Page images
PDF
EPUB

A throne which the eagle is glad to resign
Unto footsteps so fleet and so fearless as thine.
Address to a wild Deer.-JOHN WILSON.

DELAY.

Defer no time: Delays have dangerous ends.

King Henry VI. Part I. Act III. Scene II.—SHAKSPERE.

DELICACIES not in Nature.

Our delicacies are fantastic: they are not in nature! that beggar walks over the sharpest of these stones barefooted, while I have lost the most delightful dream in the world from the smallest of them happening to get into my shoe. The Man of Feeling.-HENRY MACKENZIE.

DELIGHTS.

The little bee to fight doth like a champion spur, Because, not for herself, she feels her tribe in her ; Because so sweet her work, so sharp must be her sting; The earth hath no delight unscourged of suffering. Strung Pearls.—RUCKERT.

[blocks in formation]

Who is thy deadliest foe?—An evil heart's desire, Which hates thee still the worse, as thy weak love

mounts higher.

DESIRE.

How to conquer

Strung Pearls.-RUCKERT.

It is much easier to suppress a first desire than to satisfy those that follow.

Maxims, XCVIII.—ROCHEFOUCAULT.

DESIRES never realised.

It never yet happened to any man since the beginning of the world, nor ever will, to have all things according to his desire, or to whom fortune was never opposite and adverse,

DESTINY.

Anatomy of Melancholy.-ROBERT BURTON.

Well,-Heaven's above all; and there be souls must be saved, and there be souls that must not be saved. Othello, Act II. Scene III.-SHAKSPERE.

DETERMINATION.

Illustration of a fixed

Let them pull all about mine ears; present me
Death on the wheel, or at wild horses' heels;
Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,
That the precipitation might down stretch
Below the beam of sight, yet will I still
Be thus to them.

DEVOTION.

Coriolanus, Act III. Scene II.—SHAKSPERE.

Pure

Yet Faith's pure hymn, beneath its shelter rude,
Breathes out as sweetly to the tangled wood,
As where the rays through blazing oriels pour
On marble shaft and tessellated floor;—
Heaven asks no surplice round the heart that feels,
And all is holy where devotion kneels.

A Metrical Essay, Part III.-O. W. HOLMES.

DIET. A Miser's

At home he lived

Like a cameleon; suck'd the air of misery;
And grew fat by the brewis of an egg-shell;
Would smell a cook's shop, and go home and
surfeit,

And be a month in fasting out that fever.

The Spanish Curate, Act IV. Scene v.
JOHN FLETCHER.

DIFFICULTIES.

Thus it has been the glory of the great masters in all the arts to confront and to overcome; and when they had overcome the first difficulty, to turn it into an instrument for new conquests over new difficulties; thus to enable them to extend the empire of science, and even to push forward beyond the reach of their original thoughts the landmarks of the human understanding itself. Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of a paternal guardian and legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial.

Reflections on the Revolution in France.
EDMUND BURKE.

DISEASES.

Often have I thought with myself what disease I would be best contented to die of. None please me. The stone, the colic, terrible as expected, intolerable when felt. The palsy is death before death. The consumption, a flattering disease, cozening men into hope of long life at the last gasp. Some sicknesses besot, others enrage men, some are too swift, and others are too slow. Good thoughts in Worse Times, I. THOMAS FULLER.

[blocks in formation]

Dishonest men conceal their faults from themselves as well as others: honest men know, and confess them. Maxims, CXXXII.-ROCHEFOUCAULT.

[blocks in formation]

Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?—
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,

And robes the mountain in its azure hue.

The Pleasures of Hope, Part I. Line 5.
THOMAS CAMPBELL.

DOG. A Master's Devotion to his

I'll be sworn, I have sat in the stocks for puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had been executed: I have stood on the pillory for geese he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for't.

Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV. Scene IV.

SHAKSPERE.

[blocks in formation]

I leave the broadcloth,-coats and all the rest,
The dangerous waistcoat, called by cockneys "vest."
The things named "pants" in certain documents,
A word not made for gentlemen, but "gents;"
One single precept might the whole condense :
Be sure your tailor is a man of sense;
But add a little care, a decent pride,

And always err upon the sober side.

Urania.-O. W. HOLMES.

DRESS. Description of a Lady's
There she sees a damsel bright,
Dressed in a silken robe of white,
That shadowy in the moonlight shone:
The neck that made that white robe wan,
Her stately neck and arms were bare;
Her blue-veined feet unsandalled were ;
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her hair.

Christabel.-SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

DRINKING. A Drunkard's Proposal respecting

Let's never leave off now,

Whilst we have wine and throats!

[merged small][ocr errors]

Let's end it all! dispatch that, we'll send abroad, And purchase all the wine the world can yield, And drink it off; then take the fruits o' the earth,

« PreviousContinue »