Is all the counsel that we two have shared,
The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us,-Oh, and is all forgot?
All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,

Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grew together
Like a double cherry, seeming parted;
But yet a union in partition,

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem :
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.
And will you rend our ancient love asunder?

1411. FRIENDSHIP: its joys.

Shakespeare.

I COUNT myself in nothing else so happy,
As in a soul remembering my good friends;
And, as my fortune ripens with my love,
It shall be still thy true love's recompense.

Shakespeare.

Who knows the joys of friendship?

The trust, security, and mutual tenderness,

The double joys, where each is glad for both?

strength,

Secure against ill fortune and the world.-Rowe.

Angels from friendship gather half their joy.

Young.

To bless mankind with tides of flowing wealth,
With power to grace them, or to crown with health,
Our little lot denies; but Heaven decrees

To all, the gift of ministering to ease :

The gentle offices of patient love,
Beyond all flattery, and all praise above;
The mild forbearance of another's fault,

The taunting word suppress'd as soon as thought;
On these Heaven bade the sweets of life depend,
And crush'd ill fortune when she gave a friend.
A solitary blessing few can find;
Our joys with those we love are intertwined;

We were one mass, we could not give or take,
But from the same: for he was I; I, he :
Return my better half, and give me all myself,
For thou art all!

If I have any joy when thou art absent,
I grudge it to myself: methinks I rob
Thee of thy part.-Dryden.

1416. FRIENDSHIP. Philosophy of

As frost to the bud, and blight to the blossom, even such is self-interest to friendship:

For confidence cannot dwell where selfishness is porter at the gate.

If thou see thy friend to be selfish, thou canst not be sure of his honesty ;

And in seeking thine own weal, thou hast wronged the reliance of thy friend.

Flattery hideth her varnished face when friendship sitteth at his board;

And the door is shut upon suspicion, but candour is bid glad welcome;

For friendship abhorreth doubt, its life is in mutual trust,

And perisheth, when artful praise proveth it is sought for a purpose.

A man may be good to thee at times, and render thee mighty service,

Whom yet thy secret soul could not desire as a friend;

For the sum of life is in trifles, and though, in the weightier masses,

A man refuse thee not his purse, nay, his all in thine utmost need,

him a heart full of gratitude.

A coarse man grindeth harshly the finer feelings of his brother;

A common mind will soon depart from the dull companionship of wisdom.

A weak soul dareth not to follow in the track of vigour and decision;

And the worldly regardeth with scorn the seeming foolishness of faith.

With th' one thyself, with th' other thy friend thou hurt'st,

Who twines betwixt, and steers the golden mean,
Nor rashly loveth, nor mistrusts in vain.

Mirror for Magistrates.

1420. FRIENDSHIP: superior to love.

Love is a sudden blaze, which soon decays;

Not daily benefits exhaust the flame;

It still is giving, and still burns the same.- Gay.

1421. FRIENDSHIP. Tested

SHEIK SCHUBLI, taken sick, was borne one day Unto the hospital. A host the way

Behind him throng'd. Who are you?' Schubli cried.

'We are your friends,' the multitude replied. Sheik Schubli threw a stone at them; they fled. 'Come back, ye false pretenders!' then he said; 'A friend is one who, rank'd among his foes By him he loves, and stoned, and beat with blows, Will still remain as friendly as before, And to his friendship only add the more.'

Oriental, tr. by Alger, 1422. FRIENDSHIP: tested by adversity. WHAT the declined is, He shall as soon read in the eyes of others As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies, Show not their mealy wings but to the summer.

Shakespeare.

O summer friendship, Whose flattering leaves, that shadow'd us in Our prosperity, with the least gust drop off In th' autumn of adversity !—Massinger.

The friends who in our sunshine live,
When winter comes are flown;
And he who has but tears to give

Must weep those tears alone.-Moore.

1423. FRIENDSHIP. Trust in

TRUST is the strongest bond upon the soul;
That sacred tie has virtue oft begot;

It binds where 'tis, and makes it where 'twas not.
Earl of Orrery.

1424 FRIENDSHIP. Uses of

SUCH is the use and noble end of friendship,
To bear a part in every storm of fate,
And, by dividing, make the lighter weight.

Higgons.

Well-chosen friendship, the most noble Of virtues, all our joys makes double, And into halves divides our trouble.

Denham.

Heaven gives us friends to bless the present scene; Resumes them, to prepare us for the next.— Young.

Friendship has a power To soothe affliction in her darkest hour.

H. Kirke White.

1425. FRUGALITY. Rule of

By no means run in debt: take thine own measure.
Who cannot live on twenty pound a year,
Cannot on forty he's a man of pleasure,
A kind of thing that's for itself too dear.

The curious unthrift makes his clothes too wide,
And spares himself, but would his tailor chide.

Spend not on hopes. They that by pleading clothes
Do fortunes seek, when worth and service fail,
Would have their tale believed for their oaths,
And are like empty vessels under sail.

Old courtiers know this; therefore set out so
As all the day thou mayst hold out to go.

In clothes, cheap handsomeness doth bear the bell.
Wisdom's a trimmer thing than shop e'er gave.
Say not, then, this with that lace will do well;
But, this with my discretion will be brave.
Much curiousness is a perpetual wooing,
Nothing with labour, folly long a doing.

George Herbert.

