Is quick and transient,--comes, and lo! is gone,
While Northern thought is slow and durable.
_Luria. Act v._
A people is but the attempt of many
To rise to the completer life of one;
And those who live as models for the mass
Are singly of more value than they all.
_Luria. Act v._
I count life just a stuff
To try the soul's strength on.
_In a Balcony._
Was there nought better than to enjoy?
No feat which, done, would make time break,
And let us pent-up creatures through
Into eternity, our due?
No forcing earth teach heaven's employ?
_Dîs Aliter Visum; or, Le Byron de nos Jours._
There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good shall be good, with for evil so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.
_Abt Vogler. ix._
Then welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
_Rabbi Ben Ezra._
What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me.
_Rabbi Ben Ezra._
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.
_Rabbi Ben Ezra._
For life, with all it yields of joy and woe,
And hope and fear (believe the aged friend),
Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,--
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.
_A Death in the Desert._
The body sprang
At once to the height, and stayed; but the soul,--no!
_A Death in the Desert._
What? Was man made a wheel-work to wind up,
And be discharged, and straight wound up anew?
No! grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets:
May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.
_A Death in the Desert._
For I say this is death and the sole death,--
When a man's loss comes to him from his gain,
Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance,
And lack of love from love made manifest.
_A Death in the Desert._
Progress, man's distinctive mark alone,
Not God's, and not the beasts: God is, they are;
Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be.
_A Death in the Desert._
The ultimate, angels' law,
Indulging every instinct of the soul
There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing!
_A Death in the Desert._
How sad and bad and mad it was!
But then, how it was sweet!
_Confessions. ix._
So may a glory from defect arise.
_Deaf and Dumb._
This could but have happened once,--
And we missed it, lost it forever.
_Youth and Art. xvii._
Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face.
. . . . . . .
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers,
The heroes of old;
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.
_Prospice._
It 's wiser being good than bad;
It 's safer being meek than fierce;
It 's fitter being sane than mad.
My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That after Last returns the First,
Though a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best can't end worst,
Nor what God blessed once prove accurst.
_Apparent Failure. vii._
In the great right of an excessive wrong.
_The Ring and the Book. The other Half-Rome. Line 1055._
Was never evening yet
But seemed far beautifuller than its day.
_The Ring and the Book. Pompilia. Line 357._
The curious crime, the fine
Felicity and flower of wickedness.
_The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 590._
Of what I call God,
And fools call Nature.
_The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 1073._
Why comes temptation, but for man to meet
And master and make crouch beneath his foot,
And so be pedestaled in triumph?
_The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 1185._
White shall not neutralize the black, nor good
Compensate bad in man, absolve him so:
Life's business being just the terrible choice.
_The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 1236._
It is the glory and good of Art
That Art remains the one way possible
Of speaking truth,--to mouths like mine, at least.
_The Book and the Ring. The Pope. Line 842._
Thy[651-1] rare gold ring of verse (the poet praised)
Linking our England to his Italy.
_The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 873._
But how carve way i' the life that lies before,
If bent on groaning ever for the past?
_Balaustion's Adventure._
Better have failed in the high aim, as I,
Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed,--
As, God be thanked! I do not.
_The Inn Album. iv._
Have you found your life distasteful?
My life did, and does, smack sweet.
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?
Mine I saved and hold complete.
Do your joys with age diminish?
When mine fail me, I 'll complain.
Must in death your daylight finish?
My sun sets to rise again.
_At the "Mermaid." Stanza 10._
"With this same key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart"[652-1] once more!
Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!
_House. x._
God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance,
Rests never on the track until it reach
Delinquency.[652-2]
_Cenciaja._
FOOTNOTES:
[647-1] Italy.
[651-1] Mrs. Browning.
[652-1] See Wordsworth, page 485.
[652-2] See Herbert, page 206.
CHARLES DICKENS. 1812-1870.
A demd, damp, moist, unpleasant body!
_Nicholas Nickleby. Chap. xxxiv._
My life is one demd horrid grind.
_Nicholas Nickleby. Chap. lxiv._
In a Pickwickian sense.
_Pickwick Papers. Chap. i._
Oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green,
That creepeth o'er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.
_Pickwick Papers. Chap. vi._
He 's tough, ma'am,--tough is J. B.; tough and devilish sly.
_Dombey and Son. Chap. vii._
When found, make a note of.
_Dombey and Son. Chap. xv._
The bearings of this observation lays in the application on it.
_Dombey and Son. Chap. xxiii._
Barkis is willin'.
_David Copperfield. Chap. v._
Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, all very good words
for the lips,--especially prunes and prism.
_Little Dorrit. Book ii. Chap. v._
Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was
beforehand with all the public departments in the art of
perceiving HOW NOT TO DO IT.
