Fill up the interspersed vacancies And momentary pauses of the thought! Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, DOMESTIC PEACE. Tell me on what holy ground QUALITIES ESSENTIAL TO THE TEACHER. O'er wayward childhood wouldst thou hold firm rule, And sun thee in the light of happy faces; Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces, And in thine own heart let them first keep school. For as old Atlas on his broad neck places And the soft murmurs of the mother dove, Woos back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies; Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love. Yet haply there will come a weary day, When overtask'd at length Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way. TO AN INFANT. Ah, cease thy tears and sobs, my little life! To anger rapid, and as soon appeased For trifles mourning, and by trifles pleased- Yet snatch what coals of fire on pleasure's altar glow! O Thou that rearest, with celestial aim, The future seraph in my mortal frame, Still let me stretch my arms and cling to thee, When I was young? Ah woful when! That fear no spite of wind or tide, Naught cared this body for wind or weather, Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; Oh the joys that came down shower-like, Ere I was old! Ere I was old? Ah woful ere! Which tells me Youth's no longer here! REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE OF RETIREMENT. Low was our pretty cot; our tallest rose Peep'd at the chamber-window. We could hear At silent noon, and eve, and early morn, Our myrtles blossom'd; and across the porch Bristowa's citizen: methought it calm'd Ah! quiet dell! dear cot! and mount sublime! Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye Yet even this, this cold beneficence Praise, praise it, O my soul! oft as thou scann'st Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched, Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies; Rests the tired mind, and, waking, loves to dream, Thy jasmin and thy window-peeping rose, Ah! had none greater! And that all had such! IMPORTANCE OF THE CORRECT USE OF TERMS. Felicity, in its proper sense, is but another word for fortunateness, or happiness; and I can see no advantage in the improper use of words, when proper terms are to be found, but, on the contrary, much mischief. For, by familiarizing the mind to equivocal expressions, that is, such as may be taken in two or more different meanings, we introduce confusion of thought, and furnish the sophist with his best and handiest tools. For the juggle of sophistry consists, for the greater part, in using a word in one sense in the premise, and in another sense in the conclusion. We should accustom ourselves to think and reason in precise and steadfast terms, even when custom, or the deficiency or the corruption of the language, will not permit the same strictness in speaking. The mathemati cian finds this so necessary to the truths which he is seeking, that this science begins with, and is founded on, the definition of his terms. The botanist, the chemist, the anatomist, &c., feel and submit to this necessity at all costs, even at the risk of exposing their several pursuits to the ridicule of the many, by technical terms, hard to be remembered, and alike quarrelsome to the ear and the tongue. In the business of moral and religious reflection, in the acquisition of clear and distinct conceptions of our duties, and of the relations in which we stand to God, our neighbor, and ourselves, no such difficulties occur. At the utmost, we have only to rescue words, already existing and familiar, from the false or vague meanings imposed on them by carelessness, or by the clipping and debasing misusage of the market. And surely happiness, duty, faith, truth, and final blessedness are matters of deeper and dearer interest for all men than circles to the geometrician, or the characters of plants to the botanist, or the affinities and combining principle of the elements of bodies to the chemist, or even than the mechanism (fearful and wonderful though it be!) of the perishable Tabernacle of the Soul can be to the anatomist. Among the aids to reflection, place the following maxim prominent: Let distinctness in expression advance side by side with distinction in thought. For one useless subtlety in our elder divines and moralists, I will produce ten sophisms of equivocation in the writings of our modern preceptors; and for one error resulting from excess in distinguishing the indifferent, I would show ten mischievous delusions from the habit of confounding the diverse. Aids to Reflection. QUALITIES NECESSARY FOR A GOOD STYLE. In order to form a good style, the primary rule and condition is, not to attempt to express ourselves in language before we thoroughly know our own meaning;—when a man perfectly understands himself, appropriate diction will generally be at his command either in speaking or writing. In such cases the thoughts and the words are associated. In the next place, preciseness in the use of terms is required, and the test is whether you can translate the phrase adequately into simpler terms, regard being had to the feeling of the whole passage. Try this upon Shakspeare, or Milton, and see if you can substitute other simpler words in any given passage without a violation of the meaning or tone. The source of bad writing is the desire to be something more than a man of sense, the straining to be thought a genius; and it is just the same in speech-making. If men would only say what they have to say in plain terms, how much more eloquent they would be! Another rule is, to avoid converting mere abstractions into persons. You will very rarely |