Page images
PDF
EPUB

5

them, and withal perpetually diffusing a delicious perfume, we cannot readily believe, that all this variety of charms was evolved from a little seed, not bigger, it may be, than the head of a pin.

When we behold a sturdy oak, that has, for a hundred years, defied the blasts of winter, has stretched wide around its sheltering limbs, and has seemed to grow only more hardy, the more it has been pelted by the storms, we find it difficult to persuade ourselves that the essence, 10 the elements of all this body and strength, were once enclosed in an acorn. Yet such are the facts of the vegetable world. Nor are they half so curious nor wonderful, as the changes, which are wrought by time and education, in the human mind and heart.

15

Here, for example, is a man now master of twenty languages, who can converse in their own tongues with the people of as many different nations, whose only utterance thirty years ago was very much like, and not any more articulate than, the bleating of a lamb. Or it may be that 20 he, who could then send forth only a wailing cry, is now overwhelming the crowded forum, or swaying the Congress of the nation, by his eloquence, fraught with surpassing wisdom.

Here is another, who can conceive the structure, and 25 direct the building of the mighty ship, that shall bear an embattled host around the world, carrying a nation's thunder; or the man, who can devise the plan of a magnificent temple, and guide the construction of it, until it shall present to the eye of the beholder a perfect whole, glow30 ing with the unspeakable beauty of symmetrical form.

And here is a third, who has comprehended the structure of the solar system. He has ascertained the relative sizes of the planets, and learned at what precise moments they shall severally complete their circuits. He has even 35 weighed the sun, and measured the distances of the fixed stars; and has foretold the very hour, "when the dread comet," after an absence of centuries, "shall to the forehead of our evening sky return."

These men are the same beings, who, thirty years ago, 40 were puling infants, scarcely equal in their intelligence to

kittens of a week old.

There, too, is a man, who is swaying the destiny of nations. His empire embraces half the earth; and,

throughout his wide domains, his will is law. At his command, hundreds of thousands rush to arms, the pliant subjects of his insatiable ambition, ready to pour out their blood like water in his cause. He arranges them, as he 5 pleases, to execute his plans. He directs their movements as if they were pawns upon a chessboard. He plunges them into deadly conflict, and wades to conquest over their dead and mangled bodies. That man, the despotic power of whose mind now overawes the world, was once 10 a feeble babe, who had neither the disposition, nor the strength, to harm a fly.

On the other hand, there is one, who now evinces unconquerable energy, and the spirit of willing self-sacrifice in works of benevolence. No toil seems to overbear his 15 strength. No discouragement impairs his resolution. No dangers disarm his fortitude. He will penetrate into the most loathsome haunts of poverty or vice, that he may relieve the wretched, or reclaim the abandoned. He will traverse continents, and expose himself hourly to the ca20 pricious cruelty of barbarous men, that he may bear to them the glad tidings of salvation; or he will calmly face the scorn and rage of the civilized world, in opposition to the wrong; or march firmly to the stake, in maintenance of the true and the right. This man, a few years ago, 25 might have been seen crying for a sugar-plum, or quarreling with his little sister for a two-penny toy.

And who are they, that are infesting society with their daring crimes, scattering about them "fire-brands, arrows, and death," boldly setting at defiance the laws of man, 30 and of God? They are the same beings, that a few years ago, were innocent little children, who, could they have conceived of such deeds of darkness, as they now perpetrate without compunction, would have shrunk from them instinctively with horror.

35

These, surely, are prodigious changes, greater far than any exhibited in the vegetable world. And are they not changes of infinitely greater moment? The growth of a mighty tree, from a small seed, may be matter for wonder, for admiration; but the development of a being, capable 40 of such tremendous agencies for good or for evil, should be with us all a matter of the deepest concern. Strange, passing strange-that it is not so!

5

LESSON XXXIII.-GRECIAN AND ROMAN ELOQUENCE.

J. Q. ADAMS.

[To be marked by the reader, for Rhetorical Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflections.]