_Little Dorrit. Book ii. Chap. x._
In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile.
_Christmas Carol. Stave 2._
CHRISTOPHER P. CRANCH. 1813- ----.
Thought is deeper than all speech,
Feeling deeper than all thought;
Souls to souls can never teach
What unto themselves was taught.
_Stanzas._
We are spirits clad in veils;
Man by man was never seen;
All our deep communing fails
To remove the shadowy screen.
_Stanzas._
F. W. FABER. 1814-1863.
For right is right, since God is God,[653-1]
And right the day must win;
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin.
_The Right must win._
Labour itself is but a sorrowful song,
The protest of the weak against the strong.
_The Sorrowful World._
FOOTNOTES:
[653-1] See Crabbe, page 444.
CHARLES MACKAY. 1814- ----.
Cleon hath a million acres,--ne'er a one have I;
Cleon dwelleth in a palace,--in a cottage I.
_Cleon and I._
But the sunshine aye shall light the sky,
As round and round we run;
And the truth shall ever come uppermost,
And justice shall be done.
_Eternal Justice. Stanza 4._
Aid the dawning, tongue and pen;
Aid it, hopes of honest men!
_Clear the Way._
Some love to roam o'er the dark sea's foam,
Where the shrill winds whistle free.
_Some love to roam._
There 's a good time coming, boys!
A good time coming.
_The Good Time coming._
Old Tubal Cain was a man of might
In the days when earth was young.
_Tubal Cain._
ELLEN STURGIS HOOPER. 1816-1841.
I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly;
And thou shalt find thy dream to be
A truth and noonday light to thee.
_Life a Duty._
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY. 1816- ----.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
Life 's but a means unto an end; that end
Beginning, mean, and end to all things,--God.
_Festus. Scene, A Country Town._
Poets are all who love, who feel great truths,
And tell them; and the truth of truths is love.
_Scene, Another and a Better World._
America! half-brother of the world!
With something good and bad of every land.
_Scene, The Surface._
ELIZA COOK. 1817- ----.
I love it, I love it, and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old arm-chair?
_The Old Arm-Chair._
How cruelly sweet are the echoes that start
When memory plays an old tune on the heart!
_Old Dobbin._
NATHANIEL P. WILLIS. 1817-1867.
At present there is no distinction among the upper ten thousand
of the city.[655-1]
_Necessity for a Promenade Drive._
For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart,
And makes his pulses fly,
To catch the thrill of a happy voice
And the light of a pleasant eye.
_Saturday Afternoon._
It is the month of June,
The month of leaves and roses,
When pleasant sights salute the eyes,
And pleasant scents the noses.
_The Month of June._
Let us weep in our darkness, but weep not for him!
Not for him who, departing, leaves millions in tears!
Not for him who has died full of honor and years!
Not for him who ascended Fame's ladder so high
From the round at the top he has stepped to the sky.
_The Death of Harrison._
FOOTNOTES:
[655-1] See Haliburton, page 580.
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 1817- ----.
I laugh, for hope hath happy place with me;
If my bark sinks, 't is to another sea.
_A Poet's Hope._
I sing New England, as she lights her fire
In every Prairie's midst; and where the bright
Enchanting stars shine pure through Southern night,
She still is there, the guardian on the tower,
To open for the world a purer hour.
_New England._
Most joyful let the Poet be;
It is through him that all men see.
_The Poet of the Old and New Times._
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 1819-1891.
Earth's noblest thing,--a woman perfected.
_Irené._
Be noble! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.
_Sonnet iv._
Great truths are portions of the soul of man;
Great souls are portions of eternity.
_Sonnet vi._
To win the secret of a weed's plain heart.
_Sonnet xxv._
Two meanings have our lightest fantasies,--
One of the flesh, and of the spirit one.
_Sonnet xxxiv._ (_Ed. 1844._)
All thoughts that mould the age begin
Deep down within the primitive soul.
_An Incident in a Railroad Car._
It may be glorious to write
Thoughts that shall glad the two or three
High souls, like those far stars that come in sight
Once in a century.
_An Incident in a Railroad Car._
No man is born into the world whose work
Is not born with him. There is always work,
And tools to work withal, for those who will;
And blessed are the horny hands of toil.
_A Glance behind the Curtain._
They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak.
. . . . .
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.
_Stanzas on Freedom._
Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts.
_Columbus._
One day with life and heart
Is more than time enough to find a world.
_Columbus._
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right;
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
_The Present Crisis._
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne.
_The Present Crisis._
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified.
_The Present Crisis._
Before man made us citizens, great Nature made us men.
_On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington._
Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold.
_To the Dandelion._
This child is not mine as the first was;
I cannot sing it to rest;
I cannot lift it up fatherly,
And bless it upon my breast.
