Where the braes are green and grassy,
With my light step I overtook
A weary-footed lassie.
Another in her hand,
And she walked as one who was full loath
To travel from the land.
Had hair of flowing gold,
And dark brown eyes, and dainty limbs,
Right pleasant to behold—
On this bright summer day,
To travel sad and shoeless thus
Upon the stony way?
And thou art burdened so;
March lightly now and let me bear
The bundles as we go."
What's mine is mine to bear,
Of good or ill, as God may will,
I take my portioned share."
One burden give to me;
I'll take that bundle from thy back
That heavier seems to be."
That holds—no hand but mine
May bear its weight from dear Glen Spean
'Cross the Atlantic brine!"
Within that precious load
Which thou dost bear with such fine care
Along the dusty road?
From friend in parting hour;
Perhaps, as prudent maidens wont,
Thou tak'st with thee thy dower?"
She gave a mournful wave;
"Oh, do not jest, dear sir—it is
Turf from my mother's grave!"
By the road-side together:
No purer dew on that bright day
Was dropt upon the heather.
1418
When we are wretched where can we complain?
And when the world looks cold and surly on us
Where can we go to meet a warmer eye
With such sure confidence as to a mother?
1419
Alas! how is that rugged heart forlorn.
1420
Music loosens a heart that care has bound.
1421
No music is so charming to my ear as the requests of my friends, and the supplications of those in want of my assistance.
1422
As he comes up the stair.
N
1423
For art may err, but nature cannot miss.
1424
Our nature exists by motion; perfect rest is death.
1425
Good-nature, like a bee, collects honey from every herb. Ill-nature, like a spider, sucks poison from the sweetest flower.
1426
Good-nature is the beauty of the mind, and, like personal beauty, wins almost without anything else.
1427
If you want to keep your good looks, keep your good nature.
1428
NATURE.
The settled laws of nature and of God;
Not written these in pages of a book,
Nor were they framed to-day, nor yesterday;
We know not whence they are; but this we know,
That they from all eternity have been,
And shall to all eternity endure.
1429
Every one follows the inclinations of his own nature.
1430
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I am can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
1431
Like nature? Can imagination boast,
Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?
1432
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains;
Thus it is with vulgar natures,
Use them kindly, they rebel:
But be rough as nutmeg graters,
And the rogues obey you well.
1433
Where is there a sharper arrow than the sting of unmerited neglect?
1434
To know thyself: equally profitable it is
To know thy neighbors!
1435
Say not unto thy neighbor, Go, and come again, and to-morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee.
1436
Very Few Live by Choice.—Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly co-operate; and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbor better than his own.
1437
We ought to do at once and without delay whatever we owe to our neighbors; to make them wait for what is due to them, is the essence of injustice.
1438
A BIRD'S NEST.
To view the structure of this little work—
A bird's nest. Mark it well, within, without;
No tool had he that wrought; no knife to cut,
No nail to fix, no bodkin to insert,
No glue to join; his little beak was all;
And yet how neatly finished!—What nice hand,
And every implement and means of art,
And twenty years' apprenticeship to boot,
Could make me such another? Fondly then
We boast of excellence, whose noblest skill
Instinctive genius foils.
1439
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
1440
He knocks boldly at the door who brings good news.
1441
The most ridiculous nicknames are often the most adhesive.
1442
Coolness and counsel come in the night, and both are of God.
1443
Rest to the laborer, is the outlaw's day,
In which he rises early to do wrong,
And when his work is ended, dares not sleep.
1444
How sweet, when labors close,
To gather 'round an aching breast
The curtain of repose.
Stretch the tir'd limbs and lay the head
Down on our own delightful bed!
1445
Learn to say No! and it will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin.
1446
Duty.—A wise man who does not assist with his counsels, a rich man with his charity, and a poor man with his labor, are perfect nobodies in a commonwealth.
1447
IMPORTANT.
But everybody is pleased to think himself somebody.
