We bleed, we tremble, we forget, we smile
The mind turns fool, before the cheek is dry.
76
Affliction is the good man's shining scene;
Prosperity conceals his brightest ray;
As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.
77

Young: Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 511.

Young: Night Thoughts. Night ix. Line 406.

He went like one that hath been stunn'd,
And is of sense forlorn:

A sadder and a wiser man

He rose the morrow morn.

78

AFFRONTS.

Coleridge: Ancient Mariner. Pt. vii. Last St.

Young men soon give and soon forget affronts;
Old age is slow in both.

The dew that lay upon the morning grass;
There is no rustling in the lofty elm
That canopies my dwelling, and its shade
Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint
And interrupted murmur of the bee

Settling on the sick flowers, and then again
Instantly on the wing.

81

AGE- see Old Age, Years.

When the age is in, the wit is out.

82

Bryant: Summer Wind

Shaks.: Much Ado. Act iii. Sc. 5

Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,
Nor age so eat up my invention,

Nor fortune made such havoc of my means,
Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends,
But they shall find, awaked in such a kind,
Both strength of limb, and policy of mind,
Ability of means, and choice of friends,
To quit me of them thoroughly.
83

Shaks.: Much Ado. Act iv. Sc. 1.,

His silver hairs

Will purchase us a good opinion,

And buy men's voices to commend our deeds;

It shall be said,

84

his judgment rul'd our hands.

Shaks. Jul. Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1

Manhood, when verging into age, grows thoughtful. 85 Capel Loft's Aphorisms. Published in 1812

Full of wise saws and modern instances.

86

Shak. As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7

I know thee not, old man fall to thy prayers. How ill white hairs become a fool and jester! 87

Shaks.: 2 Henry IV. Act v. Sc. 5

I am declin'd into the vale of years. 88

Shaks.: Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3 All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

89

Shaks.: As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

Her infinite variety; other women

Cloy th' appetites they feed; but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.

An old man, broken with the storms of State,

Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;
Give him a little earth for charity!

92

Shaks.: Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 2

Of no distemper, of no blast he died,

But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long,
Even wondered at because he dropt no sooner;
Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years:
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more,
Till, like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
93
Dryden: Edipus. Act iv. Sc. I
Shall our pale, wither'd hands, be still stretch'd out,
Trembling, at once, with eagerness and age?
With av'rice and convulsions, grasping hard?
Grasping at air; for what hath earth beside?
Man wants but little; nor that little long;
How soon must he resign his very dust,
Which frugal nature lent him for an hour!
94

Young: Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 114

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;

You've play'd, and lov'd, and ate, and drank your fill
Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age

Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage:
Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,
Whom folly pleases, and whose follies please.

95

Pope: Im. of Horace. Bk ii. Epis. 2. Line 322 What folly can be ranker? Like our shadows, Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.

96

Young: Night Thoughts. Night v Line 661

We see time's furrows on another's brow How few themselves in that just mirror see! 97

Young: Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 627.

O, sir! I must not tell my age.
They say women and music should never be dated.
98
Goldsmith: She Stoops to Con. Act iii

An age that melts with unperceived decay,
And glides in modest innocence away;
Whose peaceful Day benevolence endears,
Whose Night congratulating conscience cheers;
The general favorite as the general friend:
Such age there is, and who shall wish its end?

99 Yet time, who changes all, had altered him In soul and aspect as in age: years steal Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb: And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. 100 Byron: Ch. Harold. Canto iii. St. &

Dr. Johnson: Vanity of H. W. Line 293.

What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth as I am now.

101 AGGRESSION.

Byron: Ch. Harold. Canto ii. St. 98.

You take my house, when you do take the prop
That doth sustain my house; you take my life,
When you do take the means whereby I live.

102

Shaks.: M. of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.

ALACRITY-see Promptitude.

A willing heart adds feather to the heel,
And makes the clown a winged Mercury.

103 ALARM.

Joanna Baillie: De Monfort. Act iii. Sc. 2.

What's the business,

That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley,

The sleepers of the house? - Speak,

104

speak!

Shaks.: Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 3

ALEXANDRINE.

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. Pope: E. on Criticism. Part ii. Line 156

105

AMAZEMENT -see Astonishment, Surprise.

In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill,

For e'en though vanquish'd, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thund'ring sound
Amazed the gaping rustics ranged around;

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.

106

But look!

Goldsmith: The Deserted Village. Line 211. Amazement on thy mother sits;

O step between her and her fighting soul: Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works. 107

Shaks.: Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.

They spake not a word;

But, like dumb statues, or breathing stones, Star'd on each other, and look'd deadly pale. 108

AMBER.

Shaks.: Richard III. Act iii. Sc. 7.

Pretty! in amber to observe the forms

Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!
The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,

But wonder how the devil they got there.

109

Pope: Epis. to Arbuthnot. Line 169.

AMBITION -see Fame, Glory, Pride.

Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall.
110

Sir Walter Raleigh: Written in a Window
Fling away ambition;

By that sin fell the angels: how can man then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?

111

Shaks.: Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2

I have ventur'd

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory.

But far beyond my depth; my high-blown pride
At length broke under me.

112

Shaks.: Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2

Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
113

Shaks.: Jul. Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2

I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other.

114

Shaks.: Macbeth. Acti. Sc. 7

Lowliness is young ambition's ladder,

Whereto the climber upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the utmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.

115

Shaks.: Jul. Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Shaks.: Richard III. Act i. Sc. 3.

They that stand high, have many blasts to shake them;
And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.
116
Reign, and keep life in this our deep desire-
Our only greatness is that we aspire.

117

Jean Ingelow: A Snow Mountain

Ambition has but one reward for all:
A little power, a little transient fame,
A grave to rest in, and a fading name.
118
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.
119

William Winter: Queen's Domain

Milton: Par. Lost. Bk. i. Line 262

But what will not Ambition and Revenge
Descend to? Who aspires, must down as low
As high he soar'd, obnoxious, first or last,

To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils.

120
What various wants on power attend!
Ambition never gains its end.
Who hath not heard the rich complain
Of surfeits, and corporeal pain?
He, barr'd from every use of wealth,
Envies the ploughman's strength and health.

Milton: Par. Lost. Bk. ix. Line 168.

121

Gay: Pt. ii. Fable 15.

Ambition is an idol, on whose wings
Great minds are carry'd only to extreme;
To be sublimely great, or to be nothing.

122

Southerne: Loyal Brothers.

The fiery soul abhorr'd in Catiline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine:
The same ambition can destroy or save,
And makes a patriot, as it makes a knave.
123

Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. ii. Line 199

Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies?
Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.

124

Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. iv. Line 74