صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

Rolla. Dost thou love thy wife and children?

Sent. Do I love them! God knows my heart, I do. Rolla. Soldier! Imagine thou wert doomed to die a cruel death in a strange land. What would be thy last request? Sent. That some of my comrades should carry my dying blessing to my wife and children.

Rolla. What if that comrade was at thy prison door, and should there be told, thy fellow-soldier dies at sunrise, yet thou shalt not for a moment see him, nor shalt thou bear his dying blessing to his poor children, or his wretched wife; what wouldst thou think of him who thus could drive thy comrade from the door?

Sent.
Rolla.

How?

Alonzo has a wife and child; and I am come but to receive for her, and for her poor babe, the last blessing of my friend.

Sent. Go in.

Rolla. [Calls.

[Exit Sentinel.]

Alonzo! Alonzo!

[Enter Alonzo, speaking as he comes in.]

Alon. How! is my hour elapsed? Well, I am ready

[blocks in formation]

This

Alon. Rolla! O Rolla! how didst thou pass the guard? Rolla. There is not a moment to be lost in words. disguise I tore from the dead body of a friar, as I passed our field of battle. It has gained me entrance to thy dungeon; now take it thou, and fly.

[blocks in formation]

Rolla. Will remain here in thy place.

Alon. And die for me! No! Rather eternal tortures rack me.

Rolla. I shall not die, Alonzo. It is thy life Pizarro seeks, not Rolla's; and thy arm may soon deliver me from prison. Or, should it be otherwise, I am as a blighted tree in the desert; nothing lives beneath my shelter. Thou art a husband and a father; the being of a lovely wife and help

a Comrades; companions in arms.

less infant depend upon thy life. Go! go! Alonzo, not to save thyself, but Cora, and thy child.

Alon.

in peace.

Urge me not thus, my friend; I am prepared to die

Rolla. To die in peace! devoting her you have sworn to live for, to madness, misery, and death!

Alon. Merciful heavens!

Rolla. If thou art yet irresolute, Alonzo - now mark me well. Thou knowest that Rolla never pledged his word and shrunk from its fulfilment. Know then, if thou art proudly obstinate, thou shalt have the desperate triumph of seeing Rolla perish by thy side.

Alon. O Rolla! you distract me! Wear you the robe, and though dreadful the necessity, we will strike down the guard, and force our passage.

Rolla. What, the soldier on duty here?

Alon. Yes, else seeing two, the alarm will be instant death. Rolla. For my nation's safety, I would not harm him. That soldier, mark me, is a man! All are not men that wear the human form. He refused my prayers, refused my gold, denying to admit, till his own feelings bribed him. I will not risk a hair of that man's head, to save my heart-strings from consuming fire. But haste! A moment's further pause and

all is lost.

Alon. Rolla, I fear thy friendship drives me from honor and from right.

Rolla. Did Rolla ever counsel dishonor to his friend? [Throwing the friar's garment over his shoulders.] There, conceal thy face. Now God be with thee.

LESSON LVII.

CULTIVATION OF TASTE FOR BEAUTY.

CHANNING.

1. In looking at our nature, we discover among its admirable endowments, the sense or perception of Beauty. We see

the germ of this in every human being, and there is no power which admits greater cultivation; and why should it not be cherished in all? It deserves remark, that the provision for this principle is infinite in the universe.

2. There is but a very minute portion of the creation which we can turn into food and clothes, or gratification of the body, but the whole creation may be used to minister to the sense of beauty. Beauty is an all-pervading presence. It unfolds in the numberless flowers of the spring. It waves in the branches of the trees and green blades of grass. It haunts the depths of the earth and sea, and gleams out in the hues of the shell and the precious stone.

3. And not only these minute objects, but the ocean, the mountains, the clouds, the heavens, the stars, the rising and setting sun, all overflow with beauty. The universe is its temple; and those men who are alive to it cannot lift their eyes without feeling themselves encompassed with it on every side.