And everybody is somebody:
But when anybody thinks himself to be somebody,
He generally thinks everybody else to be nobody.
1448
By doing nothing we learn to do ill.
1449
The young are fond of novelty.
1450
So easily are we impressed by numbers, that even a dozen wheelbarrows in succession seem quite imposing.
O
1451
A CLEVER "TURN."
Lord Elibank, the Scotch peer, was told that Dr. Johnson, in his dictionary, had defined oats to be food for horses in England, and for men in Scotland. "Ay," said his lordship, "and where else can you find such horses and such men?"
1452
Deuteronomy xxi, 20.—"This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice."
"I well remember," says a writer on Christian education, "being much impressed by a sermon about twenty years ago, in which the preacher said, were he to select one word as the most important in education, it should be the word, obey. My experience since has fully convinced me of the justice of the remark. Without filial obedience everything must go wrong. Is not a disobedient child guilty of a manifest breach of the Fifth Commandment? And is not a parent, who suffers this disobedience to continue, an habitual partaker in his child's offense against that commandment?"
1453
Obedience.—Obedience, promptly, fully given, is one of the most beautiful things that walks the earth.
1454
Not weighing, but obeying all command,
Such servant by a monarch's throne may stand.
1455
An extraordinary haste to discharge an obligation is a sort of ingratitude.
1456
Most men remember obligations, but not often to be grateful for them. The proud are made sour by the remembrance, and the vain silent.
1457
But John unhappily thought fit
To publish it to all the nation:
Sure John and I are more than quit.
1458
People newly emerged from obscurity, generally launch out into indiscriminate display.
1459
Obstinacy is will asserting itself without being able to justify itself. It is persistence without a plausible motive. It is the tenacity of self-love substituted for the tenacity of reason or conscience.
1460
Thrice happy they who have an occupation.
1461
An oil-jar can be used again for nothing but oil.
(A man should follow what he was bred to.)
1462
Only the British make it their abode:—
They tread the billows with a steady foot.
1463
To call people peculiar is only a polite way of calling them disagreeable.
1464
WORDS.
('Tis a treasure worth revealing,)
More offend by want of thought
Than by want of feeling.
1465
A dog's obeyed in office.
1466
A bad man in office is a public calamity.
1467
Omissions, no less than commissions, are oftentimes branches of injustice.
1468
It has been shrewdly said, that, when men abuse us, we should suspect ourselves, and when they praise us, them.
1469
No liberal man would impute a charge of unsteadiness to another for having changed his opinion.
1470
SELF-CONFIDENCE.
Men often lose opportunities by want of self-confidence. Doubts and fears in the minds of some rise up over every event, and they fear to attempt what most probably would be successful through their timorousness; while a courageous, active man, will, perhaps with half the ability, carry an enterprise to a prosperous termination.
1471
Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period or other, when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone; the future may never come to us.
1472
To let slip a favorable opportunity is the greatest proof of imbecility.
1473
He loses all who loses the right moment.
1474
OPPORTUNITY.
Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait,
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts, and seas remote, and, passing by
Hovel, and mart, and palace, soon or late,
I knock unbidden once at every gate.
If sleeping, wake; if feasting, rise
Before I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
And those who follow me, gain every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save Death, but those who doubt, or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury, and woe,
Seek me in vain, and uselessly implore.
I answer not, and I return no more.
1475
OPPORTUNITY.
There is no man whom Fortune does not visit at least once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.
1476
Didn't Know the Place.—A young man who left his native city to study medicine in Paris, and had been applying his time and the paternal remittances to very different purposes, received a visit from his father, who intended making a short stay in the capital to inspect its wonders. During an afternoon stroll together, the day after the elder's arrival, the father and son happened to pass in front of a large colonnaded building. "What is that?" said the senior, carelessly. "I don't know, but we'll inquire," answered the student. On the query being put to an official, he shortly replied: "That? It is the School of Medicine."
1477
The opportunity is often lost by deliberating.
