Be patient till the last.
Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine honor, and have respect to mine honor, that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Cęsar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to Cęsar was no less than his. If, then, that friend demand why Brutus rose against Cęsar, this is my answer,—Not that I loved Cęsar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Cęsar were living, and die all slaves, than that Cęsar were dead, to live all free men? As Cęsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honor him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honor for his valor; and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. I have done no more to Cęsar than you shall do to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled in the Capitol; his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy; nor his offenses enforced, for which he suffered death. Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony: who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the commonwealth; as which of you shall not? With this I depart,— that, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death.
THE PRECEPTS OF POLONIUS
From "Hamlet"
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are most select and generous, chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!
THE HIGH STANDARD
From the Lord Rector's address, University of Edinburgh, 1882
BY LORD ROSEBERY
Let us win in the competition of international well-being and prosperity. Let us have a finer, better educated, better lodged, and better nourished race than exists elsewhere; better schools, better universities, better tribunals, ay, and better churches. In one phrase, let our standard be higher, not in the jargon of the Education Department, but in the acknowledgment of mankind. The standard of mankind is not so exalted but that a nobler can be imagined and attained. The dream of him who loved Scotland best would lie not so much in the direction of antiquarian revival, as in the hope that his country might be pointed out as one that in spite of rocks, and rigor, and poverty, could yet teach the world by precept and example, could lead the van and point the moral, where greater nations and fairer states had failed. Those who believe the Scots to be so eminently vain a race, will say that already we are in our opinion the tenth legion of civilization. Well, vanity is a centipede with corns on every foot: I will not tread where the ground is most dangerous. But if we are not foremost, we may at any rate become so. Our fathers have declared unto us what was done in their days and in the old time before them: we know that we come of a strenuous stock. Do you remember the words that young Carlyle wrote to his brother nine years after he had left this University as a student, forty-three years before he returned as its Rector?—