Practice Book | Page 2

every word before you let it fall;?Don't, like a lecturer or dramatic star,?Try overhard to roll the British R;?Do put your accents in the proper spot;?Don't--let me beg you--don't say 'How?' for 'What?'?And when you stick on conversation's burrs,?Don't strew the pathway with those dreadful urs."

3. "To be, or not to be; that is the question:--
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer?The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;?Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,?And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep,--?No more:"

4. "I should say sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heroic. Not the sincerity that calls itself sincere; that is ... oftenest self-conceit mainly. The great man's sincerity is of the kind he cannot speak of, is not conscious of."

5. "Brutus. Get me a taper in my study, Lucius.
Lucius. I will, my lord. (Exit.)
Brutus. It must be by his death: and for my part,?I know no cause to spurn at him,?But for the general. He would be crown'd:--?How that might change his nature, there's the question. It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;?And that craves wary walking. Crown him?--That:--?And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,?That at his will he may do danger with."

6. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God."

7. "Just in proportion as the writer's aim, consciously or unconsciously, comes to be the transcribing, not of the world, not of mere fact, but of his sense of it, he becomes an artist; his work a fine art, and good art in proportion to the truth of his presentment of that sense. Truth! there can be no merit, no craft at all, without that. And further, all beauty is in the long run only fineness of truth, or what we call expression, the finer accommodation of speech to that vision within."

8. "For the Universe has three children, born at one time, which reappear, under different names, in every system of thought, whether they be called cause, operation, and effect; or, theologically, the Father, the Spirit, and the Son; but which we call here, the Knower, the Doer, and the Sayer. These stand respectively for the love of truth, for the love of good, and for the love of beauty. These three are equal. Each of these three has the power of the others latent in him, and his own patent."
CHAPTER III.
MORALITY.
MIND ACTIVITIES DOMINATED BY A CONSCIOUSNESS OF _Purpose, Love, Harmony, Poise, Values_.
1. "My friend, if thou hadst all the artillery of Woolwich trundling at thy back in support of an unjust thing, and infinite bonfires visibly waiting ahead of thee, to blaze centuries long for thy victory on behalf of it, I would advise thee to call halt, to fling down thy baton, and say, 'In Heaven's name, No!'"

2. "Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies;--?Hold you here, root and all, in my hand,?Little flower--but if I could understand?What you are, root and all, and all in all,?I should know what God and man is."

3. "Who but the locksmith could have made such music? A gleam of sun shining through the unsashed window and checkering the dark workshop with a broad patch of light fell full upon him, as though attracted by his sunny heart."

4. "Portia You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
Such as I am; though for myself alone,?I would not be ambitious in my wish,?To wish myself much better; yet, for you,?I would be trebled twenty times myself;?A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich;"

5. "Listen to the water-mill;
Through the livelong day,?How the clicking of its wheels?Wears the hours away!?Languidly the autumn wind?Stirs the forest leaves,?From the fields the reapers sing,?Binding up their sheaves;?And a proverb haunts my mind,?As a spell is cast;?'The mill can never grind?With the water that is past.'"

6. "Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is good steadily hastening towards immortality. And the vast all that is called evil I saw hastening to merge itself, and become lost and dead."

7. "We one day descried some shapeless object drifting at a distance. At sea, everything that breaks the monotony of the surrounding expanse attracts attention. It proved to be the mast of a ship that must have been completely wrecked; for there were the remains of handkerchiefs, by which some of the crew had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent their being washed off by the waves.
"There was no trace by which the name of the ship could be ascertained. The wreck had evidently drifted about for many months; clusters of shell-fish had fastened about it, and long sea-weeds flaunted at its sides. But where,