would say, I lied: this is the Countercheck Quarrelsome: and so to the Lie Circumstantial and the Lie Direct.... O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have books for good manners: I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstances; the seventh, the Lie direct. (SHAKESPEARE: As You Like It) LAMENT FOR LYCIDAS Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, Fattening our flocks with the fresh dews of night; Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. Tempered to the oaten flute; Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel (MILTON: Lycidas) THE HOUSE OF USHER During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was, but, with the first glimpse of the building a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain, upon the bleak walls, upon the vacant eye-like windows, upon a few rank sedges, and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees, with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium, the bitter lapse into every-day life, the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an unredeemed dreariness of the thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it, I paused to think, what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. (POE: The Fall of the House of Usher) TO A SKYLARK Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? To the last point of vision, and beyond, Mount, daring warbler!- that love-prompted strain Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood (WORDSWORTH: To a Skylark) AN ANECDOTE OF DEAN SWIFT A great number of ridiculous adventures must have taken place in which hackney-coaches were concerned. The story of the celebrated harlequin Lunn, who secretly pitched himself out of one into a tavern window, and when the coachman was about to submit to the loss of his fare, astonished him by calling out again from the inside, is too well known for repetition. There is one of Swift, not perhaps so common. He was going, one dark evening, to dine with some great men, and was accompanied by some other clergymen, to whom he gave their cue. They were all in their canonicals. When they arrive at the house, the coachman opens the door, and lets down the steps. Down steps the Dean, very reverend in his black robes; after him comes another personage, equally black and dignified; then another; then a fourth. The coachman, who recollects taking up no greater number, is about to put up the steps, when another clergyman descends. After giving way to this other, he proceeds with great confidence to toss them up, when lo! another comes. Well, there cannot, he thinks, be more than six. He is mistaken. Down comes a seventh, then an eighth; then a ninth; all with decent intervals; the coach, in the meantime, rocking as if it were giving birth to so many demons. The coachman can conclude no less. He cries out, "The devil! the devil!" and is preparing to run away, when they all burst into laughter. They had gone round as they descended, and got in at the other door. A VISION (HUNT: Coaches) The past rises before me like a dream. are in the great struggle for national life. Again we We hear the sounds of preparation - the music of boisterous drums the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeal of orators. We see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more. We are with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are walking for the last time in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they adore. We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. Others are bending over cradles kissing babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing. Kisses and tears, tears and kisses divine mingling of agony and love! And some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms — standing in the sunlight sobbing. At the turn of the road a hand waves she answers by holding high in her loving arms the child. He is gone, and forever. (INGERSOLL: The Vision of War) ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, |