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men, however pressed with business, are always found capable of doing a little more; and you may rely on them in their busiest seasons with ten times more assurance than on idle men.

6. There is an instinct that tells us that the man who does much is most likely to do more, and to do it in the best manner. The reason is, that to do increases the power of doing; and it is much easier for one who is always exerting himself to exert himself a little more, than for him who does nothing to rouse himself to action. Give a busy man ten minutes to write a letter, and he will dash it off at once; give an idle man a day, and he will postpone it till to-morrow or next week. There is a momentum in the active man which of itself almost carries him to the mark, just as a very light stroke will keep a hoop agoing, while a smart one was required to set it in motion.

7. The men who do the greatest things do them not so much by prodigious but fitful efforts, as by steady, unremitting toil,-by turning even the moments to account. They have the genius for hard work,-the most desirable kind of genius. A continual dropping wears the stone. A little done this hour and a little the next hour, day by day, and year by year, brings much to pass. Even the largest houses are built by laying one stone upon another.

8. Complain not, then, of your want of leisure to do anything. Rather thank God that you are not cursed with leisure; for a curse it proves, in nine cases out of ten. What if, to achieve some good work which you have deeply at heart, you can never command an entire month, a week, or even a day? Shall you therefore stand still, and fold your arms in despair? No; the thought should only stimulate and urge you on to do what you can do in this swiftly passing life of ours.

9. Try what you can build up from the broken frag

ments of your time, rendered more precious by their brevity. It is said that in the Mint the sweepings of the floor of the gold-working room are melted and coined. Learn from this the nobler economy of time: glean up its golden dust; economize with the utmost care those raspings and parings of existence, those leavings of days and bits of hours,-so valueless singly, so inestimable in the aggregate,-which most persons sweep out into the waste of life, and you will be rich in leisure. Rely upon it, if you are a miser of moments, if you hoard up and turn to account odd minutes and half-hours, you will at last be wealthier in intellectual acquisition, wealthier in good deeds harvested, than thousands whose time is all their own.

10. The biographer of George Stephenson tells us that the smallest fragments of his time were regarded by him as precious, and that "he was never so happy as when improving them." For years Benjamin Franklin strove, with inflexible resolution, to save for his own. instruction every minute that could be won. Henry Kirke White learned Greek while walking to and from a lawyer's office. Livingstone taught himself Latin grammar while working at the loom. Hugh Miller found time while pursuing his trade as a stone-mason, not only to read, but to write, cultivating his style till he became one of the most brilliant authors of the day.

11. The small stones that fill up the crevices are almost as essential to the firm wall as the great stones; and so the wise use of spare time contributes not a little to the building up of a man's mind in good proportions, and with strength. If you really prize mental culture, or are sincerely anxious to do any good thing, you will find time, or make time for it, sooner or later, however engrossed with other employments. failure to accomplish it can only prove the feebleness of your will, not that you lacked time for its execution.

59. THANATOPSIS.

Read this poem to the class, calling attention to the rhetorical pauses and inflections, and questioning pupils about the rules that apply to the markings. Then let the class read the poem in concert. Next, require pupils to read singly; and, finally, assign a part of the poem to be memorized for recitation.

To him who | in the love | of Nature | holds |
I
|
Communion with her visible fórms, she speaks |
A various lànguage: for his gáyer hours |
She has a voice of gládness, and a smíle |
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides | .
Into his dárker musings | with a mild |
And healing sympathy | that steals away |
Their sharpness | ere he is awàre. When thoughts |
Of the last bitter hour | come like a blight |
Over thy spírit, and sad images |

Of the stern ágony, and shróud, and páll,
And breathless dárkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at héart,
Go forth under the open sky, and list |
To Nature's teachings, while from all around—
Earth and her wáters, and the depths of áir-
Comes a still voice:-Yet a few days, and thee |
The all-beholding sun | shall see no more |

In all his course; nor yet | in the cold gròund,
Where thy pale form | is laid, with many téars,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist |

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved | to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up |
Thine individual béing, shalt thou go |

To mix forever | with the èlements.

To be a brother | to the insensible rock |

And to the sluggish clòd, which the rude swain |

Turns with his sháre, and treads upon. The oak |
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.
Yet not to thy eternal resting-place |

Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish |
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down |
With patriarchs | of the infant world,—with kìngs,
The powerful of the earth,-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages pást,-
All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills,
Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sún; the váles |
Stretching | in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move

In májesty, and the complaining brooks |
That make the meadows | gréen; and, poured round áll,
Old Ocean's gray | and melancholy waste, |
Are but the solemn decorations | áll |

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sùn,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of àges. All that tread
The globe are but a handful | to the tribes |
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert | pierce,
Or lose thyself | in the continuous woods |
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound |
Save his own dáshings,-yet, the déad | are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first |
The flight of years begán, have laid them down |
In their last sleep-the déad | reign there | alone.
So shalt thoù rest; and what if thou withdraw |
Unheeded by the living, and no friend |
Take note of thy departure! All that breathe |
Will share thy destiny. The gáy | will laugh |
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care |
Plod ón, and each one as before | will chase |
His favorite phàntom; yet all these | shall lèave

Their mirth and their employments, and shall come |
And make their bed | with thee. As the long train |
Of ages | glides away, the sons of mén,—

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes |
In the full strength of years, mátron and máid,
The bowed with age, the ínfant | in the smiles |
And beauty of its innocent age cut off,-
Shall one by one | be gathered to thy side,
By those who, in their turn, shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons | comes | to join
The innumerable caravan | that moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dúngeon, but, sustained and soothed.
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave |
Like one who wraps the drapery | of his couch
About him, and lies down | to pleasant dreams.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

60. RIENZI TO THE ROMANS.
Friends!

I come not here to talk. Ye know too well
The story of our thralldom. We are slaves!
The bright sun rises to his course, and lights
A race of slaves! He sets, and his last beam
Falls on a slave; not such as, swept along
By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads
To crimson glory and undying fame,-
But base, ignoble slaves! slaves to a horde
Of petty tyrants, feudal despots; lords,
Rich in some dozen paltry villages;

Strong in some hundred spearmen; only great

In that strange spell,-a name! Each hour, dark fraud,

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