Yet it lies in my little one's cradle,
And sits in my little one's chair,
And the light of the heaven she 's gone to
Transfigures its golden hair.
_The Changeling._
The thing we long for, that we are
For one transcendent moment.
_Longing._
She doeth little kindnesses
Which most leave undone, or despise.
_My Love. iv._
Not only around our infancy
Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not.
_The Vision of Sir Launfal. Prelude to Part First._
'T is heaven alone that is given away;
'T is only God may be had for the asking.
_The Vision of Sir Launfal. Prelude to Part First._
And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.
_The Vision of Sir Launfal. Prelude to Part First._
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it;
We are happy now because God wills it.
_The Vision of Sir Launfal. Prelude to Part First._
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how.
_The Vision of Sir Launfal. Prelude to Part First._
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,--
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.
_The Vision of Sir Launfal. Part Second. viii._
There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one,
Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on.
_A Fable for Critics._
Nature fits all her children with something to do.
_A Fable for Critics._
Ez fer war, I call it murder,--
There you hev it plain an' flat;
I don't want to go no furder
Than my Testyment fer that.
. . . . .
An' you 've gut to git up airly
Ef you want to take in God.
_The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. i._
Laborin' man an' laborin' woman
Hev one glory an' one shame;
Ev'y thin' thet 's done inhuman
Injers all on 'em the same.
_The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. i._
This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur.[659-1]
_The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. ii._
Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man;
He 's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf;
But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,--
He 's ben true to _one_ party, an' thet is himself.
_The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. ii._
We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.
_The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. iii._
But John P.
Robinson, he
Sez they did n't know everythin' down in Judee.
_The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. iii._
I _don't_ believe in princerple,
But oh I _du_ in interest.
_The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. vi._
Of my merit
On thet pint you yourself may jedge;
All is, I never drink no sperit,
Nor I haint never signed no pledge.
_The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. vii._
Ez to my princerples, I glory
In hevin' nothin' o' the sort.
_The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. vii._
Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown
An' peeked in thru' the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'Ith no one nigh to hender.
_The Biglow Papers. Second Series. The Courtin'._
The very room, coz she was in,
Seemed warm from floor to ceilin'.
_The Biglow Papers. Second Series. The Courtin'._
'T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look
On sech a blessed cretur.
_The Biglow Papers. Second Series. The Courtin'._
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,
But hern went pity-Zekle.
_The Biglow Papers. Second Series. The Courtin'._
All kin' o' smily round the lips,
An' teary round the lashes.
_The Biglow Papers. Second Series. The Courtin'._
Like streams that keep a summer mind
Snow-hid in Jenooary.
_The Biglow Papers. Second Series. The Courtin'._
Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood.
_The Biglow Papers. Second Series. No. vi._
Soft-heartedness, in times like these,
Shows sof'ness in the upper story.
_The Biglow Papers. Second Series. No. vii._
Earth's biggest country 's gut her soul,
An' risen up earth's greatest nation.
_The Biglow Papers. Second Series. No. vii._
Under the yaller pines I house,
When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented,
An' hear among their furry boughs
The baskin' west-wind purr contented.
_The Biglow Papers. Second Series. No. x._
Wut 's words to them whose faith an' truth
On war's red techstone rang true metal;
Who ventered life an' love an' youth
For the gret prize o' death in battle?
_The Biglow Papers. Second Series. No. x._
From lower to the higher next,
Not to the top, is Nature's text;
And embryo Good, to reach full stature,
Absorbs the Evil in its nature.
_Festina Lente. Moral._
Though old the thought and oft exprest,
'T is his at last who says it best.[660-1]
_For an Autograph._
Nature, they say, doth dote,
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan,
Repeating us by rote.
_Ode at the Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865._
Here was a type of the true elder race,
And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face.
_Ode at the Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865._
Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past.
_The Cathedral._
The one thing finished in this hasty world.
_The Cathedral._
These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,
Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;
The diver Omar plucked them from their bed,
Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.
_In a copy of Omar Khayyám._
The clear, sweet singer with the crown of snow
Not whiter than the thoughts that housed below.
_To George William Curtis._
But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet
Lessen like sound of friends' departing feet;
And Death is beautiful as feet of friend
Coming with welcome at our journey's end.
For me Fate gave, whate'er she else denied,
A nature sloping to the southern side;
I thank her for it, though when clouds arise
Such natures double-darken gloomy skies.
_To George William Curtis._
In life's small things be resolute and great
To keep thy muscle trained: know'st thou when Fate
Thy measure takes, or when she 'll say to thee,
"I find thee worthy; do this deed for me"?
_Epigram._
In vain we call old notions fudge,
And bend our conscience to our dealing;
The Ten Commandments will not budge,
And stealing will continue stealing.