4. Now this beauty is so precious, the enjoyments it gives are so refined and pure, so congenial with our tenderest and noblest feelings, and so akin to worship, that it is painful to think of the multitude of men as living in the midst of it, and living almost as blind to it, as if, instead of this fair earth and glorious sky, they were tenants of a dungeon. An infinite joy is lost to the world by the want of culture of this spiritual endowment.

5. Suppose that I were to visit a cottage, and to see its walls lined with the choicest pictures" of Raphael, and every spare nook filled with statues of the most exquisite workmanship, and that I were to learn, that neither man, woman nor child ever cast an eye at these miracles of art, how should I feel their privation; how should I want to open their eyes, and to help them to comprehend and feel the loveliness and grandeur which in vain courted their notice.

6. But every husbandman is living in sight of the works of a diviner artist; and how much would his existence be

a The "Sacrifice of Isaac;" the "Transfiguration of Christ," &c.

elevated, could he see the glory which shines forth in their forms, hues, proportions and moral expression!

7. I have spoken only of the beauty of nature, but how much of this mysterious charm is found in the elegant arts, and especially in literature? The best books have most beauty. The greatest truths are wronged if not linked with beauty, and they win their way most surely and deeply into the soul when arrayed in this their natural and fit attire.

8. Now no man receives the true culture of a man, in whom the sensibility to the beautiful is not cherished; and I know of no condition in life from which it should be excluded. Of all luxuries this is the cheapest and most at

[blocks in formation]

9. What beauty is, is a question which the most penetrating minds have not satisfactorily answered; nor, were I able, is this the place for discussing it. But one thing I would say; the beauty of the outward creation is intimately related to the lovely, grand, interesting attributes of the soul.

10. There is another power, which each man should cultivate according to his ability, but which is very much neglected in the mass of the people, and that is the power of utterA man was not made to shut up his mind in itself; but to give it voice and to exchange it for other minds. Speech is one of our grand distinctions from the brute.

ance.

11. Our power over others lies not so much in the amount of thought within us, as in the power of bringing it out. A man of more than ordinary intellectual vigor, may, for want of expression, be a cipher, without significance in society. And not only does a man influence others, but he greatly aids his own intellect, by giving distinct and forcible utterance to his thoughts.

12. We understand ourselves better, our conceptions grow clearer, by the very effort to make them clear to another. Our social rank, too, depends a good deal on our power of utterance. The principal distinction between what are called gentlemen and the vulgar, lies in this; that the latter are

awkward in manners, and are essentially wanting in propri ety, clearness, grace, and force of utterance.

13. A man who cannot open his lips without breaking a rule of grammar, without showing in his dialect, or brogue, or acouth tones, his want of cultivation, or without darkening his meaning by a confused, unskillful mode of communication, cannot take the place to which perhaps his native good sense entitles him. To have intercourse with respectable people, we must speak their language.

LESSON LVIII.

SPIRIT OF BEAUTY.

DAWES.

[The reader may note the casural pauses in the following piece. See Harmonic Pauses, p. 70. The casural and grammatical pauses sometimes fall in the same place.]

1. THE Spirit of Beauty || unfurls her light,*
And wheels her course | in a joyous flight;
I know her track through the balmy air,
By the blossoms that cluster || and whiten there
She leaves the tops || of the mountains green,
And gems the valley | with crystal sheen.

2. At morn, I know where she rested at night,
For the roses are gushing with dewy delight;
Then she mounts again, and around her flings
A shower of light from her purple wings.

At noon, she hies to a cool retreat,

Where bowering elms over waters meet;

She dimples the wave, where the green leaves dip,
That smiles, as it curls, like a maiden's lip.

3. At eve, she hangs o'er the western sky

Dark clouds for a glorious canopy;

*There may sometimes be two or three cæsural pauses in the same line. By some writers, the shorter ones are called demi-cæsural.

« السابقةمتابعة »