Phillips Brooks. "Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops yourself. " And let him go where he will, he can only find so much beauty or worth as he carries. —Emerson. The years have taught some sweet, some bitter lessons, none Wiser than this, to spend in all things else, But of old friends to be most miserly. —Lowell. No two things differ more than hurry and dispatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind ; dispatch, of a strong one. —Colton. The night is long that never finds the day. — Macbeth. The time never comes when a reconstruction does not imperil some great interest. —Heber Newton. To have what we want, is riches; but to be able to do without, is power. —George Macdonald. 20 A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. —Emerson, Good taste rejects excessive nicety; it treats little things as little things. —Fe7ieion. Into the well which supplies thee with water, cast no Stones. —Talmud. Rightly employed, the reason is not a check to piety, but is its regulator. It chastens and refines the flame of devotion in the human heart, but does not put it OUt. — C. W. Wendte. Culture is the power which makes a man capable of appreciating the life around him, and the power of making that life worth appreciating. —Mallock. What else can joy be but diffusing joy? — Byron. Books give to all who faithfully use them, the spiritual presence of the best and greatest of our r a C e . — Channing. The moving Finger writes, and having writ, Moves on ; nor all your piety nor wit Can lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your tears wipe out a word of it. — Fitzgerald 's Omar Khayyam. In all the superior people I have met I notice directness — truth spoken more truly, as if everything of obstruction, of malformation, had been trained away. Emerson. Doubtful ills do plague us worst. — Seneca. We can finish nothing in this life ; but we may make a beginning, and bequeath a noble example. — Smiles. I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden. —Richard Rumbold. An excess of one quality is always bought at the expense of another. If a man be absolutely just he will be absolutely merciless. I would not trust abso- lute justice to any but a god. — A rthicr Sherburne Hardy. Exactness in little things is a wonderful source of cheerfulness. • — f. w. Faber. Two excesses : exclude reason, admit only reason. — Pascal. I like not only to be loved, but to be told that I am loved ; the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. —George Eliot. 6 ' To be angry with a weak man is proof that you are not very strong yourself. ' ' 22 GROWN OLD WITH NATURE. If true there be another, better land, A fairer than this humble mother shore, Hoping to meet the blessed gone before, I fain would go. But may no angel hand Lead on so far along the shining sand, So wide within the everlasting door, 'T will shut away this good, green world. No more Of earth! — Let me not hear that dread command. Then must I mourn, unsoothed by harps of gold, For sighing boughs, and birds of simple song, For hush of night within the forest fold ; Yea, must bemoan, amid the joyous throng, These early loves. The heart that has grown old With Nature cannot, happy, leave her long. —John Vance Cheney. 23 Flowers are the sweetest things that God ever made and forgot to put a soul into. —Beecher. Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies : — Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower — but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is. — Tennyson. 24 We are shaped and fashioned by what we love. — Goethe. Want of tact is at bottom selfishness, for self thinks and acts only for itself. —Auerbach. There is nothing in which people betray their char- acter more than in what they find to laugh at. — Goethe. He who is great when he falls is great in his pros- tration, and is no more an object of contempt than when men tread on the ruins of sacred buildings, which men of piety venerate no less than if they Stood. —Seneca, All true work is sacred. In all true work, were it but true hand work, there is something of divineness. Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in Heaven. To sit as a passive bucket and be pumped into, can be exhilarating to no creature, how eloquent soever be the flood of utterance that is descending. — Carlyle. The growing good of the world is partly de- pendent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hid- den life and rest in unvisited tombs. —George Eliot, 25 Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses. ■ — A Iphonse Karr. And what is a weed ? A plant whose virtues have not been discovered. —Emerson. For he that wrongs his friend Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about A silent court of justice in his breast, Himself the judge and jury, and himself The prisoner at the bar, ever condemned. — Tennyson. "You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you may prevent them from stopping to build their nests there." The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. —George Eliot. "A poplar leaf hides our view of the sun; the slight substance of an earthly care may hide from us the immense and radiant God." To smile at the jest which plants a thorn in another's breast is to become a principal in the mischief. —Sheridan. Conscience