Jealousy is a secret avowal of inferiority.

If I shoot at the sun, I may hit a star.

-Massillon.

-P. T. Barnum.

The world is a school, and the business of its occupants, the pursuit of an education fitting them to graduate into the invisible university of God.

-W. R. Alger.

Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself. -Montaigne.

Where much is given, much shall be required. There are never privileges to enjoy without corresponding duties to fulfil in return. -Phillips Brooks.

We proudly say “we are equal." In the largest sense before God we are, but in every other sense we are not. No two persons have the same gifts, the same tastes, the same habits. One must complement the other. It is a mutual life we lead in a mutual world.

Man's rank is his power to uplift.

-Caroline Hazard.

-George Macdonald.

I may not reach the heights I seek,
My untried strength may fail me;
Or, half-way up the mountain peak
Fierce tempests may assail me;
But though my goal I never see
This thought shall always dwell with me-
I will be worthy of it.

I may not triumph in success,
Despite my earnest labor;

I may not grasp results that bless
The efforts of my neighbor.
But though life's dearest joy I miss
There lies a nameless strength in this—

I will be worthy of it.

-Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

How fitting to have every day, in a vase of water on your table, the wild flowers of the season which are just blossoming. Can any house be said to be furnished without them? Shall we be so forward to pluck the fruits of Nature and neglect her flowers? These are surely her finest influences. So may the season suggest the thoughts it is fitted to suggest.

Let me know what pictures Nature is painting, what poetry she is writing, what ode composing now.

DAFFODILS.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,-

A host of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I, at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;—
A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

-Wordsworth.

I hold it the duty of one who is gifted,

And royally dowered in all men's sight, To know no rest till his life is lifted

Fully up to the great gift's height.

Great gifts should be worn like a crown befitting,
And not like gems on a beggar's hands;
And the toil must be constant and unremitting
That lifts up the king to the crown's demands.

-Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

I am one who holds a treasure
And a gem of wondrous cost;
But I mar my heart's deep pleasure
With the fear it may be lost.

Oh for some heavenly token,
By which I may be sure
The vase shall not be broken,
Dispersed the essence pure.

Then spoke the angel of mothers

To me in gentle tone,

"Be kind to the children of others,

And thus deserve thine own."

-Julia Ward Howe.