What's female beauty, but an air divine,

Through which the mind's all-gentle graces shine?
They, like the sun, irradiate all between;
The body charms, because the soul is seen.
Hence men are often captives of a face,
They know not why, of no peculiar grace :

Some forms, though bright, no mortal man can bear;
Some none resist, though not exceeding fair.

344

Young: Love of Fame. Satire vi. Line 141.

What is this thought or thing

Which I call beauty? is it thought or thing?
Is it a thought accepted for a thing?
Or both? or neither

a pretext?

a word?

Its meaning flutters in me like a flame

Under my own breath: my perceptions reel,
For evermore around it, and fall off,

As if it too were holy.

345 Mrs. Browning: Drama of Ex. Extrem. of Sword-Glare. The essence of all beauty, I call love. The attribute, the evidence, and end, The consummation to the inward sense, Of beauty apprehended from without,

I still call love.

346 Mrs. Browning: Drama of Ex. Extrem. of Sword-Glare. Beauty, like wit, to judges should be shown;

Both are most valued where they best are known.

347

Lyttelton: Soliloquy of a Beauty. Line 2.

Emerson: The Rhodora.

If eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.
348
Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes,
Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies.
349

Who can curiously behold

Byron: Beppo. St. 45.

The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's check,
Nor feel the heart can never all grow old?

Byron: Ch. Harold. Canto iii. St. 11.

350
Who hath not proved how feebly words essay
To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray?
Who doth not feel, until his failing sight
Faints into dimness with its own delight,
His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess
The might the majesty of loveliness?
351
Her overpowering presence made you feel
It would not be idolatry to kneel.

Byron: Bride of Ab. Canto i. St. 6.

352

Byron: Don Juan. Canto iii. St 74

She was a form of life and light,

That, seen, became a part of sight;
And rose, where'er I turned mine eye,
The morning-star of memory.

353

Byron: Giaour. Line 1135

An eye's an eye, and whether black or blue

Is no great matter, so 'tis in request,
'Tis nonsense to dispute about a hue -
The kindest may be taken as a test.

The fair sex should be always fair; and no man,
Till thirty, should perceive there's a plain woman.
354

Byron: Don Juan. Canto xiii. St. 3

Her glossy hair was cluster'd o'er a brow
Bright with intelligence, and fair and smooth;
Her eyebrow's shape was like the aerial bow,
Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,
Mounting at times to a transparent glow,
As if her veins ran lightning.

355

Byron: Don Juan. Canto i. St. 61

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
356

Byron: She Walks in Beauty

There was a soft and pensive grace,
A cast of thought upon her face,
That suited well the forehead high,
The eyelash dark, and downcast eye
The mild expression spoke a mind
In duty firm, composed, resigned.
357

Scott: Rokeby. Canto iv. St. 5.

There's beauty all around our paths, if but our watchful eyes Can trace it 'midst familiar things, and through their lowly

guise.

358

Mrs. Hemans: Our Daily Paths.

Campbell: Pl. of Hope. Pt. ii. Line 23

Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Oh, what were man? - a world without a sun!
359

The Universe is girdled with a chain,
And hung below the Throne

Where Thou dost sit, the Universe to bless,

Thou sovereign Smile of God, Eternal Loveliness.

360

R. II. Stoddard: Hymn to the Beautiful.

What is beauty? Alas! 'tis a jewel, a glass,

A bubble, a plaything, a rose,

'Tis the snow, dew, or air; 'tis so many things rare That 'tis nothing, one well may suppose,

'Tis a jewel, Love's token; glass easily broken,

A bubble that vanisheth soon;

A plaything that boys cast aside when it cloys,
A rose quickly faded and strewn.

