would vote for nothing but a supply of toothpicks.
_Douglas Jerrold's Wit._
The surest way to hit a woman's heart is to take aim kneeling.
_Douglas Jerrold's Wit._
The nobleman of the garden.
_The Pineapple._
That fellow would vulgarize the day of judgment.
_A Comic Author._
The best thing I know between France and England is the sea.
_The Anglo-French Alliance._
The life of the husbandman,--a life fed by the bounty of earth
and sweetened by the airs of heaven.
_The Husbandman's Life._
Some people are so fond of ill-luck that they run half-way to
meet it.
_Meeting Troubles Half-way._
Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she
laughs with a harvest.
_A Land of Plenty_ [_Australia_].
The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I
were a grave-digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I
could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.
_Ugly Trades._
A blessed companion is a book,--a book that fitly chosen is a
life-long friend.
_Books._
There is something about a wedding-gown prettier than in any
other gown in the world.
_A Wedding-gown._
He was so good he would pour rose-water on a toad.
_A Charitable Man._
As for the brandy, "nothing extenuate;" and the water, put nought
in in malice.
_Shakespeare Grog._
Talk to him of Jacob's ladder, and he would ask the number of the
steps.
_A Matter-of-fact Man._
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 1803-1882.
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.
_Each and All._
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore,
With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.
_Each and All._
Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought.
_The Problem._
Out from the heart of Nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old.
_The Problem._
The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew:
The conscious stone to beauty grew.
_The Problem._
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon
As the best gem upon her zone.
_The Problem._
Earth laughs in flowers to see her boastful boys
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
Clear of the grave.
_Hamatreya._
Good bye, proud world! I 'm going home;
Thou art not my friend, and I 'm not thine.[598-1]
_Good Bye._
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?
_Good Bye._
If eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.
_The Rhodora._
Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind.[599-1]
_Ode, inscribed to W. H. Channing._
Olympian bards who sung
Divine ideas below,
Which always find us young
And always keep us so.
_Ode to Beauty._
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.
_Give all to Love._
Love not the flower they pluck and know it not,
And all their botany is Latin names.
_Blight._
The silent organ loudest chants
The master's requiem.
_Dirge._
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattl'd farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.[599-2]
_Hymn sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument._
What potent blood hath modest May!
_May-Day._
And striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form.
_May-Day._
And every man, in love or pride,
Of his fate is never wide.
_Nemesis._
None shall rule but the humble,
And none but Toil shall have.
_Boston Hymn. 1863._
Oh, tenderly the haughty day
Fills his blue urn with fire.
_Ode, Concord, July 4, 1857._
Go put your creed into your deed,
Nor speak with double tongue.
_Ode, Concord, July 4, 1857._
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can!
_Voluntaries._
Whoever fights, whoever falls,
Justice conquers evermore.
_Voluntaries._
Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.
_Solution._
Born for success he seemed,
With grace to win, with heart to hold,
With shining gifts that took all eyes.
_In Memoriam._
Nor mourn the unalterable Days
That Genius goes and Folly stays.
_In Memoriam._
Fear not, then, thou child infirm;
There 's no god dare wrong a worm.
_Compensation._
He thought it happier to be dead,
To die for Beauty, than live for bread.
_Beauty._
Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill?
Pay every debt, as if God wrote the bill?
_Suum Cuique._
Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.
_Quatrains. Nature._
Though love repine, and reason chafe,
There came a voice without reply,--
"'T is man's perdition to be safe
When for the truth he ought to die."
_Sacrifice._
For what avail the plough or sail,
Or land or life, if freedom fail?
_Boston._
If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and
there abide, the huge world will come round to him.[601-1]
_Nature. Addresses and Lectures. The American Scholar._
There is no great and no small[601-2]
To the Soul that maketh all;
And where it cometh, all things are;
And it cometh everywhere.
_Essays. First Series. Epigraph to History._
Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.
_Essays. First Series. History._
Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.
_Essays. First Series. History._
A man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots, whose flower and
fruitage is the world.
_Essays. First Series. History._
The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its
aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and
customs.
_Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance._
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by
little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
_Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance._
To be great is to be misunderstood.
_Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance._
Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will.
_Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance._
Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature.
Everything is made of one hidden stuff.
_Essays. First Series. Compensation._
It is as impossible for a man to be cheated by any one but
himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time.
_Essays. First Series. Compensation._
Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary
of the intuitions.
_Essays. First Series. Compensation._
Every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which
it proceeds.
_Essays. First Series. Spiritual Laws._
All mankind love a lover.
_Essays. First Series. Love._
A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs;
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover rooted stays.
_Essays. First Series. Epigraph to Friendship._
A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature.
_Essays. First Series. Friendship._
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
_Essays. First Series. Circles._
There is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of behaviour
yield to the energy of the individual.
