old sun, he did it all. These sunbeams have long been burned in the form of coal; and though by ignition their resurrection-life is but a dim shadow of their early brightness, they are yet sunbeams. We have nothing but sunlight in summer or in winter, think or talk as we may. The fire on our hearths, the gas in our tubes, the oil in our lamps, and the candles on our tables, are all products of the sunbeam. We kindle them, and in the very act raise the sunbeam from its grave, and send it forth to run perchance a long cycle of changes ere again it rests in such a peace as that we have dragged it from. Brooke. SUNDIALS-Reflections on the. What an antique air had the now almost effaced sundials, with their moral inscriptions, seeming coeval with that time which they measured, and to take their revelations of its flight immediately from heaven, holding correspondence with the fountain of light! How would the dark line steal imperceptibly on, watched by the eye of childhood, eager to detect its movement, never catched, nice as an evanescent cloud, or the first arrests of sleep. Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, steal from his figure, and no pace perceived! What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments of lead and brass, its pert or solemn dulness of communication, compared with the simple altar-like structure and silent heart-language of the old dial. It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. It spoke of moderate labours, of pleasures not protracted after sunset, of temperance and good hours. It was the primitive clock, the horologe of the first world. Adam could scarce have missed it in Paradise. It was the measure appropriate for sweet plants and flowers to spring by, for the birds to apportion their silver warblings by, for flocks to pasture and be led to fold by. SUNLIGHT. Lamb. Sunlight seeking hidden shadow, touch'd SUNRISE-Glories of. Yonder comes the powerful king of day High gleaming from afar. Prime cheerer, light! Of all material beings first and best! SUNS-Description of. Suns are sunflowers of a higher light. Richter. SUNSET-Beauties of a. I see the sun standing amid roses in the western sky, into which he has thrown his raybrush, wherewith he has to-day been painting the earth; and when I look round a little in our picture-exhibition, his enamelling is still hot on the mountains, on the moist chalk of the moist earth; the flowers, full of sapcolours, are laid out to dry, and the forget-menot with miniature colours; under the varnish of the streams the skiey painter has pencilled his own eye; and the clouds, like a decorationpainter, he has touched off with wild outlines and single tints; and so he stands at the Ibid. border of the earth. SUNSET-Charms of a. Bless'd be the hour, The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft, While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft, And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with prayer. Byron. SUNSET-Glories of. The zenith spreads Its canopy of sapphire; but the west Has a magnificent array of clouds, And, as the breeze plays on them, they assume The forms of mountains, castled cliffs, and hills, And shadowy glens, and groves, and beetling rocks. And some that seem far off are voyaging Never, from the birth sway Of twilight is begun. Bright morning calls Her gentle airs to renovate the globe, And (as the insatiate orb has drunk the streams) Sprinkles her liberal dews, and with a hush Comes on, that her beloved may have restThe sons of toil. The fiercely brilliant streaks Of crimson disappear, but o'er the hills A flush of orange hovers, softening up Into harmonious union with the blue That comes a-sweeping down, for twilight hastes First there comes a flood of rosy light, and then a deep bright crimson, like the ruby's flash or the sapphire's blaze, and then a circlet of flaming peaks studs the horizon. It looks as if a great conflagration were about to begin. But suddenly the light fades, and piles of cold pale white rise above you. You can scarce believe them to be the same mountains. But, quick as the lightning, the flash comes again. A flood of glory rolls once more along their summits. It is a last and mighty blaze. You feel as if it were a struggle for life-as if it were a war waged by spirits of darkness against these celestial forms. The struggle is over; the darkness has prevailed. These mighty mountain tombs are extinguished one after one; and cold ghastly piles of sepulchral hue, which you shiver to look up at, and which remind you of the dead, rise still and calm in the firmament above you. You feel relieved when darkness interposes its veil betwixt you and them. The night sets in deep, and calm, and beautiful, with troops of stars overhead. The voice of streams, all night long, fills the silent hills with melodious echoes. Dr. Wylie. SUPERSTITION. SUNSET-on the Ocean. Now deep in ocean sunk the lamp of light. And drew behind the cloudy veil of night. Pope. SUPERFICIALITY-Mistakes of. Superficial writers, like the mole, often fancy themselves deep, when they are exceeding near the surface. Shenstore. SUPERFLUITY-Results of. Superfluity creates necessity, and necessity superfluity. Take care to be an economist in prosperity: there is no fear of your being one Zimmerman in adversity. SUPERFLUITY-Waste of. There are, while human miseries abound, Who first taught souls enslaved, and realms undone, Th' enormous faith of many made for one; Till superstition taught the tyrant awe, She, 'midst the lightning's blaze and trumpet's sound, When rock'd the mountains, and when groan'd the ground; She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray To powers unseen, and mightier far than they She, from the rending earth, and bursting skies, Saw gods descend, and fiends infernal rise; Here fix'd the dreadful, there the bless'd abodes; Fear made her devils, and weak hope her gods: Then sacred seem'd th' ethereal vault no more; And play'd the god an engine on his foe. Pope. Superstition sprung from the deep disquiet of man's passion. Brooke. SUPERSTITION-Profanity of. SUPERSTITION AND RELIGION. There is superstition in shunning superstition; and he that disdains to follow religion in the open and trodden path, may chance to lose his way in the trackless wilds of experiment, or in the obscure labyrinths of speculation. Bacon. SURMISE-Evils of. Surmise is the gossamer that malice blows on fair reputations; the corroding dew that destroys the choice blossom. Surmise is primarily the squint of suspicion, and suspicion is established before it is confirmed. Zimmerman. SURNAMES-Origin of. or Such names as the Saxon royal Ethulwulf, "noble wolf," of course originated in similes intended to be complimentary, after our own fashion of terming a soldier "brave as a lion." The Norman names still translate themselves, as Beaufoy (a faithful adherent), Beauclerc (good scholar), &c. Others from personal bravery, as Napier or na peer (without equal), from the undaunted conduct of a Scottish ancestor. Others from occupation, as Spencer from Le Despenser, or the Steward; Landseer from a bailiff; and Granger from the superintendent of a grange. Many names are undoubtedly the mere result of mistake or mis-spelling. A late resident officer of our hospital informs me that he has received bills made out against the institution, in which that word has been spelt in forty-six different ways, a list of which he sends me. In 1844, one Joseph Galliano died in Boston, and in our Probate Records he has the alias of Joseph Gallon-that having been his popular name. Plamboeck, in some of our conveyances, became Plumback. These are names in a transition state. So likewise a Spanish boy, having the Christian name of Benito, pronounced Beneeto, who shipped with Dr. Bow. ditch in one of his voyages (as mentioned in his Memoir, 1839), became Ben Eaton; and a foundling, named Personne (i. e., " nobody"), became Mr. Pearson. Perhaps our Barnefield is but a corruption of the glorious old Dutch name Barneveldt. Bowditch. SURRENDER-No. Some are in the habit of shouting "No surrender;" but I say we should all surrender; we should surrender our passions, and our prejudices, and our uncharitableness towards others. We should seek to win as much as we can from the common humanity of our adversaries. The good and the wise will pursue this course, and they will succeed; whilst the treacherous, the arrogant, and the intolerant, will dwindle far behind in the march, and will perish of self-contention, instead of coming up to win the laurels. Bamford, SUSCEPTIBILITY. SUSCEPTIBILITY. The bleakest rock upon the loneliest heath Melts at the tear, joys in the smile of woman. SUSPENSE-Anguish of. Of all the conditions to which the heart is subject, suspense is one that most gnaws and cankers into the frame. One little month of that suspense, when it involves death, we are told by an eye-witness, in "Wakefield on the Punishment of Death," is sufficient to plough fixed lines and furrows in a convict of five-andtwenty,-sufficient to dash the brown hair with grey, and to bleach the grey to white. Bulwer Lytton But be not long; for in the tedious minutes- SWEARING. Suspicion is a heavy armour, and With its own weight impedes more than it protects. Вутов, And shall we all condemn and all distrust, Of light and radiance which sleep's visions Than thus to live suspicion's bitter slave. SUSPICION-an Enemy. Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt. It is too common for us to learn the frauds by which ourselves have suffered; men who are once persuaded that deceit will be employed against them, sometimes think the same arts justified by the necessity of defence. Even they whose virtue is too well established to give way to example, or be shaken by sophistry, must yet feel their love of mankind diminished with their esteem, and grow less zealous for the happiness of those by whom they imagine their own happiness endangered. Johnson. SUSPICION-Evil of. SUSPICION-Remedy for. Augustine. The suspense, the fearful, acute suspense, of standing idly by while the life of one we dearly love is trembling in the balance; the Suspicion is the poison of true friendship. racking thoughts that crowd upon the mind, and make the heart beat violently, and the breath come thick, by the force of the images they conjure up before it; the desperate anxiety to "be doing something" to relieve the pain or lessen the danger, which we have no power to alleviate; and the sinking of soul and spirit, which the sad remembrance of our helplessness produces,-what tortures can equal these, and what reflections or efforts can, in the full tide and fever of the time, allay them? There is nothing that makes a man suspect much, more than to know little; and, therefore, men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not to keep their suspicions in smother. Васов. SUSPENSE-Living in. Dickens. It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of the spider. Swift. SUSPICION-Character of. Suspicions among thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they ever fly to twilight: they are to be repressed, or, at least, well guarded, for they cloud the mind. Bacon. Suspicion overturns what confidence builds; And he that dares but doubt when there's no ground, Is neither to himself nor others sound. Massinger. SUSPICION-Strength of. Suspicion is ever strong on the suffering side. Suspicion disposes kings to tyranny and husbands to jealousy. SUSPICION-Wrongfulness of. Bacon Virtue, so tried, by the least shade of doubt: Swear not at all: neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great king. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou caust not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. St. Matthew. SWEARING-Danger attending. From a common custom of swearing, men easily slide into perjury; therefore, if thou wouldst not be perjured, do not use to swear. Hierocles. SWEARING-Degradation of. It is no mark of a gentleman to swear. The most worthless and vile, the refuse of mankind, the drunkard and the prostitute, swear as well as the best dressed and educated gentleman. No particular endowments are requisite to give a finish to the art of cursing. The basest and meanest of mankind swear with as much tact and skill as the most refined; and he that wishes to degrade himself to the very lowest level of pollution and shame, should learn to be a common swearer. Any man has talents enough to learn to curse God, and imprecate perdition on themselves and their fellow-men. Profane swearing never did any mau any good. No man is the richer, or wiser, or happier for it. It helps no one's education or manners. It commends no one to any society. It is disgusting to the refined, abominable to the good; insulting to those with whom we associate; degrading to the mind; unprofitable, needless, and injurious to society; and wantonly to profane his name, to call his vengeance down, to curse him, and to invoke his vengeance, is perhaps of all offences the most awful in the sight of God. SWEARING-Guilt of. Louth. A sudden trembling seized on all his limbs; She faints! support her! With wondrous force it strikes the lazy spirits, SWOONING-State of. Rowe. Her cheeks are cold, and the last leaden sleep Hangs heavy on her lips. Ibid. SWOONING-Symptoms of. My sight grows dim, and every object dances And swims before me in the maze of death. Dryden. Sure I am near upon my journey's end; Who first, with skill inhuman, did produce, Take not His name, who made thy tongue, in What sense of pity could the monster feel? vain; Himself relentless as the murderous steel! SYMBOLS-Sanctity of. Dryden. A symbol is ever, to him who has eyes for God-like. Through all there glimmers someit, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the sign that men ever met, and embraced under thing of a Divine idea; nay, the highest enthe cross itself, had no meaning, save an accidental extrinsic one. Carlyle. SYMPATHIZER-A. When thou, haply, seest Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel; Wish mo partaker in thy happiness, When thou dost meet good hap; and, in thy danger, If ever danger do environ thee, Sleep i' the self-same beds; ride in those Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers, coaches, For I will be thy bedesman. Shakspeare. |