361

There is a spirit in the kindling glance

Of pure and lofty beauty, which doth quell
Each darker passion; and as heroes fell
Before the terror of Minerva's lance

So beauty, arm'd with virtue bows the soul
With a commanding but a sweet control,
Making the heart 'all holiness and love,
And lifting it to worlds that shine above.
362

Bohn: Ms

Bohn: Ms

There is beauty in the rolling clouds, and placid shingle

beach,

In feathery snows, and whistling winds, and dun electric

skies:

There is beauty in the rounded woods, dank with heavy foliage,

In laughing fields, and dinted hills, the valley and its lake: There is beauty in the gullies, beauty on the cliff's, beauty in sun and shade,

In rocks and rivers, seas and plains, the earth is drowned in beauty.

BED.

363

Tupper: Proverbial Phil. Of Beauty.

In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,
And born in bed, in bed we die;

The near approach a bed may show

Of human bliss and human woe.

364

Isaac De Benserade: Trans. by Dr. Johnson,

So work the honey-bees; Creatures, that by a rule in nature, teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

366

Shaks. Henry V. Act 1. Sc. 2

The careful insect 'midst his works I view,
Now from the flowers exhaust the fragrant dew,
With golden treasures load his little thighs,
And steer his distant journey through the skies;
Some against hostile drones the hive defend,
Others with sweets the waxen cells distend,
Each in the toil his destin'd office bears,
And in the little bulk a mighty soul appears.
367

Gay: Rural Sports. Canto i. Line 3..

BEGGARS - see Bashfulness.

Well whiles I am a beggar, I will rail,

And say,

To say,

- there is no sin, but to be rich;

Act ii. Sc. 2.

Acti. Sc. 4

And being rich, my virtue then shall be,
there is no vice but beggary.
368
Shaks.: King Joke.
Beggars, mounted, run their horse to death.
369
Shaks.: 3 Henry V.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings but reliev'd their pain;
The long remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast.
370

Goldsmith: Des. Village. Line 14.

A beggar through the world am I,
From place to place I wander by.
Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me,
For Christ's sweet sake and charity.
371

RELLS.

James Russell Lowell: The Beggar

Your voices break and falter in the darkness, -
Break, falter, and are still.

Bret Harte: The Angelus. Last

372
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet; now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again and louder still,
Clear and sonorous as the gale comes on;
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where memory slept.

373

Cowper: Task. Bk. vi. Line 6

There's a music aloft in the air,

As if Cherubs were humming a song,

Now it's high, now it's low, here and there,
There's a harmony floating, floating along!
While the steeples are loud in their joy,
To the tune of the bells ring-a-ding,
Let us chime in a peal, one-and-all,

For we all should be able to sing Hullabaloo.

374

Hood: Song for the Millior

Dear bells! how sweet the sound of village bells
When on the undulating ear they swim!

Now loud as welcomes! faint now as farewells!
And trembling all about the breezy dells,

As fluttered by the wings of Cherubim.

375 Those evening bells! those evening bells! How many a tale their music tells

Hood: Ode to Rae Wilson, Esq. Line 159

Of youth, and home, and that sweet time, When last I heard their soothing chime! 376

Moore: Those Evening Bells

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
377
It is the convent bell; it rings for vespers.
Let us go in; we both will pray for peace.
378

Tennyson: In Memoriam. Pt. cv.

Longfellow: Michael Angelo. Pt. vii.
The Sabbath bell,

That over wood, and wild, and mountain-dell
Wanders so far, chasing all thoughts unholy
With sounds, most musical, most melancholy.

379

I heard

Samuel Rogers: Human Life

The bells of the convent ringing
Noon from their noisy towers.

380

Longfellow: Christus. Golden Legend. Pt. ii.

He heard the convent bell

Suddenly in the silence ringing

For the service of noonday.

381

Longfellow Christus. Golden Legend. Pt i

The bells themselves are the best of preachers;
Their brazen lips are learned teachers,

From their pulpits of stone in the upper air,
Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw,

Shriller than trumpets under the law,

Now a sermon and now a prayer.

The clangorous hammer is the tongue,

This way, that way, beaten and swung;

That from mouth of brass, as from mouth of gold

May be taught the Testaments, New and Old.

382

Longfellow: Christus. Golden Legend Pt. ill