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Baseness is mutability's ally,

But the sublime affections never die.-Dr. Bowring.

A mind that, in a calm angelic mood

Of happy wisdom meditating good,

Beholds, of all from her high powers required,
Much done, and much designed, and more desired;
Harmonious thoughts, a soul by truth refin'd,
Entire affection for all human kind. Wordsworth.

Affection, earth's great purifier, stirs
Our embers into flame; and that ascends.

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There is in life no blessing like affection;
It soothes, it hallows, elevates, subdues,
And bringeth down to earth its native heaven;
It sits beside the cradle patient hours,

Whose sole contentment is to watch and love;
It bendeth o'er the death-bed, and conceals
Its own despair with words of faith and hope.
Life hath nought else that may supply its place;
Void is ambition, cold is vanity,

And wealth an empty glitter without love.

Miss Landon.

Oh! there is one affection which no stain
Of earth can ever darken-when two find,
The softer and the manlier, that a chain
Of kindred taste has fastened mind to mind.
'Tis an attraction from all sense refined;
The good can only know it. 'Tis not blind,
As love is, unto baseness; its desire

Is but with hands entwined to lift our being higher.

Affection is the Deity's best gift,

The brightest star that glitters in his crown,

And flashes its refulgence to the earth.

Percival.

Ann S. Stevens.

Affection's power who can suppress,
And master when it sinneth,
Of worthy praise deserves no less,
Than he that kingdoms winneth.

Brandon.

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THOUGH affliction, at the first, doth vex
Most virtuous natures, from the sense that 't is
Unjustly laid; yet, when the amazement which
That new pain brings is worn away, they then
Embrace oppression straight, with such

Obedient cheerfulness, as if it came
From heaven, not man.

Sir William Davenant.

Perfumes, the more they're chafed, the more they render
Their pleasant scents; and so affliction
Expresseth virtue fully, whether true,

Or else adulterate.

John Webster.

Like a ball that bounds

According to the force with which 't was thrown,
So in affliction's violence, he that's wise,
The more he's cast down, will the higher rise.

Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction;
As oft the cloud that wraps the present hour
Serves but to lighten all our future days.

Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue,
Where patience, honour, sweet humanity,
Calm fortitude, take root and flourish.

Affliction is the good man's shining scene;
Prosperity conceals his brightest ray:

Nabb.

Browne.

Mallet.

As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.-Young. Prosperity, alas!

Is often but another name for pride

And selfishness, which scorns another's woe;
While our keen disappointments are the food
Of that humility which entereth heaven,
Finding itself at home. The things we mourn
Work our eternal gain. Then let our joys
Be tremulous as the mimosa leaf,

And each affliction with a serious smile
Be welcomed in at the heart's open door,
As the good patriarch met his muffled guests,
And found them angels.

Sigourney.

AFFRONT.

OFT have they violated

The temple, oft the law with foul affronts,
Abominations rather.

Milton.

His holy rites and solemn rites profaned,

And with their darkness durst affront His light.

But harm precedes not sin; only our foe
Tempting affronts us with his foul esteem
Of our integrity.

Milton.

Milton.

You've done enough, for you designed my chains, The grace is vanished, but the affront remains.

Dryden.

Young men soon forgive, and forget affronts;
Old age is slow in both.

When truth or virtue an affront endures,

Addison.

The affront is mine, my friend, and should be yours.

Pope.

A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
Will not affront me, and no other can.-Cowper.

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'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;

'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter,

And intimates eternity to man.

Addison.

I still shall wait

Some new hereafter, and a future state.

Prior.

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We look before and after,
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Oh! it is ecstacy in early days,

Shelley.

When youth is ours-before the scorching rays
Of manhood's noon hath swept away the dew,
That glitters in the eye when life is new,
Yielding a freshness to the joyous scene,

That makes the sky more blue, the earth more green-
To stand as now-upon the desert sea,

Forgetting earth and all that therein lowers;

For then the soul unto eternity

Looks, and awhile the better land is ours:

But it is otherwise in after years;

The dews that were in youth are changed to tears; And though as blue the heavens-the earth as green, Alas! we see them not as we have seen.

Mrs. E. Thomas.

AGE.

THE sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon;

With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all
That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness, and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.
Shakspere.

I have lived long enough: my way of life
Has fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain cling to, but dare not.

Shakspere.

Though now this grained face of mine be hid
In safe consuming winter's drizzled snow,
And all the conduits of my blood froze up;
Yet hath my night of life some memory,
My wasting lamp some fading glimmer left,
My dull deaf ears a little use to hear.

Youth no less becomes

The light and careless livery that it wears,
Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
Importing health and graveness.

Shakspere.

Shakspere.

Beshrew my jealousy!

It seems it is as proper to our age

To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions,
As it is common to the younger sort

To lack discretion.

Shakspere.

Age sits with decent grace upon his visage,
And worthily becomes his silver locks;
He wears the marks of many years well spent,
Of virtue, truth well tried, and wise experience.

What is age

But the holy place of life, chapel of ease
To all men's wearied miseries? and to rob
That of her ornament it is accurst,

Rowe.

As from a priest to steal a holy vestment,
Aye, and convert it to a sinful covering.—Massinger.

Life ebbs from such old age, unmark'd and silent,
As the slow neap-tide leaves yon stranded galley.
Late she rock'd merrily at the least impulse
That wind or wave could give; but now her keel
Is settling on the sand, her mast has ta'en
An angle with the sky, from which it shifts not.
Each wave receding shakes her less and less,
Till bedded on the strand, she shall remain
Useless as motionless.

These are the effects of doting age.

Old Play.

Vain doubts, and idle cares, and over caution.

Dryden.

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