_Essays. Second Series. Manners._
And with Cæsar to take in his hand the army, the empire, and
Cleopatra, and say, "All these will I relinquish if you will show
me the fountain of the Nile."
_New England Reformers._
He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds
us of others.
_Representative Men. Uses of Great Men._
Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the
beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish
to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?[602-1]
_Representative Men. Montaigne._
Thought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him
who can adequately place it.
_Representative Men. Shakespeare._
The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue.
_English Traits. Race._
I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in
his shoes.
_English Traits. Manners._
A creative economy is the fuel of magnificence.
_English Traits. Aristocracy._
The manly part is to do with might and main what you can do.
_The Conduct of Life. Wealth._
The alleged power to charm down insanity, or ferocity in beasts,
is a power behind the eye.
_The Conduct of Life. Behaviour._
Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.
_The Conduct of Life. Behaviour._
Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.
_The Conduct of Life. Considerations by the Way._
God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness
in heaven or earth.
_The Conduct of Life. Society and Solitude._
Hitch your wagon to a star.
_The Conduct of Life. Civilization._
I rarely read any Latin, Greek, German, Italian, sometimes not a
French book, in the original, which I can procure in a good
version. I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English
speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region
under heaven. I should as soon think of swimming across Charles
River when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in
originals when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue.
_The Conduct of Life. Books._
We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count.
_The Conduct of Life. Old Age._
Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for
courtesy.
_Letters and Social Aims. Social Aims._
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.
_Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality._
Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of
it.[604-1]
_Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality._
When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor
replies, "Yet he was more original than his originals. He
breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life."
_Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality._
In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others
as it is to invent.
_Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality._
The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted
until within this century.
_Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality._
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any
material force; that thoughts rule the world.
_Progress of Culture. Phi Beta Kappa Address, July 18, 1867._
I do not find that the age or country makes the least difference;
no, nor the language the actors spoke, nor the religion which
they professed, whether Arab in the desert or Frenchman in the
Academy. I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over
the world were of one religion.[604-2]
_Lectures and Biographical Sketches. The Preacher._
FOOTNOTES:
[598-1] See Byron, page 544.
[599-1] 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.--RUMBOLD (when on the
scaffold).
[599-2]
No war or battle sound
Was heard the world around.
MILTON: _Hymn of Christ's Nativity, line 31._
[601-1] Everything comes if a man will only wait.--DISRAELI:
_Tancred, book iv. chap. viii._
[601-2] See Pope, page 316.
[602-1] See Davies, page 176.
[604-1] There is not less wit nor less invention in applying
rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first
author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say
that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a
talent.--BAYLE: _vol. ii. p. 779._
Though old the thought and oft exprest,
'T is his at last who says it best.
LOWELL: _For an Autograph._
[604-2] See Johnson, page 370.
RICHARD HENGEST HORNE. 1803- ----.
'T is always morning somewhere in the world.[604-3]
_Orion. Book iii. Canto ii._ (1843.)
FOOTNOTES:
[604-3] 'T is always morning somewhere.--LONGFELLOW: _Wayside Inn.
Birds of Killingworth, stanza 16._
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 1804-1879.
My country is the world; my countrymen are mankind.[605-1]
_Prospectus of the Public Liberator, 1830._
I am in earnest. I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will
not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard!
_Salutatory of the Liberator, Jan. 1, 1831._
Our country is the world; our countrymen are mankind.
_Motto of the Liberator, Vol. i. No. 1, 1831._
I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice.
_The Liberator, Vol. i. No. 1, 1831._
Our country is the world; our countrymen are all mankind.
_Prospectus of the Liberator, Dec. 15, 1837._
The compact which exists between the North and the South is a
covenant with death and an agreement with hell.[605-2]
_Resolution adopted by the Antislavery Society, Jan. 27, 1843._
FOOTNOTES:
[605-1] Socrates said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a
citizen of the world.--PLUTARCH: _On Banishment._
Diogenes, when asked from what country he came, replied, "I am a
citizen of the world."--DIOGENES LAERTIUS.
_My country is the world_, and my religion is to do good.--THOMAS
PAINE: _Rights of Man, chap. v._
[605-2] We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we
at agreement.--_Isaiah xxviii. 15._
MARY HOWITT. 1804-1888.
Old England is our home, and Englishmen are we;
Our tongue is known in every clime, our flag in every sea.
_Old England is our Home._
"Will you walk into my parlour?" said a spider to a fly;
"'T is the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy."
_The Spider and the Fly._
SARAH FLOWER ADAMS. 1805-1848.
Nearer, my God, to Thee!
Nearer to Thee!
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me,
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee!
Nearer to Thee!
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON. 1805-1873.
Curse away!
