Woman an enigma; or, Louise de la Vallière, Volume 163

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Page 3 - O Woman ! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made, When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou ! — Scarce were the piteous accents said, When, with the Baron's casque, the maid To the nigh streamlet ran.
Page 83 - A something, light as air — a look, A word unkind or wrongly taken — Oh ! love, that tempests never shook, A breath, a touch like this hath shaken.
Page 153 - On which ground too let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other precept well to heart, which to me was of invaluable service: 'Do the Duty which lies nearest thee', which thou knowest to be a Duty!
Page 179 - The Situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal: work it out therefrom; and working, believe, live, be free.
Page 102 - And what arc things eternal ? — Powers depart, Possessions vanish, and opinions change, And passions hold a fluctuating seat : But by the storms of circumstance unshaken, And subject neither to eclipse nor wane, DUTY exists;— immutably survive, For our support, the mgasures and the forms, Which an abstract Intelligence supplies ; Whose kingdom is where time and space are not.
Page 59 - These servile drops from off my burning brow. Amidst these venerable trees, the air Seems hallowed by the breath of other times.— Companions of my Fathers ! ye have marked Their generations pass. Your giant arms Shadowed their youth, and proudly canopied Their silver hairs, when, ripe in years and glory, These walks they trod to meditate on Heaven.
Page 182 - ... no doubt that, with the exception of the great Humboldt himself, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a single man in the broad field of explorers, not already honoured with our medal, who is more richly deserving of it.
Page 14 - Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, — for here There is such matter for all feeling : — Man ! Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear, Ages and realms are crowded in this span, This mountain, whose obliterated plan The pyramid of empires pinnacled, Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van Till the sun's rays with added flame were fill'd!

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