THE SECOND CLASS READER. I. SELECT SENTENCES IN PROSE. In the hour of adversity be not without hope; for crystal rain falls from black clouds. There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less readily, than contempt. An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity. True eloquence consists in saying what should be said, and leaving unsaid what should not be said. If we were faultless ourselves, we should not take so much pleasure in remarking the faults of others. Friendship hath the skill and observation of the best physician, the diligence and watchfulness of the best nurse, and the tenderness and patience of the best mother. Ingratitude is a crime so shameful, that the man was never yet found who would acknowledge himself guilty of it. A liar begins with making a falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood. What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a God! To relieve the oppressed is the most glorious act a man is capable of; it is in some measure doing the business of God upon earth. As we perceive the shadow to have moved, but did not perceive its moving, so our advances in learning, as they consist of such minute steps, are perceivable only by the distance. There is no mortal truly wise and restless at the same time; wisdom is the repose of the mind. The passionate are like men standing on their heads; they see all things the wrong way. The philosophers of antiquity addressed themselves to the intellect; the simple words of Jesus lay hold of the heart. It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked bottles; the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out. He who is insensible to praise is either raised far above, or sunk much below, the ordinary standard of human nature. Benevolence is not merely a feeling, but a principle; not a dream of rapture for the fancy to indulge in, but a business for the hand to execute. The great object of education is not to store the mind with knowledge, but to give activity and vigor to its powers. Without fairness of mind, which is only another phrase for disinterested love of truth, great native powers of understanding are perve ted. I know of no great expounder of moral principle, I know of no eloquent teacher of divine truth, who is more useful in God's world than a business man that carries his religion into his business. There are two ways of arriving at the highest personal liberty one is to have few wants, and the other to have abundant means of satisfying them. The first method is easier than the latter, and yet it is the one most rarely made use of. Accustom yourself to submit on all and every occasion, and in the most minute no less than in the most important circumstances of life, to a small present evil, to obtain a greater distant good. This will give decision, tone, and energy to the mind, which, thus disciplined, will often reap victory from defeat, and honor from repulse. II.-SELECT SENTENCES IN PROSE. HURRY and Cunning are the apprentices of Despatch and of Skill; but neither of them ever learns his master's trade. Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; any thing but live for it. To commiserate is sometimes more than to give, for gifts are external to one's self; but he who bestows compassion communicates his own soul. In most quarrels there is a fault on both sides. A quarrel may be compared to a spark, which cannot be produced without a flint, as well as a steel; either of them may hammer on wood forever, and no fire will follow. Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away, but which, nevertheless, will make, at the end of it, no small deduction from the life of man. Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; yield graciously, or oppose firmly. Men are never made so ridiculous by the qualities they have, as by those they affect to have. I consider a quarrelsome person to be like a loaded gun, which may go off by accident and kill one. Modesty makes large amends for the pain it gives the persons who labor under it, by the prejudice it affords every worthy person in their favor. He that lies in bed all a summer's morning loses the chief pleasure of the day; he that gives up his youth to indolence suffers a loss of the same kind. Shining characters are not always the most agreeable ones. The mild radiance of an emerald is by no means less pleasing than the glare of a ruby. It is one thing to know the intrinsic value of a thing, another to know the current estimation of it. Testimony is like an arrow shot from a long-bow, the force of which depends on the strength of the hand that draws it ; argument is like an arrow from a cross-bow, which has great force, though shot by a child. He that is good will infallibly become better, and he that is bad will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue, and time are three things that never stand still. Do not consider any vice as trivial, and therefore practise it; do not consider any virtue as unimportant, and therefore neglect it. Mental pleasures never cloy: unlike those of the body, they are increased by repetition, approved of by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment. In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature, not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth. In eating and drinking let a man do nothing contrary to the health of the body; nothing to indispose it, as a mansion and instrument of the soul; nothing to the dishonor of himself, as a rational being, the image of God. A fault once excused is twice committed. There is no man so miserable as he that is at a loss how to spend his time. He is restless in his thoughts, unsteady in his counsels, dissatisfied with the present, solicitous for the future. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in part; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and at tention. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge: it is thinking that makes what we read ours. III. - SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE. TRUTH, crushed to earth, shall rise again; Loveliest of lovely things are they, Hope, like the gleaming taper's light, Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife; Is worth an age without a name. O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, The very law which moulds a tear, And bids it trickle from its source, That law preserves the earth a sphere, How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude! |