But there is more than I can see, And what I see I leave unsaid Nor speak it, knowing death has made SHE died, and left to me TENNYSON. In Memoriam. This heath, this calm and quiet scene; The memory of what has been, And never more will be. WORDSWORTH. CONSCIENCE. 'Tis the first punishment of sin That no bad man absolves himself within. Juvenal. THE laws of Conscience which we pretend to be derived from Nature, proceed from Custom,† every man having an internal veneration for the opinions and manners approved and received amongst his countrymen, cannot depart from them without reluctance, nor apply to them without applause. MONTAIGNE. Essays. REMEMBER this plain distinction, a mistake in which has ruined thousands-that your conscience is not a law-No-God and reason made the law and has placed conscience within you to determine-not like an Asiatic Cadi according to the ebbs and flows of his own passions; but like a British judge in this land of liberty, who makes no new law-but faithfully declares that glorious law which he finds already written. * The idea of her life shall sweetly creep Into his study of imagination; And every lovely organ of her life STERNE. Sermon. Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit, Into the eye and prospect of his soul, Much Ado about Nothing. + Without being written in their hearts, many men may by the same way that they come to the knowledge of other things come to assent to several moral rules, and be convinced of their obligation. Others may come to be of the same mind from their education, company, and customs of their country, which persuasion, however got, will serve to set Conscience at work; which is nothing else but our own opinion or judgment of the moral rectitude or pravity of our own actions. LOCKE. On Education. A GUILTY CONSCIENCE. Enter LADY MACBETH, with a taper. Gentlewoman. Lo, you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close. Doctor. How came she by that light? Gent. Why, it stood by her; she has light by her continually; 'tis her command. Doct. You see her eyes are open. Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut. Doct. What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands. Gent. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands; I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour. Lady Macbeth. Yet here's a spot. Doct. Hark! she speaks; I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly. Lady M. Out, damned spot! out, I say!-one, two; why, then 'tis time to do 't:-Hell is murky! Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power, to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? Doct. Do you mark that? Lady M. The Thane of Fife had a wife; What will these hands ne'er be clean? where is she now ?— No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that; you mar all with this starting. Doct. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not. Gent. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: Heaven knows what she has known. Lady M. Here's the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! Oh! Oh! Doct. What a sigh is there! The heart is surely charged. Gent. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body. Doct. Well, well, well. Gent. Pray God it be so. Doct. This disease is beyond my practice. Yet I have known those who have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds. Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out of his grave. Doct. Even so? Lady M. To bed, -to bed! There's knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come; give me your hand; what's done cannot be undone. To bed-to bed-to bed! Doct. Will she now go to bed? [Exit LADY MACBETH. Doct. Foul whisperings are abroad; unnatural deeds In their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. Macbeth, Act V., scene 1. Not so sick, my lord, Macbeth. How does your patient doctor? Doctor. Macb. As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies, Cure her of that. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd; Doct. Must minister to himself. Macbeth, Act V., scene 3. SWIFT from myself I run, myself I fear, Yet still my hell within myself I bear. FAIRFAX. TASSO. Book XII. WHO has a breast so pure, But some uncleanly apprehensions Keep leets, and law-days, and in session sit With meditations lawful? Othello, Act III. SWEET SOCIETY. WITH thee conversing I forget all time; SONG. OH, wert thou in the cauld blast On yonder lea, on yonder lea, My pladie to the angry airt, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee: Or did misfortune's bitter storms Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, Thy bield should be my bosom To share it a', to share it a'. Or were I in the wildest waste, Sae black and bare, sae black and bare, If thou wert there, if thou wert there : Or were I monarch o' the globe, Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign, The brightest jewel in my crown Wad be my queen, wad be my queen. BURNS. LIES. ALTHOUGH the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him. SWIFT. HE who tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty to maintain that one. POPE. A LIAR begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood. SHENSTONE. DARE to be true. Nothing can need a lie : GEORGE HERBERT. AND the parson made it his text that week, and he said likewise, That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies, That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright, But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight. TENNYSON. The Grandmother. DAFFODILS. DAFFODILS That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty. |