1478
We must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.
1479
The spoken word,
The sped arrow,
The past life,
And the neglected opportunity.
1480
To-day is the opportunity for enjoyment and work; knowest thou where thou wilt be to-morrow? Time flies swiftly away, and we with it.
1481
OPPRESSORS—EVERYWHERE.
There are sharks in the ocean, and wolves in the forest, and eagles in the air, and tyrants on thrones, and tormentors in cottages.
1482
All orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth.
P
1483
Ambitious parents sometimes try to make lawyers, doctors, preachers and statesmen out of boys nature meant for plowmen. How often do we find misfits! There is nothing more pitiable than to see a man whose mind and heart are completely wrapped up in one thing and yet condemned by circumstances to do another.
1484
The cavalry captain Kurtzhagen was invited to dine with King Frederick II. "From what noble house are you descended?" asked the king. "From none whatever," replied Kurtzhagen. "My parents are only poor country people, but I would not exchange them for any other parents in the world." "Well said," replied the king. "Woe to him who is so mean as to be ashamed of his parents."
1485
"Father," said a young man on his death-bed, "you have been very good to me. You have given me a fine education, and you have placed me in a fine social position; you have done everything for me in a worldly sense; but, dear father, you never told me much of a hereafter. Now I am dying."
1486
If any one toil for a parent, it is not fitting to bear remembrance of the toil.
1487
The good conduct of the father and mother is the blessing of the children.
1488
ALL FOOLS NOW.
A little Boston girl was encouraged by her parents to study so much that her brain gave way, and she is now an idiot. This is a sad result, but the parents must find some consolation in the thought that they have made their daughter like themselves.
1489
What we have we prize, not to the worth,
While we enjoy it; but being lack'd and lost,
Why, then, we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us,
Whilst it was ours.
Note: Applicable to one's parents.
1490
PARTING.
Who hold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet;
One little hour! and then, away they speed
On lonely paths, through mists, and cloud, and foam,
To meet no more.
1491
PARTING FROM FRIENDS.
Though sure to meet to-morrow;
We yet a kind of anguish prove,
And feel a touch of sorrow.
But oh! what words can paint the fears
When from those friends we sever,
Perhaps to part for months—for years—
Perhaps to part for ever.
1492
Control your passion or it will control you.
1493
Nothing overcomes passion sooner than silence.
1494
The arrow sent upon its track—
It will not swerve, it will not stay
Its speed; it flies to wound or slay;
The spoken word, so soon forgot
By thee, but it has perished not;
In other hearts 'tis living still,
And doing work for good or ill;
And the lost opportunity
That cometh back no more to thee.
In vain thou weep'st, in vain dost yearn,
These three will never more return.
1495
Let by-gones be by-gones; let the past be forgotten.
1496
Every one utters the word "past" with more emotion than "future."
1497
The beaten path is the safe one.
1498
A pearl is often hidden in an ugly shell.
1499
The pen is the tongue of the mind.
1500
HOW TO WAKE THE PEOPLE.
An old peasant in a German village had to leave his children alone in the house for the day. "If a thief comes," he said to them, "do not cry 'Thief!' For everybody will be afraid and will say to himself: 'After all, it's not my property that's being taken.' No, my children; shout 'Fire!' The whole village will run to help you, for everybody will be afraid the fire will spread."
1501
In all this world—in man or woman-kind.
1502
As the sun's shadow shifts, so there is no permanence on earth.
1503
By persevering, mountains will often become only mole hills.
1504
SCOTTISH PERSEVERANCE.
