Chapter 5

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. _Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.

Why then doth flesh, a bubble-glass of breath, Hunt after honour and advancement vain, And rear a trophy for devouring death? _Ruins of Time_. E. SPENSER.

Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise By mountains piled on mountains to the skies? Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise. _Essay on Man_. A. POPE.

ANGEL.

In this dim world of clouding cares, We rarely know, till 'wildered eyes See white wings lessening up the skies, The Angels with us unawares. _Ballad of Babe Christabel_. G. MASSEY.

Around our pillows golden ladders rise, And up and down the skies, With wingèd sandals shod, The angels come, and go, the Messengers of God! Nor, though they fade from us, do they depart-- It is the childly heart: We walk as heretofore, Adown their shining ranks, but see them nevermore. _Hymn to the Beautiful_. R.H. STODDARD.

For God will deign To visit oft the dwellings of just men Delighted, and with frequent intercourse Thither will send his wingèd messengers On errands of supernal grace. _Paradise Lost, Bk. VII_. MILTON.

But sad as angels for the good man's sin, Weep to record, and blush to give it in. _The Pleasures of Hope, Pt. II_. T. CAMPBELL.

What though my wingèd hours of bliss have been, Like angel-visits, few and far between. _The Pleasures of Hope, Pt. II_. T. CAMPBELL.

ANGER.

Anger is like A full-hot horse; who being allowed his way, Self-mettle tires him. _King Henry VIII., Act i. Sc 1_. SHAKESPEARE.

Being once chased, he cannot Be reined again to temperance; then he speaks What's in his heart. _Coriolanus, Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.

I am very sorry, good Horatio, That to Laertes I forgot myself,

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But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me Into a towering passion. _Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.

Senseless, and deformed, Convulsive Anger storms at large; or, pale And silent, settles into fell revenge. _The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.

Be advised; Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot That it do singe yourself: we may outrun. By violent swiftness, that which we run at, And lose by over-running. _King Henry VIII., Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.

Never anger made good guard for itself. _Antony and Cleopatra, Act iv. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.

ANGLING.

All's fish they get That cometh to net. _Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry_. T. TUSSER.

In genial spring, beneath the quivering shade, Where cooling vapors breathe along the mead, The patient fisher takes his silent stand, Intent, his angle trembling in his hand; With looks unmoved, he hopes the scaly breed, And eyes the dancing cork, and bending reed. _Windsor Forest_. A. POPE.

Now is the time, While yet the dark-brown water aids the guile, To tempt the trout. The well-dissembled fly, The rod fine tapering with elastic spring, Snatched from the hoary steed the floating line, And all thy slender wat'ry stores prepare. _The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.

Just in the dubious point, where with the pool Is mixed the trembling stream, or where it boils Around the stone, or from the hollowed bank Reverted plays in undulating flow, There throw, nice judging, the delusive fly; And as you lead it round in artful curve, With eye attentive mark the springing game. Straight as above the surface of the flood They wanton rise, or urged by hunger leap, Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook: Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank, And to the shelving shore slow-dragging some, With various hand proportioned to their force. _The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.

Give me mine angle, we'll to the river; there, My music playing far off, I will betray Tawny-finned fishes; my bended hook shall pierce Their shiny jaws. _Antony and Cleopatra, Act_ ii. _Sc_. 5. SHAKESPEARE.

His angle-rod made of a sturdy oak; His line a cable which in storms ne'er broke; His hook he baited with a dragon's tail, And sat upon a rock, and bobbed for whale. _Upon a Giant's Angling_. W. KING.

ANIMALS.

A harmless necessary cat. _Merchant of Venice, Act_ iv. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.

Confound the cats! All cats--alway-- Cats of all colors, black, white, gray; By night a nuisance and by day-- Confound the cats! _A Dithyramb on Cats_. O.T. DOBBIN.

I am his Highness' dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you? _On the Collar of a Dog_. A. POPE.