In the flourishing periods of Athens and Rome, eloquence was power. It was at once the instrument and the spur to ambition. The talent of public speaking was the key to the highest dignities; the passport to the supreme dominion of the state. The rod of Hermes was the sceptre of empire; the voice of oratory was the thunder of Jupiter.

The most powerful of human passions was enlisted in the cause of eloquence; and eloquence in return was the 10 most effectual auxiliary to the passion. In proportion to the wonders she achieved, was the eagerness to acquire the faculties of this mighty magician.

Oratory was taught, as the occupation of a life. The course of instruction commenced with the infant in the 15 cradle, and continued to the meridian of manhood. It was made the fundamental object of education, and every other part of instruction for childhood, and of discipline for youth, was bent to its accommodation.

Arts, science, letters, were to be thoroughly studied and 20 investigated, upon the maxim, that an orator must be a man of universal knowledge. Moral duties were inculcated, because none but a good man could be an orator. Wisdom, learning, virtue herself, were estimated by their subserviency to the purposes of eloquence; and the whole 25 duty of man consisted in making himself an accomplished public speaker.

LESSON XXXIV.—THANATOPSIS.*-W. C. BRYANT. [Marked for the application of Rhetorical Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflection, to the reading of Poetry.]

To him, who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible fórms, she speaks
A várious language; for his gáyer hours |
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile'
5 And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild '
And gentle sympathy, that steals away

* Contemplation of Death.

Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts |
Of the last bitter | hour || come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and páll,
5 And breathless dárkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at héart ;—
Go forth under the open ský, and list

10

To Nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her wáters, and the depths of áir,-
Comes a still voice-Yet a few days, and thee |
The all-beholding sun || shall see no móre |

In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many téars,
Nor in the embrace of òcean || shall exist

15 Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim,
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go |
To mix forever with the èlements,

20

To be a brother to the insensible ròck,

And to the sluggish clòd, which the rude swain ||
Turns with his sháre, and trèads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad. and pierce thy mould,
Yet not to thy eternal resting place ||

25 Shalt thou retire alóne,-nor couldst thou wish ||
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down ||
With patriarchs of the infant wòrld,—with kings,
The powerful of the earth,-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary sèers of ages pást,
30 All in one mighty | sèpulchre. The hills
Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sùn,—the vàles ||
Stretching in pensive quietness between ;

The venerable woods,-rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks ||

35 That make the meadows green; and, poured round áll, Old ocean's gray and melancholy wáste,

Are but the solemn decorations | ALL

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sùn,
The planets, all the infinite host of hèaven,
40 Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of àges. All that tread
The globe are but a HANDFUL to the tribes
That slumber in its bòsom.-Take the wings
Of morning,—and the Barcan désert pierce,

Or lose thyself | in the continuous woods ||
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dáshings,-yet-the DEAD || are thère,
And MILLIONS in those solitudes, since first

5 The flight of years | began, have laid them down '
In their last sleep,-the dèad | reign there alone.—
So shalt THOU rest;-and what if thou shalt fall |
Unheeded by the living,-and no friend |

Take note of thy departure? All that breathe ||
10 Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh |
When thou art góne, the solemn brood of care |
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase

His favorite phantom; yet all these || shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come, 15 And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men,

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, mátron, and màid,
The bowed with age, the infant || in the smiles

-

20 And beauty of its innocent age | cut off,-
Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side,
By those, who | in their turn | shall follow thèm.

Sò live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves

25 To the pale realms of shāde, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed ||
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,

30 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

LESSON XXXV.-TRUST IN GOD.- Wordsworth.

[To be marked by the reader, for Rhetorical Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflections.]

How beautiful this dome of sky!

And the vast hills, in fluctuation fixed

At Thy command, how awful! Shall the soul,
Human and rational, report of Thee

5 Even less than these ?-Be mute who will, who can,
Yet I will praise Thee with impassioned voice:
My lips, that may forget Thee in the crowd,

« PreviousContinue »