For Life is sometimes bright and fair, and sometimes dark and lonely, Then let's forget its toil and care, and note its bright hours only. 3. We bid the joyous moments haste, and then forget their glitter; We take the cup of life, and taste no portion but the bitter: But we should teach our hearts to deem its sweetest drop the strongest, And pleasant hours should ever seem to linger round us longest. For Life is sometimes bright and fair, and sometimes dark and lonely, Then let's forget its toil and care, and note its bright hours only. 4. The darkest shadows of the night are just before the morning; Then let us wait the coming light, all fancied phantoms scorning; And while we're floating down the tide of Time's fast ebbing river, Let's pluck the flowers that grace its side, and thank the gracious Giver. For Life is sometimes bright and fair, and sometimes dark and lonely, Then let's forget its toil and care, and note its bright hours only. LESSON CIV. TRAIN THE CHILDREN. JOHN DE FRAINE. 1. Train the children! Their hearts are soft and plastic now the springs of life are bubbling up in crystal freshness and beauty-the sapling is straight and tender. 2. Train the children! and they shall go forth, with the charm of winning ways, and the power of goodness to touch the wandering soul, and turn the hearts of some of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. 3. Train the children! for by-and-by they will go into thronged cities, and crowded marts; or they will emigrate to the Great West, or to Canada, or Australia, or New Zealand; and there they will take the nobler messages, and be "living epistles known and read of all men." 4. Train the children! they are to be the fathers, and masters, and guardians of the next generation; they will plow the land, and sell the corn, and build the ships, and write the books, and guide the destinies of a universe. 5. Train the children! then shall it be almost impossible for lost, and wretched, and perishing men to fling up wild arms in the mad vortex of passion, crying out, as in despair, "No man cared for my soul." 6. Train the children! and the vices will be shriveled up, the Church strengthened, the cause of God uplifted; and those who have looked with sadness at the apathy and neglect of the past, shall shout with joy: "The little one has already become a thousand, and the small one has become a great nation." 7. Our hopes are in the children. Ah! how many a happy mother, with dear children at her feet, has prayed in language like the following: 8. "Oh, fairies, never leave us! Oh, still breathe mortal breath! Thou fear, whose name is Death! These human blooms, oh let them Live on to summer here; And not till winter fret them, Still let the dear ones bless us, These fairies of our home."-BENNETT. XIX. CLIMAX AND ANTI-CLIMAX. LESSON CV. CHARACTER OF CLIMAX AND ANTI-CLIMAX. [Analysis.—1. What is Climax? Forcible periods.-2. Why climax pleases. What Quintilian says on this subject.-3. Climax combined with repetition.-4. Example from Cicero.-5. A second example from Cicero.-6. A highly impassioned climax from Demosthenes.-7. Character of the Anti-Climax,-its effect. A fine example in Shakspeare, and its effect.-8. The extract.-9. Combination of climax and anticlimax,-the effect.-10. A beautiful illustration of the principle.-11. Explanation. -12. By whom climax is much used. Cicero's use of this figure. The perfection of climax.-13. General principle to be observed in the construction of sentences. An illustration.] 1. CLIMAX is a figure of speech which consists in a gradual rise of one circumstance above another, each increasing in importance over the preceding, so that the strongest impression shall come last. The most forcible periods are arranged in this order. 2. This arrangement of sentences, and of entire discourses also, very naturally pleases; for in all things we love to ascend to what is more and more beautiful', more and more forcible', more and more sublime'. This same principle was laid down by that celebrated rhetorician Quintilian, nearly 1800 years ago, when he said, "Care must be taken that our composition shall not fall off, and that a weaker expression shall not follow one of more strength; as if, after sacrilege', we should bring in theft'; or, having mentioned a robbery', we should subjoin petulance'. Sentences ought always to rise and grow." 3. Sometimes a climax is so constructed that the last idea of the former member becomes the first of the latter, and so on to the end of the series, combining with it repetition, as in the following example, in which Cicero describes the readiness with which Milo surrendered himself, after he had unfortunately killed Clodius. 4. "Nor did he surrender himself to the people only', but also to the senate'; not to the senate only', but likewise to the public forces'; nor to these only', but also to the power of him to whom the senate had intrusted the whole commonwealth." 5. Another example from Cicero carries this principle still farther: "What hope is there remaining of liberty', if, whatever is their pleasure', it is lawful for them to do'; if what is lawful for them to do', they are able to do'; if what they are able to do', they dare do'; if what they dare do', they really execute'; and if what they execute' is no way offensive to you'?" 6. The following highly impassioned climax, from the Athenian orator Demosthenes, is beautiful not only for the form of the expression, but for the nobleness of the sentiment also: "In my affection to my country, you find me ever firm and invariable. Not the solemn demand of my person'; not the vengeance of the Amphictyonic Council, which they denounced' against me; not the terror of their threatenings'; not the flattery of their promises'; no, nor the fury of those accursed wretches, whom they roused like wild beasts against me', could ever tear this affection from my breast'." 7. An Anti-Climax, which is a descent from great to little, has the effect to lower a subject, to the same extent that the climax elevates it. A fine example of this is found in Shakspeare's King Richard II., where the king, in a pathetic outburst of grief, by magnifying his humiliation on being compelled to yield to the demands of the banished Bolingbroke, makes his diminished dignity appear still more diminutive. 8. "What must the king do now'3? Must he submit"1? The king shall do it'. Must he be deposed'? The king shall be contented': must he lose My gay apparel', for an alms-man's gown'; 9. Sometimes climax and anti-climax are combined, and a subject is magnified, that the descent to the mean and lowly may seem the greater from the contrast; for when the mind is elevated by grand and lofty thoughts, the introduction of thoughts of a depressing nature makes the fall great in proportion to the elevation. We have a beautiful illus tration of this principle in the following: 10. "The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, SHAKSPEARE'S Tempest, Act IV., Sc. 1. 11. Here, after a succession of the most sublime images has carried the mind to a lofty pitch of elevation, it is suddenly let down by the most humbling of all images—that of an utter dissolution of the earth and its inhabitants. 12. Accomplished orators and rhetoricians, and many preachers of the Gospel, make frequent use of climax; but of all orators, whether of ancient or of modern times, Cicero is the most noted for his exceeding care in the oratorical construction and nice finish of his sentences. To this, his pompous manner naturally led him; and in order to render the climax perfect, he makes both the sense and the sound rise together, with a very magnificent swell. This is all |