GRADED SELECTIONS.

FOR ADVANCED SCHOLARS.

I.

FAST as the rolling seasons bring
The hour of fate to those we love,
Each pearl that leaves the broken string
Is set in Friendship's crown above.
As narrower grows the earthly chain,
The circle widens in the sky;
These are our treasures that remain,

But those are stars that beam on high.
-O. W. Holmes: "F. W. C."

II.

CHARACTER into which right principles are implanted at its first forming, is impressed indelibly.

“Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled; You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still." -Thomas Moore: "Farewell."

III.

WHENE'ER a noble deed is wrought,
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.

Honor to those whose words or deeds

Thus help us in our daily needs,

And by their overflow

Raise us from what is low!

-Longfellow: "Santa Filomena."

IV.

WHAT is life? 'Tis a delicate shell,
Thrown up by eternity's flow,
On time's bank of quicksand to dwell,
And a moment its loveliness show.
Gone back to the element grand
Is the billow that cast it ashore,

See! another is washing the strand,
And the beautiful shell is no more.

V.

THE sober second thought is always essential, and

seldom wrong.

-Martin Van Buren.

VI.

THEY tell us of an Indian tree,*

Which, howsoe'er the sun and sky
May tempt its boughs to wander free,
And shoot and blossom wide and high,
Far better loves to bend its arms

Downward again to that dear earth
From which the life that fills and warms
Its grateful being, first had birth.
'Tis thus, though wooed by flatt'ring friends,
And fed with fame, if fame it be,

My heart, my own dear Mother, bends
With love's true instinct back to thee.

VII.

LIFE should be full of earnest work,

Our hearts undashed by fortune's frown;

Let perseverance conquer fate,

And merit seize the victor's crown;

The battle is not to the strong,

The race not always to the fleet,

And he who seeks to pluck the stars,
Will lose the jewels at his feet.

-Phoebe Cary.

*The Banyan Tree.

VIII.

FORGIVE and forget!-why, the world would be lonely, The garden a wilderness left to deform,

If the flowers but remember'd the chilling winds only, And the fields gave no verdure for fear of the storm. -Charles Swain.

IX.

ALL thoughts of ill; all evil deeds

That have their root in thoughts of ill;
Whatever hinders or impedes

The action of the nobler will;-

All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gain
In the bright fields of fair renown
The right of eminent domain.

We have not wings, we can not soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb,
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stone

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,

Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and kept,
Were not attained by sudden flight;
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
-Longfellow: "The Ladder of St. Augustine."

X.

GOOD name, în man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls.

Who steals my purse, steals trash; 't is something, nothing; 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;

But he that filches from me my good name,

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

-Shakespeare: "Othello," Act iii, Scene 3.

XI.

MODERATION is the silken string running through the

pearl of all virtues.

-Bishop Hall.