"He was forced to go through every division, resolution, composition, and refinement of political chemistry, before he happily arrived at the caput mortuum of vitriol in your grace. Flat and insipid in your retired state; but, brought into action, you become vitriol again. Such are the extremes of alternate indolence or fury which have governed your whole administration."
The thought here (be it said in passing) seems to have been adopted from these lines in Rochester:
"Wit, like tierce claret, when 't begins to pall,
Neglected lies, and 's of no use at all;
But in its full perfection of decay
Turns vinegar, and comes again in play."
But the most beautiful application of this sentiment that I have met with, occurs in an essay on "The Uses of Adversity," by Mr. Herman Hooker, an American writer:—
"A pious lady, who had lost her husband, was for a time inconsolable. She could not think, scarcely could she speak, of anything but him. Nothing seemed to take her attention but the three promising children he had left her, singing to her his presence, his look, his love. But soon these were all taken ill, and died within a few days of each other; and now the childless mother was calmed even by the greatness of the stroke. As the lead that goes quickly down to the ocean's depth ruffled its surface less than lighter things, so the blow which was strongest did not so much disturb her calm of mind, but drove her to its proper trust."
Henry H. Breen.
St. Lucia.