regard me as unhappy when you catch me in these moods: I am never more happy than at times, when by the cast of my countenance men judge me most miserable. My friend, the events which have left this sadness behind them are of no recent date. The melancholy which comes over me with the recollection of them* is not hurtful, but only tends to soften and tranquillize my mind, to detach me from the restlessness of human pursuits. The stronger I feel this detachment, the more I find myself drawn heavenward to the contemplation of spiritual objects. I love to keep old friendships alive and warm within me, because I expect a renewal of them in the world of spirits. I am a wandering and unconnected thing on the earth, I have made no new friendships that can compensate me for the loss of the old, and the more I know mankind, the more does it become necessary for me to supply their loss by little images, recollections, and circumstances of past pleasures. CHARLES LAMB. Rosamond Grey. I STOOD on the bridge at midnight, t And the moon rose over the city Behind the dark church tower. *Review the series of our lives and taste The melancholy joy of evils past: For he who much has suffer'd, much will know For my heart was hot and restless, Yet whenever I cross the river On its bridge with wooden piers, And I think how many thousands Still passing to and fro, The young heart hot and restless, And the old subdued and slow! I REMEMBER, I remember The violets, and the lily-cups- And where my brother set The laburnum on his birth-day,— I remember, I remember Where I was used to swing, LONGFELLOW. And thought the air must rush as fresh My spirit flew in feathers then And summer pools could hardly cool I remember, I remember The fir-trees, dark and high; I used to think their slender tops It was a childish ignorance, But now 'tis little joy To know I'm farther off from Heaven HAST thou been ever waking From slumbers soft and light, Then on a sudden pausing, A painful absence causing So from my soul has vanish'd And truth her power displays. HOOD. HONE. Every Day Book. LET fate do her worst, there are relics of joy, Bright dreams of the past which she cannot destroy, RECOLLECTIONS. TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; Dear as remember'd kisses after death, BUT ever and anon of griefs subdued There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, And slight withal may be the things which bring A tone of music-summer's eve—or spring A flower-the wind-the ocean which shall wound, Striking the electric-chain wherewith we are darkly bound. Childe Harold, Canto IV. BUT those hardy days flew cheerily! And when they now fall drearily, My thoughts, like swallows, skim the main, Over the earth, and through the air, A wild bird and a wanderer. The Siege of Corinth. REMEMBRANCE. YET in these ears, till hearing dies, TENNYSON. In Memoriam. MUSIC, when soft voices die, Odours, when sweet violets sicken, And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, SHELLEY. TACITURNITY. SECRET men come to a knowledge of many things in that kind; while men rather discharge their minds, than impart their minds.* BACON. Essay-On Simulation. TALKERS and futile persons are commonly vain and credulous withal; for he that talketh what he knoweth, will also talk what he knoweth not; therefore set it down that a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral: and in this part it is good; that a man's face gives his tongue leave to speak; for the discovery of a man's self by the tracts of his countenance, is a great weakness and betraying, by how much it is many times more marked and believed than a man's words. BACON. PROGRESS OF STATES. IN the youth of a state arms flourish, in the middle age learning, then both of them together for a time, and in the decline mechanical Arts and Trade. BACON. Essays. THE lust of gold succeeds the lust of conquests; The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless, DR. JOHNSON. A GOOD CAUSE. K. Henry. WHAT stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted? Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just ; *Nothing flatters our pride so much as the confidence of the great, because we regard it as the result of our merit, without considering that it most frequently arises merely from vanity or from inability to keep a secret. ROCHEFOUCAULD. M |