Thy birth-right the tall cliff and sky beyond: + The slave and freeman must alike obey: The dreadful summons hears; and where are they? LIT. SOUVENIR. LESSON CXLVII. THE MONK. 1. A POOR monk of the order of St. Francis, came into the room to beg something for his convent. The moment I cast my eyes upon him, I was predetermined not to give him a single sous,* and, accordingly, I put my purse into my pocket, buttoned it up, set myself a little more upon my center, and advanced up gravely to him. There was something, I fear, forbidding in my look; I have his figure this moment before my eyes, and think there was that in it which deserved better. 2. The monk, as I judged from the break in his tonsure, a few scattered white hairs being all that remained of it, might be about seventy; but from his eyes, and that sort of fire that was in them, which seemed more tempered by courtesy than years, could be no more than sixty; truth might lie between; he was certainly sixty-five; and the general air of his countenance, notwithstanding something seemed to have been planting wrinkles in it before their time, agreed to the account. It was one of those heads which Guido has often painted; mild, pale, penetrating, free from all commonplace ideas of fat, contented ignorance looking downward upon the earth, it looked forward; but looked as if it looked at something beyond this world. How one of his order came by it, Heaven above, who let it fall upon a monk's shoulders, best knows; but it would have suited a +Bramin, and had I met it upon the plains of Hindostan, I should have reverenced it. 3. The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes; one might put it into the hands of any one to design, for it was neither elegant nor otherwise, but as character and expression made it so: it was a thin, spare form, something above the common size, if it * Pronounced soo. lost not the distinction by a bend forward in the figure, but it was the attitude of entreaty; and, as it now stands present to my imagination, it gained more than it lost by it. 4. When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; and laying his left hand upon his breast, (a slender, white staff, with which he journeyed, being in his right,) when I had got close up to him, he introduced himself with the little story of the wants of his convent, and the poverty of his order; and did it with so simple a grace, and such an air of deprecation was there in the whole cast of his look and figure, I was bewitched not to have been struck with it. A better reason was, I had predetermined not to give him a single sous. 5. ""Tis very true," said I, replying to a cast upward with his eyes, with which he had concluded his address, "'t is very true, and Heaven be their resource who have no other but the charity of the world, the stock of which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the many great claims which are hourly made upon it." As I pronounced the words great claims, he gave a slight glance with his eye downward upon the sleeve of his tunic. I felt the full force of the appeal. 66 "I acknowledge it," said I, a coarse habit and that but once in three years, and meager diet, are no great matters; the true point of pity is, as they can be earned in the world with so little industry, that your order should wish to procure them by pressing upon a fund which is the property of the lame, the blind, the aged, and the infirm: the captive, who lies down, counting over and over again the days of his afflictions, languishes, also, for his share of it; and had you been of the order of Mercy, instead of the order of St. Francis, poor as I am," continued I, pointing at my portmanteau, "full cheerfully should it have been opened to you for the ransom of the unfortunate." monk made me a bow. The 6. "But of all others," resumed I, "the unfortunate of our own country have the first rights; I have left thousands in distress upon our own shore." The monk gave a cordial wave of the head, as much as to say; No doubt there is misery enough in every corner of the world, as well as within our convent. "But we distinguish," said I, laying my hand upon the sleeve of his tunic, in return for his appeal, "we distinguish, my good father, betwixt those who wish to eat only the bread of their own labor, and those who eat the bread of other people's, and have no other plan in life but to get through it in sloth and ignorance, for the love of God." The poor Franciscan made no reply: a hectic, for a moment, passed across his cheek, but could not tarry. Nature seemed to have done with her resentments in him; he showed none, but letting his staff fall within his arm, he pressed both his hands with resignation upon his breast, and retired. 7. My heart smote me, the moment he shut the door. "Pshaw!" said I, with an air of carelessness, three several times: but it would not do: every ungracious syllable I had uttered, crowded back into my imagination; I reflected I had no right over the poor + Franciscan, but to deny him; and that the punishment of that was enough to the disappointed, without the addition of unkind language. I considered his gray hairs; his courteous figure seemed to re-enter, and gently ask me what injury he had done me? and why I could use him thus? I would have given twenty livres for an advocate. I have behaved very ill, said I, within myself; but I have only just set out upon my travels; and shall learn better manners as I get along. STERNE. 1 LESSON CXLVIII. THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES. 1. A MONK, when his rites sacerdotal were o'er, + 2. Perhaps, it was only by patience and care, At last, that he brought his invention to bear; And, at length, he produced the philosopher's scales. 3. "What were they?" you ask; you shall presently see; These scales were not made to weigh sugar and tea; O no; for such properties wondrous had they, That qualities, feelings, and thoughts, they could weigh: From mountains or planets, to atoms of sense. 4. Naught was there so bulky, but there it would lay, 5. The first thing he weighed was the head of Voltaire, 6. One time, he put in Alexander the Great, With a garment that Dorcas had made, for a weight, He found that ten chariots weighed less than one plow; When a bee chanced to light on the opposite scale; When the former sprang up with so strong a rebuff, While the scale with the soul in 't so mightily fell, JANE TAYLOR. LESSON CXLIX. THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM. 1. Ir was on a summer evening, And by him sported on the green, Roll something large and round, Which he beside the rivulet, In playing there, had found; He came to ask what he had found, 3. Old Kaspar took it from the boy, And then the old man shook his head, "T is some poor fellow's skull," said he, 4. "I find them in the garden, For there's many here about; The plowshare turns them out! 5. "Now tell us what 't was all about," 6. "It was the English," Kaspar cried, 7. "My father lived at +Blenheim then, They burnt his dwelling to the ground, So, with his wife and child, he fled, 8. "With fire and sword, the country round Was wasted, far and wide; And many a nursing mother then, But things like that, you know, must be 9. "They say it was a shocking sight For many thousand bodies here Lay rotting in the sun; But things like that, you know, must be 10. "Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won, And our young prince, Eugene." |