LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.

No man can answer for his own valor or For I am nothing if not critical. courage, till he has been in danger. (Rochefoucauld. I dare do all that may become a man: Who dares do more is none.

792

GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.

It is much easier to be critical than to be cor- The day was dying, and with feeble hands (Disraeli. Caressed the mountain-tops; the vales be

rect.

tween

Darkened; the river in the meadow-lands
Sheathed itself as a sword, and was not seen.
(Longfellow.

Hail, twilight! sovereign of one peaceful
hour!
(Wordsworth.

The sun is set; and in his latest beams
Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold,
Slowly upon the amber air unrolled,
The falling mantle of the Prophet seems.
(Longfellow.

O the wierd northern twilight, which is nei-
ther night or day,

When the amber wake of the long-set sun still marks his western way.

(D. M. Mulock. A cloud lay cradled near the setting-sun, A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow,

With just enough of learning to misquote;
A mind well skill'd to find or forge a fault,
A turn for punning, call it Attic salt;
To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet,
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet,
Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a lucky hit;
Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for Tranquil its spirit seemed, and floated slow!

wit;

Care not for feeling-pass your proper jest,
And stand a critic, hated yet caress'd.

DAY AND NIGHT.

*

*

*

Even in its motion there was rest;

*

*

While

(Byron.

every blow Wafted the traveler to the beauteous west. (John Wilson. Sweet shadows of twilight! how calm their repose,

breath of eve that chanced to

the rose !

How blest to the toiler his hour of release
When the vesper is heard with its whisper of

peace!

But yonder comes the powerful King of Day While the dew drops fall soft in the breast of Rejoicing in the east. (Thomson. Whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty; the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave; but thou thyself movest alone. (Macpherson. The rising sun complies with our weak sight, First gilds the clouds, then shows his globe of light

At such a distance from our eyes, as though
He knew what harm his hasty beams would
do.
(Waller.

And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.

(Byron.

:

(Holmes. The day is done and slowly from the scene The stooping sun up-gathers his spent shafts, And puts them back into his golden quiver! (Longfellow.

Now in his Palace of the West,

Sinking to slumber the bright Day,
Like a tired monarch fann'd to rest,

'Mid the cool airs of evening lay;
While round his couch's golden rim

The gaudy clouds, like courtiers, crept-
Struggling each other's light to dim,
And catch his last smile ere he slept.
(Moore

LIVING THOUGHTS OF GREAT THINKERS.

The evening came. The setting sun stretched See yonder fire! It is the moon
his celestial rods of light across the level
landscape, and, like the Hebrews in
Egypt, smote the rivers, the brooks, and
the ponds, and they became as blood.

(Longfellow.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary

793

Slow rising o'er the eastern hill.
It glimmers on the forest tips
And through the dewy foliage drips
In little rivulets of light,
And makes the heart in love with night.
(Longfellow.
Night! that great shadow and profile of the
day.
(Richter.

And still as still can be,
The night is calm and cloudless,

And the stars come forth to listen
To the music of the sea.

They gather, and gather, and gather,
Until they crowd the sky,

And listen, in breathless silence,
To the solemn litany.

(Longfellow.

When I gaze into the stars, they look down
upon me with pity from their serene and
silent spaces, like eyes glistening with
tears over the little lot of man. Thou-
sands of generations, all as noisy as our
own, have been swallowed up by time,
and there remains no record of them any
more. Yet Arcturus and Orion, Sirius
and Pleiades, are still shining in their
courses, clear and young, as when the
shepherd first noted them in the plain of
Shinar!
(Carlyle.

The moon was pallid, but not faint;
And beautiful as some fair saint,
Serenely moving on her way
In hours of trial and dismay.
Unharmed with naked feet she trod
As if she heard the voice of God,
Upon the hot and burning stars,
As on the glowing coals and bars,
That were to prove her strength, and try
Her holiness and her purity. (Longfellow.

If the stars should appear one night in a
thousand years, how would men believe
and adore; and preserve for many gen-
erations the remembrance of the city of
God which had been shown
But every
night come out these envoys of beauty,
and light the universe with their ad-
monishing smile.
(Emerson.

GEMS FOR THE FIRESIDE.

How beautiful the silent hour, when morning And, as she looked around, she saw how

(Last words of Jas. Drummond Burns. Ere well we feel the friendly stroke 'tis o'er.