The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me. _King Lear, Act_ iii _Sc_. 6. SHAKESPEARE.

How, in his mid-career, the spaniel struck, Stiff, by the tainted gale, with open nose, Outstretched and finely sensible, draws full, Fearful and cautious, on the latent prey. _The Seasons: Autumn_. J. THOMSON.

A horse! a horse! My kingdom for a horse! _King Richard III., Act_ v. _Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.

The courser pawed the ground with restless feet, And snorting foamed, and champed the golden bit. _Palamon and Arcite, Pt. III_. J. DRYDEN.

Round-hoofed, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, Broad breast, full eye, small head and nostril wide, High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong, Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide: Look, what a horse should have he did not lack. Save a proud rider on so proud a back. _Venus and Adonis_. SHAKESPEARE.

Oft in this season too the horse, provoked While his big sinews full of spirits swell, Trembling with vigor, in the heat of blood, Springs the high fence.... his nervous chest, Luxuriant and erect, the seat of strength! _The Seasons: Summer_. J. THOMSON.

Champing his foam, and bounding o'er the plain, Arch his high neck, and graceful spread his mane. _The Courser_. SIR R. BLACKMORE.

Is it the wind those branches stirs? No, no! from out the forest prance A trampling troop; I see them come! In one vast squadron they advance! I strove to cry,--my lips were dumb. The steeds rush on in plunging pride; But where are they the reins to guide! A thousand horse,--and none to ride! With flowing tail, and flying mane, Wide nostrils, never stretched by pain, Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein, And feet that iron never shod, And flanks unscarred by spur or rod, A thousand horse, the wild, the free, Like waves that follow o'er the sea, Came thickly thundering on. _Mazeppa_. LORD BYRON.

I holde a mouses herte nat worth a leek. That hath but oon hole for to sterte to. _Preamble, Wyves Tale of Bath_. CHAUCER.

When now, unsparing as the scourge of war, Blast follow blasts and groves dismantled roar; Around their home the storm-pinched cattle lows, No nourishment in frozen pasture grows. _The Farmer's Boy: Winter_. R. BLOOMFIELD.

Rural confusion! on the grassy bank Some ruminating lie; while others stand Half in the flood, and, often bending, sip The circling surface. In the middle droops The strong laborious ox, of honest front, Which incomposed he shakes; and from his sides The troublous insects lashes with his tail, Returning still. _The Seasons: Summer_. J. THOMSON.

Tossed from rock to rock, Incessant bleatings run around the hills. At last, of snowy white, the gathered flocks Are in the wattled pen innumerous pressed, Head above head: and ranged in lusty rows, The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears. _The Seasons: Summer_. J. THOMSON.

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. _Essay on Man, Epistle I_. A. POPE.

Welcome, ye shades! ye bowery thickets, hail!... Delicious is your shelter to the soul, As to the hunted hart the sallying spring, Or stream full-flowing, that his swelling sides Laves, as he floats along the herbaged brink. _The Seasons: Autumn_. J. THOMSON.

A poor sequestered stag, That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt, Did come to languish;... ... and the big round tears Coursed one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase. _As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.

Cruel as Death, and hungry as the Grave! Burning for blood! bony, and gaunt, and grim! Assembling wolves in raging troops descend; And, pouring o'er the country, bear along, Keen as the north wind sweeps the glossy snows. All is their prize. _The Seasons: Winter_. J. THOMSON.

ANTHOLOGY.

Infinite riches in a little room. _The Jew of Malta, Act i_. C. MARLOWE.

APPARITION.

Thin, airy shoals of visionary ghosts. _Odyssey_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ POPE.

My people too were scared with eerie sounds, A footstep, a low throbbing in the walls, A noise of falling weights that never fell, Weird whispers, bells that rang without a hand, Door-handles turned when none was at the door, And bolted doors that opened of themselves; And one betwixt the dark and light had seen _Her_, bending by the cradle of her babe. _The Ring_. A. TENNYSON.

Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow, And Scipio's ghost walks unavenged amongst us! _Cato, Act ii. Sc_. 1. J. ADDISON.

Now it is the time of night, That the graves, all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite, In the church-way paths to glide. _Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.

For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger; At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there, Troop home to churchyards. _Midsummer Night's Dream_, iii, 2. SHAKESPEARE.

APPEARANCE.

Such was Zuleika! such around her shone The nameless charms unmarked by her alone; The light of love, the purity of grace, The mind, the music breathing from her face, The heart whose softness harmonized the whole, And oh! that eye was in itself a Soul. _Bride of Abydos, Canto I_. LORD BYRON.

There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple; If the ill spirit have so fair a house, Good things will strive to dwell with 't. _The Tempest, Act i. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.

Exceeding fair she was not; and yet fair In that she never studied to be fairer Than Nature made her; beauty cost her nothing, Her virtues were so rare. _All Fools, Act i. Sc_. 1. G. CHAPMAN.

Her glossy hair was clustered o'er a brow Bright with intelligence, and fair and smooth; Her eyebrow's shape was like the aërial bow, Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth, Mounting, at times, to a transparent glow, As if her veins ran lightning. _Don Juan, Canto I_. LORD BYRON.

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, The observed of all observers! _Hamlet, Act_ iii _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.

They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain, A mere anatomy, a mountebank, A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller, A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch, A living-dead man. _Comedy of Errors, Act v. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.

Falstaff sweats to death, And lards the lean earth as he walks along; Were't not for laughing, I should pity him. _K. Henry IV., Pt. I. Act ii. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.

Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. _Julius Cæsar, Act i. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.

Seemed washing his hands with invisible soap In imperceptible water. _Miss Kilmansegg_. T. HOOD.

Her pretty feet Like snailes did creep A little out, and then, As if they played at bo-peep, Did soon draw in agen. _Upon her Feet_. R. HERRICK.

Who the silent man can prize, If a fool he be or wise? Yet, though lonely seem the wood, Therein may lurk the beast of blood; Often bashful looks conceal Tongue of fire and heart of steel; And deem not thou in forest gray, Every dappled skin thy prey, Lest thou rouse, with luckless spear, The tiger for the fallow-deer! _The Gulistan_. BISHOP HEBER.

HORATIO. I saw him once: he was a goodly king. HAMLET. He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again. _Hamlet, Act_ i. _Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.

On his bold visage middle age Had slightly pressed his signet sage, Yet had not quenched the open truth, And fiery vehemence of youth; Forward and frolic glee was there, The will to do, the soul to dare, The sparkling glance, soon blown to fire Of hasty love or headlong ire. _The Lady of the Lake, Canto I_. SIR W. SCOTT.

Mislike me not for my complexion, The shadowed livery of the burnished sun, To whom I am a neighbor, and near bred. Bring me the fairest creature northward born, Where Phoebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles, And let us make incision for your love, To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine. _Merchant of Venice, Act_ ii. _Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.

Incensed with indignation Satan stood Unterrified, and like a comet burned, That fires the length of Ophiucus huge In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war. _Paradise Lost, Bk. II_. MILTON.

Look here, upon this picture, and on this; The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. See, what a grace was seated on this brow: Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself; An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; A station like the herald Mercury, New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; A combination, and a form, indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man. _Hamlet, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 4. SHAKESPEARE.

Ay, every inch a king. _King Lear, Act_ iv. Sc. 6. SHAKESPEARE.

ARCHITECTURE.

When we mean to build, We first survey the plot, then draw the model; And when we see the figure of the house, Then must we rate the cost of the erection. _Henry IV., Pt. II. Act_ i. Sc. 3. SHAKESPEARE.

The hasty multitude Admiring entered, and the work some praise, And some the architect: his hand was known In heaven by many a towered structure high, Where sceptred angels held their residence, And sat as princes. _Paradise Lost, Bk. I_. MILTON.