_Motto of the American Copyright League_ (written Nov. 20, 1885).
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome
for the character.
_Among my Books. First Series. Dryden._
A wise scepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.
_Among my Books. First Series. Shakespeare Once More._
One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.
_Among my Books. First Series. Shakespeare Once More._
Aspiration sees only one side of every question; possession many.
_Among my Books. First Series. New England Two Centuries ago._
Truly there is a tide in the affairs of men; but there is no
gulf-stream setting forever in one direction.
_Among my Books. First Series. New England Two Centuries ago._
There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its
keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business.
_Among my Books. First Series. New England Two Centuries ago._
Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious
liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.
_Among my Books. First Series. New England Two Centuries ago._
It was in making education not only common to all, but in some
sense compulsory on all, that the destiny of the free republics
of America was practically settled.
_Among my Books. First Series. New England Two Centuries ago._
Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose
power a man is.
_Among my Books. First Series. Rousseau and the Sentimentalists._
There is no work of genius which has not been the delight of
mankind, no word of genius to which the human heart and soul have
not sooner or later responded.
_Among my Books. First Series. Rousseau and the Sentimentalists._
Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments
in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
_Among my Books. First Series. Rousseau and the Sentimentalists._
Sentiment is intellectualized emotion,--emotion precipitated, as
it were, in pretty crystals by the fancy.
_Among my Books. First Series. Rousseau and the Sentimentalists._
No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in
dealing with himself.
_Among my Books. First Series. Rousseau and the Sentimentalists._
In all literary history there is no such figure as Dante, no such
homogeneousness of life and works, such loyalty to ideas, such
sublime irrecognition of the unessential.
_Among my Books. Second Series. Dante._
Whoever can endure unmixed delight, whoever can tolerate music
and painting and poetry all in one, whoever wishes to be rid of
thought and to let the busy anvils of the brain be silent for a
time, let him read in the "Faery Queen."
_Among my Books. Second Series. Spenser._
The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all
weathers, is that which is woven of conviction and set with the
sharp mordant of experience.
_My Study Windows. Abraham Lincoln, 1864._
It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native
metal of a man is tested.
_My Study Windows. Abraham Lincoln, 1864._
What a sense of security in an old book which Time has criticised
for us!
_Library of Old Authors._
There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only
argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.
_Democracy and Addresses._
Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the
misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.
_Democracy and Addresses._
The soil out of which such men as he are made is good to be born
on, good to live on, good to die for and to be buried in.
_Garfield._
A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great
occasions.
_Garfield._
It ["The Ancient Mariner"] is marvellous in its mastery over that
delightfully fortuitous inconsequence that is the adamantine
logic of dreamland.
_Coleridge._
He gives us the very quintessence of perception,--the clearly
crystalized precipitation of all that is most precious in the
ferment of impression after the impertinent and obtrusive
particulars have evaporated from the memory.
_Coleridge._
If I were asked what book is better than a cheap book, I should
answer that there is one book better than a cheap book,--and that
is a book honestly come by.
_Before the U. S. Senate Committee on Patents, Jan. 29, 1886._
FOOTNOTES:
[659-1] See Moore, page 519.
[660-1] See Emerson, page 604.
CHARLES KINGSLEY. 1819-1875.
O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
Across the sands o' Dee!
_The Sands of Dee._
Men must work, and women must weep.
_The Three Fishers._
Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long:
And so make life, death, and that vast forever
One grand sweet song.
_A Farewell._
The world goes up and the world goes down,
And the sunshine follows the rain;
And yesterday's sneer and yesterday's frown
Can never come over again.
_Dolcino to Margaret._
ULYSSES S. GRANT. 1822-1885.
No other terms than unconditional and immediate surrender. I
propose to move immediately upon your works.
_To Gen. S. B. Buckner, Fort Donelson, Feb. 16, 1862._
I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer.
_Despatch to Washington. Before Spottsylvania Court House, May 11, 1864._
Let us have peace.
_Accepting a Nomination for the Presidency, May 29, 1868._
I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so
effectual as their strict construction.
_From the Inaugural Address, March 4, 1869._
Let no guilty man escape, if it can be avoided. No personal
considerations should stand in the way of performing a duty.
_Indorsement of a Letter relating to the Whiskey Ring, July 29, 1875._
MATTHEW ARNOLD. 1822-1888.
Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask. Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge.
_Shakespeare._
Strew on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew!
In quiet she reposes;
Ah, would that I did too!
_Requiescat._
To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost
Which blamed the living man.
_Growing Old._
Time may restore us in his course
Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force;
But where will Europe's latter hour
Again find Wordsworth's healing power?
_Memorial Verses._