A Dictionary of Quotations from English and American Poets

ARGUMENT.

O most lame and impotent conclusion.

191

Shaks.: Othello Act ii. Sc. 1.

He that complies against his will,
Is of his own opinion still.

192

Butier: Hudibras. Pt. iii. Canto iii. Line 547

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.
193

Butler: Hudibras. Pt. i. Canto i. Line 71.

Reproachful speech from either side
The want of argument supplied;
They rail'd, revil'd — as often ends
The contests of disputing friends.
194

Gay: Fables. Fable ii. Pt. 16.

Be calm in arguing: for fierceness makes
Error a fault, and truth discourtesy.
195

Herbert: Temple. Church Porch. St. 52

Like doctors thus, when much dispute has past,
We find our tenets just the same at last.

196

Pope: Mor. Essays. Epis. iii. Line 15

Who shall decide when doctors disagree,

And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me.

197

Pope: Mor. Essays. Epis. iii. Line 1.

Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And thought of convincing while they thought of dining.
198
Goldsmith: Retaliation. Line 35

In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill,

For e'en though vanquish'd, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thundering sound
Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around;

And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew.
199

ARISTOCRACY.

Goldsmith: Des. Village. Line 211.

'Tis from high life high characters are drawn; A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.

200

Pope: Mor. Essays. Epis. i. Line 135

Shaks.: King John. Act ii. Sc 1

A braver choice of dauntless spirits,
Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er,
Did never float upon the swelling tide.
201
We are but warriors for the working-day:
Our gayness, and our gilt, are all be-smirch'd
With rainy marching in the painful field.
There's not a piece of feather in our host.
202
Remember whom you are to cope withal;
A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and run-aways,
A scum of Bretagnes, and base lackey peasants,
Whom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth
To desperate ventures and assur'd destruction.
203

ART-ARTIST.

Shaks. Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 3

Shaks.: Richard III. Act v. Sc. 3.

In framing an artist, art hath thus decreed,
To make some good, but others to exceed.

204

Shaks.: Pericles. Act ii. Sc. 3.

Dost thou love pictures? we will fetch thee straight
Adonis painted by a running brook;

And Cytherea all in sedges hid;

Which seem to move and wanton with her breath,

Even as the waving sedges play with wind.

205

Shaks.: Tam. of the S. Induction. Sc. 2.

Painting is welcome!

The painting is almost the natural man;

For since dishonor traffics with man's nature,
He is but outside; these pencil'd figures are
Even such as they give out.

206

Shaks.: Timon of A. Act i. Sc. 1

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.
207

Goldsmith: Retaliation. Line 139

A flattering painter who made it his care,

To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.

208

Goldsmith: Retaliation. Line 63

Around the mighty master came

The marvels which his pencil wrought,
Those miracles of power whose fame
Is wide as human thought.

209

Whittier: Raphael. St. &

Seraphs share with thee Knowledge: But art, O man, is thine alone! 210

Schiller: Artists. St. 2

The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity;

Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew;-
The conscious stone to beauty grew.
211

Emerson: The Problem. Line 19.

ASTONISHMENT - see Amazement, Surprise, Fear.

It is the part of men to fear and tremble,
When the most mighty gods, by tokens, send
Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.

216

Shaks.: Jul. Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 3.

-Hear it not, ye stars!

And thou, pale moon! turn paler at the sound. 217

Young: Night Thoughts. Night iii. Line 215.

ASTRONOMERS.

These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixed star,

Have no more profit of their shining nights,
Than those that walk, and wot not what they are.

218

Shaks.: Love's L. Lost. Act. Sc. 1

Devotion! daughter of astronomy!

An undevout astronomer is mad.

219 ATHEISM.

Young: Night Thoughts. Night ix. Line 772.

By night an atheist half believes a God.

220

Young: Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 176.

Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place,
(Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism,
Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon,
Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close,
And hooting at the glorious sun in heaven,
Cries out, "Where is it?"

221

Coleridge: Fears in Solitude. Line 81

Eyes which the preacher could not school,
By wayside graves are raised;

And lips say, "God be pitiful,"

That ne'er said "God be praised."

222

ATHENS.

Mrs. Browning: Cry of the Human.

Ancient of days! august Athena! where,

Where are thy men of might, thy grand in soul?

Gone glimmering through the dream of things that were, First in the race that led to glory's goal,

They won, and pass'd away.

223

AUDIT.

Byron: Ch. Harold. Canto ii. St. 2.

He took my father grossly, full of bread,

With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven?
224
Shaks.: Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 3

I can make my audit up, that all
From me do back receive the flour of all,
And leave me but the bran.

225

AUGUST.

Dust on thy mantle! dust,

Shaks.: Coriolanus. Act i. Sc. 1.

Bright Summer! on thy livery of green.

A tarnish as of rust,

Dims thy late-brilliant sheen;
And thy young glories,

leaf, and bud, and flower,

William D. Gallagher: August

Change cometh over them with every hour.

226

And lo! the sun is coming.

Red as rust

Between the latticed blind his presence burns,
A ruby ladder running up the wall;

And all the dust, printed with pigeons' feet,
Is reddened, and the crows that stalk anear
Begin to trail for heat their glossy wings,
And the red flowers give back at once the dew,
For night is gone, and day is born so fast,
And is so strong, that, huddled as in flight,
The fleeting darkness paleth to a shade,

And while she calls to sleep and dreams "Come on,"
Suddenly waked, the sleepers rub their eyes,
Which having opened, lo! she is no more.

227

Jean Ingelow: Afternoon at a Parsonage. Rejoice! ye fields, rejoice! and wave with gold, When August round her precious gifts is flinging; Lo! the crushed wain is slowly homeward rolled: The sunburnt reapers jocund lays are singing.

228

AURORA BOREALIS.

Ruskin: The Months.