We are unwilling walkers. We are not innocent and simple-hearted enough to enjoy a walk. We have fallen from that state of grace which capacity to enjoy a walk implies. It cannot be said that as a people we are so positively sad or morose as that we are vacant of that sportiveness of animal spirits that characterized our ancestors, and that springs from full and harmonious life,—a sound heart in accord with a sound body. A man must invest himself near at hand, and in common things, and be content with a steady and moderate return, if he would know the blessedness of a cheerful heart, and the sweetness of a walk over the round earth. This is a lesson the American has yet to learn,—capability of amusement on a low key.—John Burroughs.
To fill the youthful mind with lofty and noble ideas, to stock the memory with the richest vocabulary, and to acquire a wide command of our grand English language, we have nothing better, except the Bible, than the plays of Shakespeare.
Extracts from Shakespeare once thoroughly committed to memory are never forgotten. Many of the world’s great orators and statesmen were wont to commit and recite passages from Shakespeare. Edmund Burke made Shakespeare his daily study, while Erskine, it is said, could have held conversation on every subject in the phrases of the great dramatist. Rufus Choate was familiar with every line of Shakespeare. Daniel Webster never tired of repeating passages from the same author. The genial Dr. Holmes tells us that Wendell Phillips, Motley the historian, and himself, when boys, used to declaim Antony’s oration on holiday afternoons over the prostrate form of some younger playmate.
Sparrows.
Adeline D. T. Whitney.
Little birds sit on the telegraph wires,
And chitter and flitter and fold their wings.