1426. FRUITFULNESS. Moral

By nature peccable and frail are we,
Easily beguiled; to vice, to error prone;
But apt for virtue too. Humanity

Is not a field where tares and thorns alone
Are left to spring; good seed hath there been sown
With no unsparing hand. Sometimes the shoot
Is choked with weeds, or withers on a stone;
But in a kindly soil it strikes its root,
And flourisheth, and bringeth forth abundant fruit.
Southey.

1427. FRUITFULNESS. Prayer for

LORD, I have lain
Barren too long, and fain

I would redeem the time, that I may be
Fruitful to Thee;

Fruitful in knowledge, faith, obedience, Ere I go hence :

That when I come

At harvest to be reaped, and brought home, Thine angels may

My soul in Thy celestial garner lay,

Where perfect joy and bliss
Eternal is.

If to entreat

A crop of purest wheat

A blessing too transcendent should appear

For me to hear,

Lord, make me what Thou wilt, so Thou wilt take What Thou dost make,

And not disdain

To house me, though among Thy coarsest grain :
So I may be

Laid with the gleanings gathered by Thee,
When the full sheaves are spent,
I am content.-Quarles.

1428. FUNERAL. Hymn for a

COME forth! come on, with solemn song!
The road is short, the rest is long!
The Lord brought here, He calls away!
Make no delay;

This home was for a passing day.

Here in an inn a stranger dwelt;
Here joy and grief by turns he felt ;
Poor dwelling, now we close thy door!
The task is o'er,

The sojourner returns no more.

Now of a lasting home possess'd,

He goes to seek a deeper rest;

HEAVEN from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescribed, their present state;
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
O blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven;
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall;
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore.
What future bliss, He gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest.
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.-Pope.

1433. FUTURE. Hope for the
FOIL'D by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn,
We leave the brutal world to take its way,
And, patience! in another life, we say,
The world shall be thrust down, and we upborne !
And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn
The world's poor, routed leavings; or will they,
Who fail'd under the heat of this life's day,
Support the fervours of the heavenly morn?
No, no! the energy of life may be

Kept on after the grave, but not begun ; And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife, From strength to strength advancing-only he, His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life. Matthew Arnold.

1434. FUTURE. Hue of the

A FEW days may-a few years must-
Repose us in the silent dust:
Then is it wise to damp our bliss?
Yes, all such reasonings are amiss!
The voice of nature loudly cries,
And many a message from the skies,
That something in us never dies;
That on this frail, uncertain state
Hang matters of eternal weight;
That future life, in worlds unknown,
Must take its hue from this alone,
Whether as heavenly glory bright,
Or dark as misery's woeful night.—Burns.

1435. FUTURE. Ignorance of the

I FEEL the mighty current sweep me on,
Yet know not whither. Man foretells afar
The courses of the stars; the very hour

He knows when they shall darken or grow bright;
Yet doth the eclipse of sorrow and of death
Come unforewarn'd. Who next, of those I love,
Shall pass from life, or sadder yet, shall fall
From virtue? Strife with foes, or bitter strife
With friends, or shame and general scorn of men-
Which who can bear?-or the fierce rack of pain-
Lie they within my path? Or shall the years
Push me, with soft and inoffensive pace,
Into the stilly twilight of my age?

Or do the portals of another life

Even now, while I am glorying in my strength,
Impend around me? Oh! beyond that bourne,

In the vast cycle of being which begins

At that dread threshold, with what fairer forms
Shall the great law of change and progress clothe
Its workings? Gently-so have good men taught-
Gently, and without grief, the old shall glide
Into the new; the eternal flow of things,

Like a bright river of the fields of heaven,

Shall journey onward in perpetual peace.—Bryant.

1436. FUTURE. Obscurity of the ETERNITY, thou awful gulf of time, This wide creation on thy surface floats.

Of life of death-what is-or what shall be,
I nothing know. The world is all a dream,
The consciousness of something that exists,
Yet is not what it seems. Then what am I?
Death must unfold the mystery!-Dowe.

Search starry mysteries overhead,
Where wonders gleam; yet bear in mind
That EARTH'S our planet, firm to tread,
Nor in the star-dance left behind.

For nothing is withheld, be sure,

Our being needed to have shown;
The far was meant to be obscure,
The near was placed so to be known.

Cast we no astrologic scheme

To map the course we must pursue ;• But use the lights whene'er they beam, And every trusty landmark too.

The Future let us not permit

To choke us in its shadow's clasp ; It cannot touch us, nor we it;

The present moment's in our grasp.

Oh, who could endure the burdens of life;
The heart-aches of Falsehood, of Envy, and Strife;
The gloom-laden years of misfortune and grief;
The baffled schemes that are void of relief,
Who heard not the joy-notes of Hope, as she sings
Of the benisons Time on his pathway flings?

There is bread for the hungry, and wealth for the poor,

And fountains of pleasure whose waters are pure;
Rest for the weary, and sight for the blind,
And freedom from all that o'ershadows the mind.
There is solace for Sorrow's woe-laden plaint,
Truth for the seeker, and strength for the faint.
Dewart.

1439. FUTURE. Shaping the

WE shape ourselves the joy or fear Of which the coming life is made, And fill our future's atmosphere With sunshine or with shade.

The tissue of the life to be

We weave with colours all our own, And in the field of destiny

We reap as we have sown.

Still shall the soul around it call

The shadows which it gather'd here, And, painted on the eternal wall, The past shall reappear.