And let me tell thee, Beausant, a wise proverb
The Arabs have,--"Curses are like young chickens,
And still come home to roost."
_The Lady of Lyons. Act v. Sc. 2._
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword.[606-1]
_Richelieu. Act ii. Sc. 2._
Take away the sword;
States can be saved without it.
_Richelieu. Act ii. Sc. 2._
In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves
For a bright manhood, there is no such word
As "fail."
_Richelieu. Act ii. Sc. 2._
The brilliant chief, irregularly great,
Frank, haughty, rash,--the Rupert of debate![606-2]
_The New Timon._ (_1846._) _Part i._
_Alone!_--that worn-out word,
So idly spoken, and so coldly heard;
Yet all that poets sing and grief hath known
Of hopes laid waste, knells in that word ALONE!
_The New Timon._ (_1846._) _Part ii._
When stars are in the quiet skies,
Then most I pine for thee;
Bend on me then thy tender eyes,
As stars look on the sea.
_When Stars are in the quiet Skies._
Buy my flowers,--oh buy, I pray!
The blind girl comes from afar.
_Buy my Flowers._
The man who smokes, thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan.
_Night and Morning. Chap. vi._
FOOTNOTES:
[606-1] See Burton, page 189.
[606-2] In April, 1844, Mr. Disraeli thus alluded to Lord Stanley:
"The noble lord is the Rupert of debate."
BENJAMIN DISRAELI (EARL BEACONSFIELD). 1805-1881.
Free trade is not a principle, it is an expedient.[607-1]
_On Import Duties, April 25, 1843._
The noble lord[607-2] is the Rupert of debate.[607-3]
_Speech, April, 1844._
A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.
_Speech, March 17, 1845._
A precedent embalms a principle.
_Speech, Feb. 22, 1848._
It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.
_Speech, Jan. 24, 1860._
The characteristic of the present age is craving credulity.
_Speech, Nov. 25, 1864._
Assassination has never changed the history of the world.
_Speech, May, 1865._
I see before me the statue of a celebrated minister,[607-4] who
said that confidence was a plant of slow growth. But I believe,
however gradual may be the growth of confidence, that of credit
requires still more time to arrive at maturity.
_Speech, Nov. 9, 1867._
The secret of success is constancy to purpose.
_Speech, June 24, 1870._
The author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a
mother who talks about her own children.
_Speech, Nov. 19, 1870._
Apologies only account for that which they do not alter.
_Speech, July 28, 1871._
Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of
man.
_Speech, April 3, 1872._
I repeat . . . that all power is a trust; that we are accountable
for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all
springs, and all must exist.[608-1]
_Vivian Grey. Book vi. Chap. vii._
Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the
creatures of men.
_Vivian Grey. Book vi. Chap. vii._
The disappointment of manhood succeeds to the delusion of youth:
let us hope that the heritage of old age is not despair.
_Vivian Grey. Book viii. Chap. iv._
The first favourite was never heard of, the second favourite was
never seen after the distance post, all the ten-to-oners were in
the rear, and a dark horse[608-2] which had never been thought
of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in
the list, rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph.
_The Young Duke. Book i. Chap. v._
Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.
_Contarini Fleming. Part iv. Chap. v._
Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret.
_Coningsby. Book iii. Chap. i._
But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars,
and each moment is a day, and the race a life.
_Sybil. Book i. Chap. ii._
Only think of Cockie Graves having gone and done it!
_Sybil. Book i. Chap. ii._
The Duke of Wellington brought to the post of first minister
immortal fame,--a quality of success which would almost seem to
include all others.
_Sybil. Book i. Chap. iii._
The Egremonts had never said anything that was remembered, or
done anything that could be recalled.
_Sybil. Book i. Chap. iii._
If the history of England be ever written by one who has the
knowledge and the courage,--and both qualities are equally
requisite for the undertaking,--the world will be more astonished
than when reading the Roman annals by Niebuhr.
_Sybil. Book i. Chap. iii._
That earliest shock in one's life which occurs to all of us;
which first makes us think.
_Sybil. Book i. Chap. v._
To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to
knowledge.
_Sybil. Book i. Chap. v._
Principle is ever my motto, not expediency.
_Sybil. Book ii. Chap. ii._
Property has its duties as well as its rights.[609-1]
_Sybil. Book ii. Chap. xi._
Mr. Kremlin was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one
idea, and that was wrong.[609-2]
_Sybil. Book iv. Chap. v._
Everything comes if a man will only wait.[609-3]
_Tancred. Book iv. Chap. viii._ (_1847._)
That when a man fell into his anecdotage, it was a sign for him
to retire.
_Lothair. Chap. xxviii._
You know who critics are?--the men who have failed in literature
and art.[609-4]
_Lothair. Chap. xxxv._
His Christianity was muscular.
