Men of letters occupy an intermediate station between authors and readers. They are gifted with more curiosity of knowledge, and more multiplied tastes, and by those precious collections, which they are forming during their lives, are more completely furnished with the means than are possessed by the multitude who read, and the few who write. a. ISAAC DISRAELI-Literary Character of Men of Genius. Ch. XXI. Time, the great destroyer of other men's happiness, only enlarges the patrimony of literature to its possessor. b. ISAAC DISRAELI-Literary Character of Men of Genius. Ch. XXII. All literature writes the character of the wise man. C. EMERSON-Essay. Of History. There, is first, the literature of knowledge; and, secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is, to teach; the function of the second is, to move; the first is a rudder, the second an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding; the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy. 9. THOMAS DE QUINCEY-Essays on the Poets. Alexander Pope. We cultivate literature on a little oat meal. h. SYDNEY SMITH-Lady Holland's Memoir. Literature is that part of thought that is wrought out in the name of the beautiful. A poem, like that of Homer, or an essay upon Milton or Dante or Cæsar from a Macaulay, a Taine, or a Froude, is created in the name of beauty, and is a fragment in literature, just as a Corinthian capital is a fragment in art. She raves, and faints, and dies, 'tis true; But raves, and faints, and dies for you. p. ADDISON-Rosamond. Act I. Sc. 6. When love once pleads admission to our hearts, (In spite of all the virtue we can boast), The woman that deliberates is lost. q. ADDISON-Cato. Act IV. Sc. 1. When love's well-timed, 'tis not a fault to love, The strong, the brave, the virtuous, and the The truth of truths is love. d. Garden. BAILEY-Festus. Sc. Another and a Love is that orbit of the restless soul e. GEO. H. BOKER-Sonnet. We love only partially till we know thoroughly. Grant that a closer acquaintance reveals weakness;-it will also disclose strength. f. BOVEE-Summaries of Thought. Love. Love is like fire. Wounds of fire are hard to bear; harder still are those of love. J. HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN-Gunnar. There is music in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument. h. Sir THOS. BROWNE-Religio Medici. DE LA BRUYERE-The Characters and Love! who lightest on wealth, who makest thy couch in the soft cheeks of the youthful damsel, and roamest beyond the sea, and 'mid the rural cots, thee shall neither any of the immortals escape, nor men the creatures of a day. BUCKLEY'S Sophocles. Antigone. 0. Love is a boy by poets styl'd; t. What mad lover ever dy'd, To gain a soft and gentle bride? In purling streams or hemp departed? U. Alas! the love of women! it is known To be a lovely and a fearful thing. v. Bk. IX. BYRON-Don Juan. Canto II. St. 199. And to his eye There was but one beloved face on earth, And that was shining on him. BYRON-The Dream. St. 2. 20. Oh Love! what is it in this world of ours Which makes it fatal to be loved? Ah! why With cypress branches hast thou wreathed thy bowers, And made thy best interpreter a sigh? As those who dote on odours pluck the flowers, And place them on their breast-but place to die; Thus the frail beings we would fondly cherish Are laid within our bosoms but to perish. a. BYRON-Don Juan. Canto III. St. 2. Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band, Let sage and cynic prattle as he will, These hours, and only these, redeem life's years of ill. b. BYRON-Childe Harold. Canto II. CONGREVE-Way of the World. Act III. Sc. 12. "Tis better to be left, than never to have been loved. น. CONGREVE-Way of the World. Act II. Sc. 1. Love me for what I am, Love. Not for sake Of some imagined thing which I might be, Some brightness or some goodness not in Born of your hope, as dawn to eyes that wake me, Imagined morns before the morning break. บ. SUSAN COOLIDGE-Of Such As I Have. Thank God for Love: though Love may hurt and wound Though set with sharpest thorns its rose may be, Roses are not of winter, all attuned Must be the earth, full of soft stir, and free And warm ere dawns the rose upon its tree. 20. SUSAN COOLIDGE-Benedicam Domino. As thou sittest in the moonlight there, I feel my soul drawn unto thee, Strangely, and strongly, and more and more, Does not all the blood within me Wedding Feast. JEAN INGELOW-A Parson's Letter to a v. Young Poet. Pt. II. Line 55. Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak. It serves for food and raiment. LONGFELLOW-The Spanish Student. Act I. Sc. 5. So these lives that had run thus far in separate channels, Coming in sight of each other, then swerving and flowing asunder, Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and nearer, Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the other. 20. LONG FELLOW-Courtship of Miles Standish. Pt. VIII. That was the first sound in the song of love! Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound. Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings Of that mysterious instrument, the soul, And play the prelude of our fate. We hear The voice prophetic, and are not alone. x. LONGFELLOW-The Spanish Student. Act I. Sc. 3. |