Old houses mended, Cost little less than new, before they're ended. _Prologue to the Double Gallant_. . C. GIBBER.

The architect Built his great heart into these sculptured stones, And with him toiled his children, and their lives Were builded, with his own, into the walls, As offerings unto God. _The Golden Legend, Pt. III. In the Cathedral_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.

ARGUMENT.

He'd undertake to prove, by force Of argument, a man's no horse. He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl, And that a Lord may be an owl, A calf an Alderman, a goose a Justice, And rooks, Committee-men or Trustees. _Hudibras, Pt. I. Canto I_. S. BUTLER.

Reproachful speech from either side The want of argument supplied: They rail, reviled; as often ends The contests of disputing friends. _Fables: Sexton and Earth Worm_. J. GAY.

Be calm in arguing; for fierceness makes Error a fault, and truth discourtesy. _The Temple: The Church Porch_. C. HERBERT.

In argument Similes are like songs in love; They must describe; they nothing prove. _Alma, Canto III_. M. PRIOR.

One single positive weighs more, You know, than negatives a score. _Epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd_. M. PRIOR.

Who shall decide, when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me? _Moral Essays, Epistle III_. A. POPE.

ARISTOCRACY.

How vain are all hereditary honors, Those poor possessions from another's deeds. _Parricide_. J. SHIRLEY.

He lives to build, not boast, a generous race; No tenth transmitter of a foolish face. _The Bastard_. R. SAVAGE.

Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die, But leave us still our old nobility. _England's Trust, Pt. III_. LORD J. MANNERS.

Whoe'er amidst the sons Of reason, valor, liberty, and virtue, Displays distinguished merit, is a noble Of Nature's own creating. _Coriolanus, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 3. J. THOMSON.

Fond man! though all the heroes of your line Bedeck your halls, and round your galleries shine In proud display; yet take this truth from me-- _Virtue alone is true nobility! Satire VIII_. JUVENAL. _Trans. of_ GIFFORD.

Boast not the titles of your ancestors, brave youth! They're their possessions, none of yours. _Catiline_. B. JONSON.

Nobler is a limited command Given by the love of all your native land, Than a successive title, long and dark, Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark. _Absalom and Achitophel, I_. J. DRYDEN.

As though there were a tie, And obligation to posterity! We get them, bear them, breed and nurse. What has posterity done for us, That we, lest they their rights should lose, Should trust our necks to gripe of noose? _McFingal, Canto II_ J. TRUMBULL.

They that on glorious ancestors enlarge, Produce their debt, instead of their discharge. _Love of Fame, Satire I_. DR. E. YOUNG.

Few sons attain the praise of their great sires, and most their sires disgrace. _Odyssey, Bk. II_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ POPE.

He stands for fame on his forefather's feet, By heraldry, proved valiant or discreet I _Love of Fame, Satire I_. DR. E. YOUNG.

Great families of yesterday we show, And lords whose parents were the Lord knows who. _The True-Born Englishman, Pt. I_. D. DEFOE.

ART.

For Art is Nature made by Man To Man the interpreter of God. _The Artist_. LORD LYTTON (_Owen Meredith_).

In the elder days of Art. Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part; For the gods see everywhere. _The Builders_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.

It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize, And to be swift is less than to be wise. 'Tis more by art, than force of numerous strokes. _Iliad, Bk. XXIII_. HOMER. _Trans_. of POPE.

His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand; His manners were gentle, complying, and bland; Still born to improve us in every part, His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. _Retaliation (Sir Joshua Reynolds)_. O. GOLDSMITH.

Around the mighty master came The marvels which his pencil wrought, Those miracles of power whose fame Is wide as human thought. _Raphael_. J.G. WHITTIER.

ASPIRATION.

Oh! could I throw aside these earthly bands That tie me down where wretched mortals sigh-- To join blest spirits in celestial lands! _To Laura in Death_. PETRARCH.