_Endymion. Chap. xiv._
The Athanasian Creed is the most splendid ecclesiastical lyric
ever poured forth by the genius of man.
_Endymion. Chap. lii._
The world is a wheel, and it will all come round right.
_Endymion. Chap. lxx._
"As for that," said Waldenshare, "sensible men are all of the
same religion." "Pray, what is that?" inquired the Prince.
"Sensible men never tell."[610-1]
_Endymion. Chap. lxxxi._
The sweet simplicity of the three per cents.[610-2]
_Endymion. Chap. xcvi._
FOOTNOTES:
[607-1] It is a condition which confronts us, not a
theory.--GROVER CLEVELAND: _Annual Message, 1887. Reference to the
Tariff._
[607-2] Lord Stanley.
[607-3] See Bulwer, page 606.
[607-4] William Pitt, Earl of Chatham.
[608-1] See Webster, page 532.
[608-2] A common political phrase in the United States.
[609-1] See Drummond, page 582.
[609-2] See Johnson, page 371.
[609-3] See Emerson, page 601.
All things come round to him who will but wait.--LONGFELLOW:
_Tales of a Wayside Inn. The Student's Tale._ (1862.)
[609-4] See Coleridge, page 505.
[610-1] See Johnson, page 370.
An anecdote is related of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper (1621-1683),
who, in speaking of religion, said, "People differ in their
discourse and profession about these matters, but men of sense are
really but of one religion." To the inquiry of "What religion?"
the Earl said, "Men of sense never tell it."--BURNET: _History of
my own Times, vol. i. p. 175, note_ (edition 1833).
[610-2] See Stowell, page 437.
ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 1807-1855.
And thou, vast ocean! on whose awful face
Time's iron feet can print no ruin-trace.[610-3]
_The Omnipresence of the Deity. Part i._
The soul aspiring pants its source to mount,
As streams meander level with their fount.[610-4]
_The Omnipresence of the Deity. Part i._
The solitary monk who shook the world
From pagan slumber, when the gospel trump
Thunder'd its challenge from his dauntless lips
In peals of truth.
_Luther. Man's Need and God's Supply._
And not from Nature up to Nature's God,[610-5]
But down from Nature's God look Nature through.
_Luther. A Landscape of Domestic Life._
FOOTNOTES:
[610-3] See Byron, page 547.
[610-4] We take this to be, on the whole, the worst similitude in
the world. In the first place, no stream meanders or can possibly
meander level with the fount. In the next place, if streams did
meander level with their founts, no two motions can be less like
each other than that of meandering level and that of mounting
upwards.--MACAULAY: _Review of Montgomery's Poems_ (_Eleventh
Edition_). _Edinburgh Review, April, 1830._
These lines were omitted in the subsequent edition of the poem.
[610-5] See Bolingbroke, page 304.
CHARLES JEFFERYS. 1807-1865.
Come o'er the moonlit sea,
The waves are brightly glowing.
_The Moonlit Sea._
The morn was fair, the skies were clear,
No breath came o'er the sea.
_The Rose of Allandale._
Meek and lowly, pure and holy,
Chief among the "blessed three."
_Charity._
Come, wander with me, for the moonbeams are bright
On river and forest, o'er mountain and lea.
_Come, wander with me._
A word in season spoken
May calm the troubled breast.
_A Word in Season._
The bud is on the bough again,
The leaf is on the tree.
_The Meeting of Spring and Summer._
I have heard the mavis singing
Its love-song to the morn;
I 've seen the dew-drop clinging
To the rose just newly born.
_Mary of Argyle._
We have lived and loved together
Through many changing years;
We have shared each other's gladness,
And wept each other's tears.
_We have lived and loved together._
LADY DUFFERIN. 1807-1867.
I 'm sitting on the stile, Mary,
Where we sat side by side.
_Lament of the Irish Emigrant._
I 'm very lonely now, Mary,
For the poor make no new friends;
But oh they love the better still
The few our Father sends!
_Lament of the Irish Emigrant._
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 1807-1882.
(_From the edition of 1886._)
Look, then, into thine heart, and write![612-1]
_Voices of the Night. Prelude._
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.[612-2]
_A Psalm of Life._
Life is real! life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
_A Psalm of Life._
Art is long, and time is fleeting,[612-3]
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.[612-4]
_A Psalm of Life._
Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, act in the living present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
_A Psalm of Life._
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
_A Psalm of Life._
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;[612-5]
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
_A Psalm of Life._
There is a reaper whose name is Death,[613-1]
And with his sickle keen
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.
_The Reaper and the Flowers._
The star of the unconquered will.
_The Light of Stars._
Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know erelong,--
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.
_The Light of Stars._
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.
_Flowers._
The hooded clouds, like friars,
Tell their beads in drops of rain.
_Midnight Mass._