is the amount of innate knowledge we have in US. —Victor Hugo. 26 lien saw the thorns on Jesus' brow, But angels Saw the roses. —Julia Ward Howe. Hypocrisy, detest her as we may, May claim the merit still, — that she admits The worth of what she mimics with such care, And thus gives virtue indirect applause. — Coivper. Heaven doth with us as we with torches do ; Xot light them for themselves ; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike As if we had them not. —Shakespeare. The soul observant of Beauty yields tribute by contemplation, And the lip that praiseth the daisy, unconscious hath blessed its Maker. —AmieS.Page. 27 A FANCY. I think I would not be A stately tree, Broad-boughed, with haughty crest that seeks the sky ! Too many sorrows lie In years, too much of bitter for the sweet ! Frost-bite, and blast, and heat, Blind drought, cold rains, must all grow wearisome, Ere one could put away Their leafy garb for aye, And let death come. Rather this wayside flower ! To live its happy hour Of balmy air, of sunshine, and of dew. A sinless face held upward to the blue ; A bird-song sung to it, A butterfly to flit On dazzling wings above it, hither, thither — A sweet surprise of life — and then exhale A little fragrant soul on the soft gale, To float — ah, whither ! — Ina D. Coolbrith. m Speaking silence is better than senseless speech. — Dutch Proverb. There is no grief without some great provision to soften its intenseness. — G. D. Prentice. What I must do is all that concerns me, and not what people think. —Emerson. When a man is in earnest and knows what he is about, his work is ( half done. —Mirabeau. If you mean to act nobly, and seek to know the best things which God hath put within the reach of men, you must fix your mind on that end, and not on what will happen to you because of it. — George Eliot. From the lowliest depth there is a path to the loftiest height. —Carlyle. He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into Living peace. — Rusk in. As I approve of the youth who has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with the old man who has something- of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in bod}', but can. never be so in mind. —Cicero* 29 Let nothing come between you and the light. — Thoreau. When words are scarce they are seldom spent in Vain. — Shakespeare* Drudgery is as necessary to call out the treasures of the mind, as harrowing and planting those of the earth. —Margaret Fuller* From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead There comes no word; but in the night of death Hope sees a star, and listening love can hear The rustle of a wing. —lugersoll, A wise man has well reminded us that in any controversy the instant we feel anger we have al- ready ceased striving for truth, and have begun striving for ourselves. — C ari y ie. It is easy finding reasons why other folks should be patient. —George Eliot. To suspect a friend is worse than to be deceived by him. —La Rochefoucauld. 30 Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm. — Emerson. No man can be provident of his time who is not prudent in the choice of his company. — Jeremy Taylor. The most profound joy has more of gravity than gayety in it. —Montague. It is not enough to be an upright man, we must be seen to be one: society does not exist on moral ideas Only. —Balzac. It is some compensation for great evils that they enforce great lessons. —Bovee. The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction. They do not pin the reader to a dogma which he must afterwards discover to be inexact; they do not teach him a les- son which he must afterwards unlearn. They repeat, they rearrange, they clarify the lessons of life. — R. L, Stevenson. He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will find the flaw when he may have forgotten its Cause. —Beecher. Where there is much light There is much shade. —Goethe. Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts. — Browning. 31 LINES ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF NOYE. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt ' A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains. — Wordsworth. .. 82 Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron String. — Emerson. That there should one man die ignorant who had capacity for knowledge, this I call a tragedy. — Carlyle. Is thy friend angry with thee ? then provide him an opportunity of showing thee a great favor. Over that his heart must needs melt, and he will love thee again. — Richter. No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence. — George Eliot. We can fix our eyes on perfection, and make almost everything speed towards it. —Ckanning. In the whole course of our observation there is not so misrepresented and abused a personage as Death. The shortest life is long enough if it lead to a better, and the longest life is too short if it does not. — Colton. Let there be many windows to your soul, That all the glory of the universe May beautify it. Not the narrow pane Of one poor creed can catch the radiant rays That shine from countless sources. Tear away The blinds of superstition; let the light Pour through fair windows broad as truth itself, As high as God. —Ella. Wheeler. Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? —Browning. A courage which looks easy and yet is rare: the courage of a teacher repeating day after day the same lessons — the least rewarded of all forms of courage. — Balzac. They have been at a great feast of languages and have Stolen the Scraps. —Much Ado About Nothing. "And always, 'tis the saddest sight to see An old man faithless in humanity." If you have not slept, or if you have slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder stroke, I beseech you, by all angels, to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning, to which all the housemates bring serene and pleasant thoughts, by corruptions and groans. —Emerson. Temperance and labor are the two best physicians of man. —Rousseau. 'Tis a kind of good deed to say well: And yet words are no deeds. —Henry via. A contented spirit is the sweetness of existence. — Dickens. You cannot step twice into the same stream. For as you are stepping in, other and yet other waters flow On. —Heraclitus. 34 Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle. — Michael A ngelo. Nothing dies so hard and rallies so often as intol- erance. —Beecher. Haste not, rest not. — The i)io tto on Goethe's ring. There is no royal road to highest fame, The man has toiled who wears a glorious name. — Emma C . Dawd. Condemn not her whose hours Are not all given to spinning nor to care; Has God not planted every path with flowers Whose end is to be fair ? —Alice Cary. No longer forward nor behind I look in hope or fear; But grateful, take the good I find, The best of now and here. —ivhittier. A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners. —Chesterfield. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many- colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus. — Emerson. 35 God's finger touched him, and he slept. — Tennyson* 36 HOME/ There lies a little city in the hills ; White are its roofs, dim is each dwelling's door, And peace with perfect rest its bosom fills. There the pure mist, the pity of the sea, Comes as a white, soft hand, and reaches o'er And touches its still face most tenderly. Unstirred and calm, amid our shifting years, Lo ! where it lies, far from the clash and roar, With quiet distance blurred, as if thro' tears. O heart, that prayest so for God to send Some loving messenger to go before And lead the way to where thy longings end, Be sure, be very sure, that soon will come His kindest angel, and through that still door Into the Infinite Love will lead thee home. — E. R. Sill. * Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland, California. 37 The cord that binds too strictly snaps itself. — Tennyson, The human heart concerns us more than poring into microscopes, and is larger than can be measured by the pompous figures of the astronomer. — Emerson. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice. —Thoreau. Quotation is a good thing, there is a community of thought in it. —Dr. Johnson. In proportion as we love truth more, and victory less, we shall become anxious to know what it is that leads our opponents to think a's they do. — Herbert Spencer. Even for the dead I will not bind My soul to grief — death cannot long divide: For is it not as if the rose had climbed My garden wall, and blossomed on the other Side? — Alice Cary. If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap, than his neigh- bor, though he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door. — Emerson. " Somewhere in the secret of every sou Is the hidden gleam of a perfect life." 38 OPPORTUNITY. This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream: — There spread a cloud of dust along a plain; And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords Shocked upon swords andshields. A prince's banner Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. A craven hung along the battle's edge, And thought, " Had I a sword of keener steel — That blue blade that the king's son bears, — but this Blunt thing — !" he snapt and flung it from his hand And lowering crept away and left the field. Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead, And weaponless, and saw the broken sword, Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand, And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down, And saved a great cause that heroic day. —E. R.SilL 39 Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend's friend has a friend; be discreet. —Talmud. The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party; but they say nothing, and if you do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away. —Emerson. He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best? — Lowell. Yet I doubt not, through the ages, one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the pro- cess Of the SUnS. —Tennyson. Speech is but broken light upon the depth of the Unspoken. —George Eliot. I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty, I woke, and found that life was duty. — Ellen Sturgis Hooper. Duty — Stern daughter of the voice of God. — Wordsworth. Nature conquers our restlessness by fatigue. — Ha.7nmerton. ''There is more or less sorrow in the word 'good- bye,'* and yet how we like to hear some people say it." 40 <( A verse may find him who a sermon flies." True wit never made us laugh. — Emerson. Too much rest is rust. — Sir Walter Scott. The ornament of a house is the friends w r ho visit it. — Emerson. Next to the originator of a good sentence, is the first qUOter of it. —Emerson. Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices. — Emerson . Nothing bursts forth all at once. The lightning may dart out of a black cloud; but the day sends his bright heralds before him to prepare the world for his Coming. -Hare, The years write their records on men's hearts as they do on trees: inner circles of growth which no eye can see. ^-Saxe Holm. ''We have careful thoughts for the stranger, And smiles for the sometimes guest; But oft for our own the bitter tone, Though we love our own the best." 41 The white flower of a blameless life. —Tennyson, Have a purpose is life, and having it, throw into your work such strength of mind and muscle as God has given you. —Cariyie. The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone. —George Eliot. God's plans like lilies pure and white unfold; We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart; Time will reveal the calyx 3S of gold.— Mary R. Smith. Be noble! and the nobleness that lies In other men, sleeping, but never dead, Will rise in majesty to meet thine own. —Lowell. Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. —Franklin. Death is the liberator of him whom freedom can- not release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console. —Colton. Pitch upon the best course of life, and custom will render it the most easy. —Tiliotson. Anxiety is the poison of human life. —Blair. We should be as careful of our words, as of our actions, and as far from speaking ill as from doing 111. — Cicero. 42 Being too blind to have desire to see. — Tennyson. Feeling is deep and still, and the word that floats on the surface Is as the tossing buoy that betrays where the an- chor is hidden. —Longfellow. Don't hang a dismal picture on the wall, and don't daub with sables and glooms in your conver- sation. — Einerson. Oh, the little more, and how much it is! and the little less, and what worlds away! —Browning. I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of twenty to follow mine own teaching. — The Merchant of Venice. Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swell- ing of the fresh life within that withers and bursts the husk. — George Macdonald. For it is certain to the vulgar eye, few things are wonderful that are not distant. —CarlyU. Like a blind spinner in the sun, I tread my days; I know that all the threads will run Appointed Ways. —Helen Hunt. 43 Ever the words cf the gods resound; But the porches of man's ear Seldom, in this low life's round, Are unsealed, that he may hear. -Emerson. O that the loving woman, she who sat So long a listener at her Master's feet, Had left us Mary's Gospel, — all she heard Too sweet, too subtle for the ear of man! — Hotmes. 44 ONE WEEK. "Gone for just a week," you said; Only seven threads oflight, Morning's gold and evening's red Braided with the starry night. Seven specks of diamond sand From eternity's vast shore, So immeasurable and grand, — Nothing more. One week! time enough to pass From the unremembering sun; Time for shroud and churchyard grass, And the immutable years begun. Time to grasp, with yearning dread, Problems of immortal lore. Yet, "for just one week/' you said,- Nothing more. — Amie S. Pa-* 43 Kindness — a language which the dumb can speak, and the deaf can understand. —Bovee. Nor deem the irrevocable past, As wholly wasted, wholly vain, If, rising on its wrecks, at last To something nobler we attain. —Longfellow. There lies more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds. —Tennyson. America! half brother of the world! With something good and bad of every land. — Bailey. How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. — Merchant of Venice. The only way to have a friend is to be one. — Emerson. If you have built castles in the air your work need not be lost; that is where they should be built; now- put foundations under them. —Thoreau. The fire-fly only shines when on the wing. So it is with man; when once we rest we darken. — Bailey. 46 Be sure of the foundation of your life. Know why you live as you do. Be ready to give a reason for it. Do not, in such a matter as life, build on opinion or custom, or what you guess is true. Make it a matter of certainty and science. — Thomas Starr King, Yesterday I looked on one Who lay as if asleep in perfect peace. His long imprisonment for life was done. Eternity's great freedom his release Had brought. Yet they who loved him called him dead, And wept, refusing to be comforted. — Helen Hunt Jackson. 47 As a tired mother when the day is o'er, Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leaves his broken playthings on the floor, Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead, Which though more splendid, may not please him more ; So nature deals with us and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently that we go Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we knOW. —Longfellow. 