The approach to its-lofty abode is rightly represented as steep and rugged. He who would reach it, must task his powers. But it is a noble task, for, besides the eminence it leads to, it nourishes a just ambition, subdues and casts off vicious propensities, and strengthens the powers employed in its service, so as to render them continually capable of higher and higher attainments. JOHN SARGEANT.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society where none intrudes

By the deep sea and music in its roar.
I love not man the less but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

BYRON.

The high and the low, the rich and the poor, approach, in point of real enjoyment, much nearer to each other than is commonly imagined. Providence never intended that any state here should be either completely happy, or entirely miserable. If the feelings of pleasure are more numerous and more lively in the higher departments of life, such also are those of pain. If greatness flatters our vanity, it multiplies our dangers. If opulence increases our gratifications, it increases, in the same proportion, our desires and demands. If the poor are confined to a more narrow circle, yet within that circle lie most of those natural satisfactions, which, after all the refinements of art, are found to be the most genuine and true.

For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich;
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honor peereth in the meanest habit.

What is the jay more precious than the lark,
Because his feathers are more beautiful?

Or is the adder better than the eel,
Because his painted skin contents the eyes?
Oh no, good friend: neither art thou the worse
For this poor furniture and mean array.

SHAKESPEARE.

He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find

The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind

Must look down on the hate of those below.
Though high above the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head;

And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.

BYRON.

Let the young remember there is nothing derogatory in any employment which ministers to the well-being of the race. It is the spirit that is carried into an employment that elevates or degrades it. The ploughman that turns the clod may be a Cincinnatus or a Washington, or he may be brother to the clod he turns.

No matter what may be the fortunes or the expectations of a young man, he has no right to live a life of idleness. In a world so full as this of incitements to exertion, and of rewards for achievement, idleness is the most absurd of absurdities, and the most shameful of shames. In such a world as ours, the idle man is not so much a biped as a bivalve; and the wealth which breeds idleness of which the English peerage is an example, and of which we are beginning to abound in specimens in this country is only a sort of human oyster-bed, where heirs and heiresses are planted, to spend a contemptible life of slothfulness in growing plump and succulent for the grave-worm's banquet.

HORACE MANN.

QUALITY.

QUALITY, or Timbre, of the voice is that peculiar property by which we distinguish the speech of one person from another, or by which the same person expresses different emotions.

Pure tone is that quality which should be used in common conversation, and in the expression of pleasing emotions.

Whispering expresses secrecy, awe, excessive fear, and suppressed anger, or restrained emotion. The practice of whispering should not be continued long at a time, but it will be found an excellent exercise for improving both the articulation and respiration.

The Half-Whisper, or Aspirated Tone, is used in the expression of the same emotions as the whisper, but when they are less intense.

The Orotund is an enlarged, pure tone, and is used in the expression of feelings of reverence, grandeur, or sublimity. The Aspirated Orotund is used to express mixed feelings of fear and grandeur, awe and sublimity.

WHISPERING.

Soldiers! You are now within a few steps of the enemy's outpost. Our scouts report them as slumbering in parties around their watch-fires, and utterly unprepared for our approach. A swift and noiseless advance around that projecting rock, and we are upon them,- we capture them without the possibility of resistance. One disorderly noise or motion may leave us at the mercy of their advanced guard. Let every man keep the strictest silence, under pain of instant death!

Pray you tread softly,— that the blind mole may not
Hear a footfall; we are now near his cell,

Speak softly.

All's hushed as midnight yet.

See'st thou here?

This is the mouth o' the cell! no noise! and enter!
SHAKESPEARE.

Hark! I hear the bugles of the enemy! They are on their march along the bank of the river. We must retreat instantly, or be cut off from our boats. I see the head of their column already rising over the height. Our only safety is in the screen of this hedge. Keep close to it; be silent; and stoop as you run. For the boats! Forward!

Ha! who comes here?

I think it is the weakness of mine eyes
That shapes this monstrous apparition.
It comes upon me. Art thou anything?

Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil,
That makes my blood cold, and my hair to stare?
Speak to me what thou art."
SHAKESPEARE.

Now o'er the one half world

Nature seems dead; and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered murder
Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
Towards his design

Moves like a ghost. — Thou sure and firm-set earth!
Hear not my steps, which way they walk; for fear
The very stones prate of my whereabout,

And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it.

SHAKESPEARE.

Oh, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though t'were to buy a world of happy days,
So full of dismal terror was the time.

And once behind a rick of barley

SHAKESPEARE.

Thus looking out, did Harry stand,
The moon was full, and shining clearly
And crisp with frost the stubble land.
He hears a noise - he's all awake-
Again! On tip-toe down the hill
He softly creeps. 'Tis Goody Blake,
She's at the hedge of Harry Gill.

WORDSWORTH.

ASPIRATED.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and

weary,

Over many a quaint and curious. . . volume of forgotten.

lore,

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a

tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber

door;

""Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door;

Only this and nothing more."

Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the

floor;

Eagerly I wished the morrow: vainly I had tried to borrow, From my books, surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost

Lenore,

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore,

Nameless here for evermore.

POE.