New England. While the mere intellectual man speculates, and the mere man of acquisition cites authority, the man of feeling acts, realizes, puts forth his complete energies. His earnest and strong heart will not let his mind rest; he is urged by an inward impulse to embody his thoughts; he must have sympathy; he must have results. And nature yields to the magician, acknowledging him as her child. The noble statue comes forth from the marble, the speaking figure stands out from the canvas, the electric chain is struck in the bosoms of his fellows. They receive his ideas, respond to his appeal, and reciprocate his love. HENRY THEODORE TUCKERMAN. I would not waste my strength on those, If I were thou, O working bee, I would not hive it at man's door, If I were thou, O eagle proud, And screamed the thunder back aloud, I would not build my eyrie-throne, If I were thou, O gallant steed, I would not meeken to the rein, If I were thou, red-breasted bird, I would not overstay delight, As thou, but take a swallow-flight, While yet I spake, a touch was laid I would not waste my cares, and choose "I would not work where none can win, As thou, half way 'twixt grief and sin, But look above, and judge within. "I would not let my pulse beat high, "I would not champ the hard, cold bit, As thou, of what the world thinks fit, But take God's freedom using it. "I would not play earth's winter out, "Then sing, O singer! but allow ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 66 Control the latent fibers of the heart. Source Whence the fine nerves direct their mazy course, And through the frame invisible convey THE MEMORY. HE mother of the muses, we are taught, Is Memory; she has left me; they remain, And shake my shoulder, urging me to sing About the summer days, my loves of old. "Alas! alas!" is all I can reply. Memory has left me with that name alone, Harmonious name, which other bards may sing, But her bright image in my darkest hour Comes back, in vain comes back, called or uncalled. Forgotten are the names of visitors POWER AND GENIUS. (From The Last of the Barons.") 'HERE,” said Adam quietly, and pointing to the feudal roofs-" There seems to rise power; and yonder” (glancing to the river)—" yonder seems to flow genius! A century or so hence the walls shall vanish, but the river shall roll on. Man makes the castle and founds the power-God forms the river, and creates the genius. And yet, Sybill, there may be streams as broad and stately as yonder Thames, that flow afar in the waste, never seen, never heard by man. What profits the river unmarked? what the genius never to be known?" It was not a common thing with Adam Warner to be thus eloquent. Usually silent and ab sorbed, it was not his gift to moralize or declaim. His soul must be deeply moved before the profound and buried sentiment within it could escape into words. Sybill pressed her father's hand, and though her own heart was very heavy, she forced her lips to smile, and her voice to soothe. Adam interrupted her. men. 'Child, child, ye women know not what presses darkest and most bitterly on the minds of You know not what it is to form out of immaterial things some abstract but glorious object to worship, to serve it-to sacrifice to it, as on an altar, youth, health, hope, life-and suddenly, in old age, to see that the idol was a phantom, a mockery, a shadow laughing us to scorn, because we have sought to clasp it." "O yes, father, women have known that illusion." "What! do they study?" "No, father, but they feel!" "Feel! I comprehend thee not." "As man's genius to him, is woman's heart to her," answered Sybill, her dark and deep eyes suffused with tears. "Doth not the heart create-invent? Doth it not dream? Doth it not form its idol out of air? Goeth it not forth into the future to prophesy to itself? And, sooner or later, in age or youth, doth it not wake itself at last, and see how it hath wasted its all on follies? Yes, father, my heart can answer, when thy genius would complain." SIR EDWARD BULWER, LORD LYTTON. HE poor require culture as much as the rich; and at present their education, even when they get education, gives them hardly anything of it. Yet hardly less of it, perhaps, than the education of the rich gives to the rich. For when we say that culture is: To know the best that has been thought and said in the world, we imply that, for culture, a system directly tending to this end is necessary in our reading. Now, there is DO such system yet present to guide the reading of the rich, any more than of the poor. Such a system is hardly even thought of; a man who wants it must make it for himself. And our reading being so without purpose as it is, nothing can be truer than what Butler says, that really, in general, no part of our time is more idly spent than the time spent in reading. Still, culture is indispensably necessary, and culture implies reading; but reading with a purpose to guide it, and with system. He does a good work who does anything to help this: indeed, it is the one essential service now to be rendered to education. And the plea, that this or that man has no time for culture, will vanish as soon as we desire culture so much that we begin to examine seriously our present use of our time. It has often been said, and cannot be said too often, give to any man all the time that he now wastes, not only on his vices, when he has them, but on useless business, wearisome or deterioriating amusements, trivial letter-writing, random reading; and he will have plenty of time for culture. "Die Zeit ist unendlich lang," says Goethe; and so it really is. Some of us waste all of it, most of us waste much, but all of us waste some. MATTHEW ARNOLD. PERFECTION. (From King John," Act IV., Scene 2.) ALISBURY. Therefore to be possess'd To guard a title that was rich before, To smooth the ice, or add another hue WILLIAM SHAKSPERE L'ALLEGRO.. LIENCE, loathed Melancholy, There, on beds of violets blue, Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born, In Stygian cave forlorn, 'Mongst horrid shapes; and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven sings; There, under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks, As ragged as thy locks, In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. But come, thou goddess fair and free, In heaven yclept Euphrosyne, "Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As he met her once a-Maying." And, by men, heart-easing Mirth, The frolic wind that breathes the spring, And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, Filled her with thee a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonaire. Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee Quips, and cranks and wanton wiles, On the light fantastic toe; And in thy right hand lead with thee To live with her, and live with thee While the cock, with lively din, By hedge-row elms, or hillocks green, ures, The laboring clouds do often rest, Meadows trim, with daisies pied, Shallow brooks, and rivers wide. Towers and battlements it sees, Bosomed high in tufted trees, Where, perhaps, some beauty lies, The cynosure of neighboring eyes. Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes From betwixt two aged oaks, Where Corydon and Thyrsis met Dancing in the checkered shade; Till the livelong daylight fail; "Where throngs of knights and barons bold Are at their savory dinner set To many a youth, and many a maid, And stretched out all the chimney's length, Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, Where throngs of knights and barons bold |