48 No life Can be pure in its purpose or strong in its strife And all life not be purer and stronger thereby. — Owen Meredith. All mankind loves a lover. — Emerson. No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men. —Cariyle. Animals are such agreeable friends — they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms. —George Eliot. Silence is the perfect heraldry of joy: I were but little happy if I could say how much. — Much Ado About Nothing. Men at some time are masters of their fates, The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. — Julius Ccesar. Whoever makes home seem to the young dearer and more happy, is a public benefactor. — Henry Ward Beecher. Doing good is the only certainly happy action of a man ' S life . — Sir Philip Sidney. For virtue's self may too much zeal be had; The worst of madmen is a saint run mad. — Pope. The beautiful is as useful as the useful. — Victor Hugo. 49 Self-trust is the first secret of success. — Emerson. The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers; but they rise behind her steps, not before them. —Rtiskin. 'Tis a life-long toil till our lump be leaven — The better! What's come to perfection perishes. — Robert Browning. In me there dwells No greatness, save it be some far-off touch Of greatness to know well I am not great. — Tennyson. The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do. — Longfellow. That best portion of a good man's life; His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love. —Wordsworth. Banish the tears of children; continual rains upon the blossoms are hurtful. —jean Paul. A bad habit which cannot be conquered directly may be overcome by arranging circumstances to help US. — James Freeman Clarke. 50 Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving- thine outgrown shell by life's unrestingsea! — Oliver Wendell Holmes. The understood is but a small domain of our knowing, and the apprehended is greater than the comprehended. Is it said that we do not know God? True, we do not know all about Him, but we know something about Him: — And we do not know all about one another, but we know something about one another. The understanding is the vestibule of the mind! Uncover thy head, and enter the temple of the soul! behold the power, the beauty, and the love! If we had nothing but understanding how little should we know Or think Or feel! —Horatio Stebbins. 51 APRIL IN CALIFORNIA. An April, fairer than the Atlantic June, Whose calendar of perfect days was kept By daily blossoming of some new flower. The fields, whose carpets now were silken white, Next week were orange-velvet, next, sea-blue. It was as if some central fire of bloom, From which in other climes a random root Is now and then shot up, here had burst forth And overflowed the fields, and set the land Aflame with flowers. I watched them day by day; How at the dawn they wake, and open wide Their little petal-windows, how they turn Their slender necks to follow round the sun, And how the passion they express all day In burning color, steals forth with the dew All night in odor. — e. r. Sill 52 Politeness of the mind is to have delicate thoughts. — La Rochefoncatild. Nay, never falter; no great deed is done By falterers who ask for certainty. No good is certain, but the steadfast mind, The undivided will to seek the good. — George Eliot. Let it go before or come after, a good sentence, or a thing well said, is always in season; if it neither suit well with what went before, nor has much coherence with what follows after, it is good in itseli. — Montaigne. To educate the heart, one must be willing to go out of himself and to come into loving contact with Others. — James Freeman Clarke. Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power. — Tennyson. The useful may be trusted to further itself, for many produce it and no one can do without it; but the beautiful must be specially encouraged, for few can present it, while yet all have need of it. — Goethe. There is a purity which only suffering can impart; the stream of life becomes snow-white when it dashes against the rocks. —Jean Paul. 53 If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads. —Emerson. A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts. —Sir Joshua Reynolds. Do not think it wasted time to submit yourself to any influence which may bring upon you any noble feeling. —Ruskin. Each year, one vicious habit rooted out, in time ought to make the worst man good. —Franklin. The more we know, the better we forgive; Whoe'er feels deeply, feels for all who live, — Madame de Stael. The best way of training the young is to train yourself at the same time; not to admonish them, but to be seen always doing that of which you would admonish them. —Plato. I love little children, and it is not a slight thing • when they, who are fresh from God, love us. — Dickens. " Thou hast too much to say about thy rights, and thinkest too little about thy duties. Thou hast but one unalienable right, and that is the sublime one of doing thy duty at all times, under all circumstances, and in all places." 54 Ah, March! we know thou art Kind-hearted, spite of ugly looks and threats, And, out of sight, art nursing April's violets! — -Helen Hiuit. A gush of bird song, a patter of dew, A cloud, and a rainbow's warning, Suddenly sunshine and perfect blue, — An April day in the morning. — Harriet Prescott Spojford. 55 PAGANINI. "He shambled awkward on the stage, the while Across the waiting audience swept a smile. " With clumsy touch, when first he drew the bow, lie snapped a string. The audience tittered low.