Happy the heart that keeps its twilight hour, And, in the depths of heavenly peace reclined, Loves to commune with thoughts of tender power,-- Thoughts that ascend, like angels beautiful, A shining Jacob's ladder of the mind! _Sonnet IX_. P.H. HAYNE.

The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow. _To ----: One word is too often profaned_. P.B. SHELLEY.

I held it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things. _In Memoriam, I_. A. TENNYSON.

AUTHORITY.

The rule Of the many is not well. One must be chief In war and one the king. _Iliad, Bk. II_. HOMER. _Trans. of_ BRYANT.

Authority intoxicates, And makes mere sots of magistrates; The fumes of it invade the brain, And make men giddy, proud, and vain. _Miscellaneous Thoughts_. S. BUTLER.

Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar, And the creature run from the cur: There, There, thou might'st behold the great image of authority; A dog's obeyed in office. _King Lear, Act_ iv. _Sc_. 6. SHAKESPEARE.

O, what authority and show of truth Can cunning sin cover itself withal! _Much Ado about Nothing, Act_ iv. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.

AUTHORSHIP.

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. _Don Juan, Canto III_. LORD BYRON.

Habits of close attention, thinking heads, Become more rare as dissipation spreads, Till authors hear at length one general cry Tickle and entertain us, or we die! _Retirement_. W. COWPER.

The unhappy man, who once has trailed a pen, Lives not to please himself, but other men; Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood, Yet only eats and drinks what you think good. _Prologue to Lee's Cæsar Borgia_. J. DRYDEN.

Lest men suspect your tale untrue Keep probability in view. The traveller leaping o'er those bounds, The credit of his book confounds. _The Painter who pleased Nobody and Everybody_. J. GAY.

Immodest words admit of no defence. For want of decency is want of sense.

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But foul descriptions are offensive still, Either for being like or being ill. _Essay on Translated Verse_. EARL OF BOSCOMMON.

Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued I said, Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead. The Dog-star rages! nay, 't is past a doubt, All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out: Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land. _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot: Prologue to the Satires_. A. POPE.

Why did I write? what sin to me unknown Dipped me in ink,--my parents', or my own! _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot: Prologue to the Satires_. A. POPE.

And so I penned It down, until at last it came to be. For length and breadth, the highness which you see. _Pilgrim's Progress: Apology for his Book_. J. BUNYAN.

None but an author knows an author's cares, Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears. _The Progress of Error_. W. COWPER.

Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it, If folly grow romantic. I must paint it. _Moral Essays, Epistle II_. A. POPE.

"You write with ease, to show your breeding, But easy writing's curst hard reading." _Olio's Protest_. R.B. SHERIDAN.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance. 'T is not enough no harshness gives offence; The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore. The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw The line too labors, and the words move slow; Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

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Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song. That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. _Essay on Criticism, Part II_. A. POPE.

Abstruse and mystic thought you must express With painful care, but seeming easiness; For truth shines brightest thro' the plainest dress. _Essay on Translated Verse_. W. DILLON.

It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century. _Incident in a Railroad Car_. J.R. LOWELL.

E'en copious Dryden wanted, or forgot, The last and greatest art--the art to blot. _Horace, Bk. II. Epistle I_. A. POPE.

Whatever hath been written shall remain, Nor be erased nor written o'er again; The unwritten only still belongs to thee: Take heed, and ponder well, what that shall be. _Morituri Salutamus_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.

BABY.

A sweet, new blossom of Humanity, Fresh fallen from God's own home to flower on earth. _Wooed and Won_. G. MASSEY.

The hair she means to have is gold, Her eyes are blue, she's twelve weeks old, Plump are her fists and pinky. She fluttered down in lucky hour From some blue deep in yon sky bower-- I call her "Little Dinky." _Little Dinky_. F. LOCKER-LAMPSON.

As living jewels dropped unstained from heaven. _Course of Time, Bk. V_. R. POLLOK.