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5. We all ride something. It is folly to expect us always to be walking. The cheapest thing to ride is a hobby; it eats no oats; it demands no groom; it breaks no traces; it requires no shoeing. Moreover, it is safest; the boisterous outbreak of the children's fun does not startle it; three babies astride it at once do not make it skittish. If, perchance, on some brisk morning it throws its rider, it will stand still till he climbs the saddle. For eight years we have had one tramping the nursery, and yet no accidents; though, meanwhile, his eye has been knocked out and his tail dislocated. T. DE WITT TALMAGE.

6. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

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8. Speak the speech I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,— trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spake my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters,-to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb show and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant: it out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it.

Be not too tame, neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word; the word to the action; with this special observance that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature;-to show virtue her own feature; scorn her own image; and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now this, overdone or come tardy off, tho it make the unskilful laugh, can not but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh! there be players, that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, or man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well,-they imitated humanity so abominably!

"Hamlet."

SHAKESPEARE.

9. At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools who came to scoff, remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran;
E'en children followed, with endearing wile,

And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile.

His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed;
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven :
As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm;
Tho round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

"The Village Preacher."

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

10. Insects generally must lead a jovial life. Think what it must be to lodge in a lily. Imagine a palace of ivory and pearl, with pillars of silver and capitals of gold, and exhaling such a perfume as never arose from human censer. Fancy again the fun of tucking one's self up for the night in the folds of a rose, rocked to sleep by the gentle sighs of summer air, nothing to do when you awake but to, wash yourself in a dewdrop, and fall to eating your bedclothes.

11. We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
Life is but a means unto an end; that end,-
Beginning, mean, and end to all things,-God.
"Festus."

BAILEY.

12. I consider a human soul without education like marble in the quarry, which shows none of its inherent beauties until the skill of the polisher fetches out the colors, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein that runs through the body of it. Education, after the same manner, when it works upon a noble mind, draws out to view every latent virtue and perfection, which, without such helps, are never able to make their appearance.

13. Near the city of Sevilla, years and years ago,
Dwelt a lady in a villa, years and years ago;
And her hair was black as night,
And her eyes were starry bright;
Olives on her brow were blooming;
Roses red her lips perfuming;
And her step was light, and airy,
As the tripping of a fairy.

Ah! that lady of the villa,-and I loved her so,
Near the city of Sevilla, years and years ago.

"The Spanish Duel."

14. Sail forth into the sea, O ship!

WALLER.

Through wind and wave, right onward steer!
The moistened eye, the trembling lip,

Are not the signs of doubt or fear.
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity, with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

"Building of the Ship."

LONGFELLOW.

15. Now clear, pure, hard, bright, and one by one, like to hailstones,
Short words fall from his lips fast as the first of a shower,—
Now in twofold column, Spondee, Iamb, and Trochee,
Unbroke, firm-set, advance, retreat, trampling along,-

Now with a sprightlier springiness, bounding in triplicate syl-
lables,

Dance the elastic Dactylics in musical cadences on;
Now, their voluminous coil intertangling like huge anacondas,
Roll overwhelmingly onward the sesquipedalian words.

STACY.

16. The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world's joy. The lonely pine upon the mountain top waves its somber boughs, and cries, "Thou art my sun." And the

little meadow violet lifts its cup of blue, and whispers with its perfumed breath, "Thou art my sun." And the grain in a thousand fields rustles in the wind, and makes answer, "Thou art my sun." And so God sits effulgent in Heaven, not for a favored few, but for the universe of life; and there is no creature so poor or so low that he may not look up with childlike confidence and say, "My Father. Thou art mine."

BEECHER.

17. External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did. "A Christmas Carol."

DICKENS.

18. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. "Declaration of Independence."

19. All in the wild March-morning, I heard the angels call; It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all; The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll; And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul. "The May Queen." TENNYSON.

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