the old stone over! Blades of grass flattened down, colorless, matted together, as if they had been bleached and ironed; hideous crawling creatures, some of them coleopterous or horny-shelled, -turtle bugs one wants to call them; some of them softer, but cunningly spread out and compressed like Lepine watches; [nature never loses a crack or a crevice, mind you, or a joint in a tavern bedstead, but she always has one of her flat-patterned live time-keepers to slide into it]; black, glossy crickets, with their long filaments sticking out like the whips of four-horse stage-coaches; motionless, slug-like creatures, young larvæ, perhaps more horrible in their pulpy stillness than even in the infernal wriggle of maturity! But no sooner is the stone turned and the wholesome light of day let in upon this compressed and blinded community of creeping things, than all of them which enjoy the luxury of legs — and some of them have a good many-rush round wildly, butting each other and everything in their way, and end in a general stampede for underground retreats from the region poisoned by sunshine. Next year you will find the grass growing tall and green where the stone lay; the ground-bird builds her nest where the beetle had his hole; the dandelion and the buttercup are growing there, and the broad fans of insect angels open and shut over their golden disks, as the rhythmic waves of blissful consciousness pulsate through their glorified being. . . .

The stone is ancient error. The grass is human nature borne down and bleached of all its color by it. The shapes which are found beneath are the crafty beings that thrive in darkness, and the weaker organisms kept helpless by it. He who turns the stone over is whosoever puts the staff of truth to the old lying incubus, no matter whether he do it with a serious face or a laughing one. The next year stands for the coming time. Then shall the nature which had lain blanched and broken rise in its full stature and native hues in the sunshine. Then

shall God's minstrels build their nests in the hearts of a newborn humanity. Then shall beauty — Divinity taking outlines and color-light upon the souls of men as the butterfly, image of the beautified spirit rising from the dust, soars from the shell that held a poor grub, which would never have found wings, had not the stone been lifted. - OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

7. The measure of real influence is the measure of genuine personal substance. How much patient toil in obscurity, so much triumph in an emergency. The moral balance never

lets us overdraw. If we expect our drafts to be honored in a crisis, there must have been the deposits of a punctual life. Celestial opportunities avail us nothing unless we have ourselves been educated up to their level. If an angel come to converse with us on the mountain top he must find our tent already pitched in that upper air. Each day recites a lesson for which all preceding days were a preparation. Our real rank is determined not by lucky answers or some brilliant impromptu, but by uniform diligence. For the exhibition days of Providence there is no preconcerted colloquy, no hasty retrieving of a wasted term by a stealthy study on the eve of the examination. Bonnivard, Huss, Wyclyffe, Alfred, Cromwell, Washington, Madam Roland, Sir John Franklin, these valiant souls were not inoculated for their apostleship extempore. The roots of all their towering greatness, so brave to the top, ran back under the soil of years. I have seen a sudden thundergust smite an elm on one of our river-meadows, tossing its branches, twisting its trunk, prying at its root till it writhed as if wrestling with an invisible Titan, and tearing off a few light leaves to whirl in airy eddies, but yet struggling in vain to unsettle the firm and elastic lord of the green valley from its place. Did the earth give her graceful and kingly child, as the cloud came up, any special props or braces, any thicker bark, or longer root to breast the shock? All these had to be provided in the persevering nurture of spring suns and winter

blasts, sap-giving summer nights and dripping autumn rains, when no eye could mark the gradual growth. The tempest did not create the vigor which it tried and proved, and left erect as ever. HUNTINGTON.

8. Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed not at Independence. But there is a Divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own interest for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till Independence is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why, then, should we defer the Declaration? Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with England, which shall leave either safety to the country and its liberties, or safety to his own life and his own honor? Are not you, Sir, who sit in that chair, is not he, our venerable colleague near you, are you not both already the proscribed and predestined objects of punishment and of vengeance? Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you be, while the power of England remains, but outlaws? If we postpone Independence, do we mean to carry on, or to give up, the war? Do we mean to submit to the measures of Parliament, Boston Port Bill and all? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we ourselves shall be ground to powder, and our country and its rights trodden down in the dust? I know we do not mean to submit. We never shall submit. Do we intend to violate that most solemn obligation ever entered into by men, that plighting, before God, of our sacred honor to Washington, when, putting him forth to incur the dangers of war, as well as the political hazards of the times, we promised to adhere to him, in every extremity, with our fortunes and our lives? I know there is not a man here, who would not rather see a general conflagration sweep over the land, or an earthquake sink it, than one jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the ground.

-WEBSTER (Supposed Speech of John Adams).

9. Then up sprang Appius Claudius: "Stop him; alive or

dead!

Ten thousand pounds of copper to the man who brings his head."

He looked upon his clients, but none would work his will.
He looked upon his lictors, but they trembled and stood
still.

And, as Virginius through the press his way in silence cleft,
Ever the mighty multitude fell back to right and left.
And he hath passed in safety unto his woful home,

And there ta'en horse to tell the camp what deeds are done
MACAULAY.

in Rome.

10. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean - roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ;

Man marks the earth with ruin his control

Stops with the shore; - upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,

Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

BYRON.

QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING.

The first thing requisite to a genuine energy of speech is the possession and the mastery of the materials which demand energy of speech. . . . Nothing else can take the place, or do the work, of force of feeling. Energy and enthusiasm coexist in character: they must coexist in style.

I hope your professors of Rhetoric will teach you to cultivate that golden art - the steadfast use of language in which the truth can be told, the speech that is strong by natural force, and not merely effective by declamation. — John Morley.

But must I needs want solidness because

By metaphors I speak? Were not God's laws,
His gospel laws, in olden time, held forth

By shadows, types, and metaphors?

- JOHN BUNYAN.

It is to be borne in mind that figures of speech are not real thought, but only helpers to the thought. The substance of the discourse, its leading ideas, must exist and be clearly brought out apart from them.- GENUNG.

Language is a dictionary of faded metaphors.
In good prose every word is underscored.

RICHTER.

SCHLEGEL.

Much of the relish of fine prose is due to the arrangement of the sentences in such a way that consecutive sentences do not call for the same time; for instance, if one sentence is a sharp antithesis, you must be careful in the next sentence to vary the time from that of the antithesis. SIDNEY LANIER.

Is a declarative utterance of a truth tame? Put it as an inquiry. Ask a question which implies it, and the silent answer may be more impressive to the hearer than any words of yours. PHELPS.