Scottish perseverance has itself become proverbial; we remember to have met with a story which is said to be connected with the foundation of an opulent mercantile house which has flourished for some generations. Saunders, the traveler, entered a shop in London and enquired for the head of the house; one of the clerks asked what he wanted; the answer of Saunders was, as usual, a question, "Want ye aught in my line, sir?" "No," was the prompt reply, accompanied by a look of contempt at the itinerant Scotch merchant. "Will ye no tak' a look o' the gudes, sir?" was Saunders' next query. "No, not at all; I have not time. Take them away—take them away!" "Ye'll aiblins (perhaps) find them worth your while, and I doubt na but ye'll buy," said Saunders; and he proceeded to untie and unstrap his burden. "Go away—go away!" was reiterated more than once by the clerk, but the persevering Scot still persisted. The master of the establishment overheard all that had taken place, and now he stepped forward, and, moved by some compunction for the treatment the traveler had received, and some admiration, too, for the patience and perseverance of the man, he consented to look over the contents of the pack, found them to be exactly the goods he was in want of, purchased them all, and gave a very large order; and thus, says Chambers, who tells the story, assisted in the foundation of a large mercantile house.
But is not this the stuff of which also the Livingstones and the Macleods are made? Was not this the spirit which set the brave Sir Walter Scott to work, when sinking into his later years, to overtake his fearful loss of one hundred thousand pounds? Is it not a commentary upon that especial proverb which we have said so illustrates the Scottish character, "He that tholes (or endures) overcomes?"
1505
Better ask twice than lose your way once.
1506
THE FATE OF PETITIONS.
With gold, are but unsavoury, oft refused;
Or if received, are pocketed, never read.
1507
Jenny Lind was frequently known to pass unobserved from her residence, as if to make a visit, and had been traced to the back lanes and cottages of the poor, whose wants she ascertained and relieved. Several times she had been remonstrated with, and warned by her intimate friends against being imposed upon. She always replied, "Never mind; if I relieve ten, and one is worthy, I am satisfied."
1508
NAME OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN.
A philanthropist, when a candidate for the ministry, was traveling on one occasion from Strasbourg. It was in the winter time. The ground was deeply covered with snow, and the roads were almost impassable. He had reached the middle of his journey and was among the mountains; and by that time was so exhausted that he could stand erect no longer. He was rapidly freezing to death, and sleep began to overpower him. He commended himself to God, and yielded to what he felt to be the sleep of death. He knew not how long he slept, but suddenly became conscious of some one rousing him. Before him stood a wagon-driver in his blue blouse, and the wagon not far away. His rescuer gave him a little wine and food, and the spirit of life returned. He then helped him upon the wagon, and brought him to the next village. Oberlin, the philanthropist, was profuse in his thanks, and offered money, which his benefactor refused. "It is only a duty to help one another," said the wagoner; "and it is the next thing to an insult to offer a reward for such a service." "Then," said Oberlin, "at least tell me your name, that I may have you in thankful remembrance before God." "I see," said the wagoner, "that you are a minister of the Gospel. Please tell me the name of the Good Samaritan." "That," said Oberlin, "I cannot do; for it was not put on record." "Then," replied the wagoner, "until you can tell me his name, permit me to withhold mine."
1509
A Sensible Answer.—A story is told about Wendell Phillips—a story that must have made even the serious-minded Abolitionist laugh heartily: He was in a hotel in Charleston, had breakfast in his room, and was served by a slave. Mr. Phillips spoke to him as an Abolitionist, but the waiter seemed to be more concerned about the breakfast than about himself. Finally Mr. Phillips told him to go away, saying that he could not bear to be waited upon by a slave.
The other remonstrated: "Scuse me, massa, but I's obliged to stay yere, 'cause I's 'sponsible fo' de silverware."
1510
MY FIRST PATIENT.
What her condition for a cure might be.
Dear me! a patient—what a happy tone,
To have a patient, and one all my own—
To have a patient and myself be feed,
Raised expectations very high indeed—
I saw a practice growing from the seed.
1511
Fretting is the doctor's best friend all over the whole world.
1512
Temperance and toil are the two real physicians of mankind.
1513
The purse of the patient frequently, alas! protracts his cure.
1514
Physic, for the most part, is nothing else but the substitute of exercise and temperance.
1515
To pity distress is but human; to relieve it is Godlike.