By that dear language which I spake like thee,
Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear
O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here.

T. B. MACAULAY

186. ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER

MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
-Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific-and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise-
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

187. THE UNCHANGING BEAUTY

JOHN KEATS

ON every wind there comes the dolorous cry
Of change, and rumour vast of fair things sped,
And old perfections loudly doomed to die;

Axes agleam and running torches red,
And voices shrilling, "The old world is dead!"
Yet little heed to all this noise I pay

But lift my eyes where, walking overhead,
The moon goes silently upon her way.

For what concern with all this change have I,
Knowing the same wild words of old were said?
For change, too, changes not; yea, this old sky
Watches mankind the same vain pathway tread.
So long ago thrones crashed and nations bled,
Yet the old world stole back at close of day,
And on the morrow men rose up to wed-
The moon goes silently upon her way.

Abbess of all yon cloistered worlds on high,
Upon my heart your benediction shed,
Help me to put the idle turmoil by,

And on the changeless be my spirit fed;

O be my footsteps on that pathway led
Where Beauty steals among the stars to pray;
And, sorrowing earth, in this be comforted—
The moon goes silently upon her way.

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE-The Junk-Man *

188. SEEING IS BELIEVING

You must not say that this cannot be, or that that is contrary to nature. You do not know what Nature is, or what she can do; and nobody knows. Wise men are afraid to say that there is anything contrary to nature except what is contrary to mathematical truth, as that two and two cannot make five. There are dozens and hundreds of things in the world which we should certainly have said were contrary to nature, if we did not see them going on under our eyes all day long. If people had never seen little seeds grow into great plants and trees, of quite different shapes from themselves, and these trees again produce fresh seeds, they would have said, "The thing cannot be." As the French thought of Le Vaillant when he came back to Paris and said he had shot a giraffe; and as the King of the Cannibal Islands thought of the English sailor when he said that in his country water turned to marble, and rain fell as feathers. The truth is that folks' fancy that such and such things cannot be, simply because they have not seen them, is worth no more than a savage's fancy that there cannot be such a thing as a locomotive, because he never saw one running wild in the forest.

CHARLES KINGSLEY-Water-Babies

189. A RECIPE FOR A FOURTH OF JULY ORATION There were the usual allusions to Greece and Rome, between the republics of which and that of this country there exists some such affinity as is to be found between a horse-chestnut and a chestnut horse, or that of mere words; and a long catalogue of national glories that might well have sufficed for all republics, both of antiquity and of our own time. But when the orator came to speak of the American character, and particularly of the intelligence of the nation, he was most felicitous and made the largest investments in popularity. According to his account of the matter, no other people possessed a tithe of the knowledge, or a hundredth part of the honesty and virtue of the very community he was addressing; and after laboring for ten minutes to convince his hearers that they already knew everything, he wasted several more in trying to persuade them to undertake further acquisitions of the same nature. JAMES FENIMORE COOPER-Home As Found

* By permission of the author.

190. SHYLOCK TO ANTONIO

SIGNIOR Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances:

Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spet upon my Jewish gaberdine,

And all for use of that which is mine own.
Well then, it now appears you need my help:
Go to then; you come to me, and you say,
"Shylock, we would have moneys:" you say so;
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard,
And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
Over your threshold: moneys is your suit.
What should I say to you? Should I not say,
"Hath a dog money? Is it possible

A cur can lend three thousand ducats?" or
Shall I bend low, and in a bondman's key,
With bated breath, and whispering humbleness,
Say this:-

"Fair sir, you spet on me on Wednesday last;
You spurn'd me such a day; another time
You call'd me dog; and for these courtesies
I'll lend you thus much moneys?"

WILLIAM SHAKSPERE-The Merchant of Venice

191. THE DANGERS OF AN HONEST MAN IN MUCH COMPANY

If twenty thousand naked Americans were not able to resist the assaults of but twenty well-armed Spaniards, I see little possibility for one honest man to defend himself against twenty thousand knaves who are all furnished cap-à-pie, with the defensive arms of worldly prudence, and the offensive too of craft and malice. He will find no less odds than this against him, if he have much to do in human affairs. The only advice therefore which I can give him is, to be sure not to venture his person any longer in the open campaign, to retreat and entrench himself, to stop up all avenues, and draw up all bridges against so numerous an enemy.

The truth of it is, that a man in much business must either make himself a knave, or else the world will make him a fool: and, if the injury went no farther than the being laughed at, a wise man would content himself with the revenge of retaliation; but the case is much worse, for these civil cannibals too, as well as the

wild ones, not only dance about such a taken stranger, but at last devour him. A sober man cannot get too soon out of drunken company, though they be never so kind and merry among themselves; it is not unpleasant only, but dangerous, to him.

ABRAHAM COWLEY-Essays

192. OBJECTIVE-SUBJECTIVE

German dulness, and English affectation, have of late much multiplied among us the use of two of the most objectionable words that were ever coined by the troublesomeness of metaphysicians,— namely, "Objective" and "Subjective."

In fact (for I may as well, for once, meet our German friends in their own style), all that has been subjected to us on this subject seems object to this great objection; that the subjection of all things (subject to no exceptions) to senses which are, in us. both subject and abject, and objects of perpetual contempt, cannot but make it our ultimate object to subject ourselves to the senses, and to remove whatever objections existed to such subjection. So that, finally, that which is the subject of examination or object of attention, uniting thus in itself the characters of subness and obness (so that, that which has no obness in it should be called subsubjective, or a sub-subject, and that which has no subness in it should be called upper or ober-object, or an ob-object); and we also who suppose ourselves the objects of every arrangement, and are certainly the subjects of every sensual impression, thus uniting in ourselves, in an obverse or adverse manner, the characters of obness and subness, must both become metaphysically dejected or rejected, nothing remaining in us objective but subjectivity, and the very objectivity of the object being lost in the abyss of this subjectivity of the Human.

There is, however, some meaning in the above sentence, if the reader cares to make it out; but in a pure German sentence of the highest style there is often none whatever.

JOHN RUSKIN-Modern Painters

193. FAREWELL!

FAREWELL! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate:
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.

Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgment making.
Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,
In sleep, a king; but waking, no such matter.

WILLIAM SHAKSPERE

194. WANTED A BUSINESS GOVERNMENT

Taking it all in all, our government is probably the most incompetent and most costly on earth. This is because it is so largely a government by those who talk, and that we have been so successful in excluding from it those who think and those who do. We pay enough in taxes, and far more than enough, to get thoroughly satisfactory administration of the public business; but we do not get this because competent administrators so rarely concern themselves with government or are chosen to responsible legislative or executive office. If the government of the United States were run in accordance with those principles which control the activity of any great non-governmental undertaking, from a steel corporation to a university, it would be the envy and the admiration of the world. We are so concerned with our own personal affairs, with our personal undertakings, and with our immediate interests that we are letting America drift. What is everybody's business is nobody's business. Until every American feels his personal responsibility for the formation of definite public policy at home and abroad, and for the businesslike administration of public affairs, America will continue to drift. And the rest of the world will continue to treat her as the spoiled child of the goddess of good fortune.

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER-A World In Ferment *

195. NO COWARD SOUL IS MINE

No coward soul is mine,

No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:

I see Heaven's glories shine,

And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast,

Almighty, ever-present Deity!

Life that in me has rest,

As I undying life-have power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds

That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;

* By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons.