Lady Randolph, lamenting the Death of her Husband and Child.] Home. 8.- Example of all the preceding Emotions, in Prose Style. [The Captive.] Sterne. "I looked through the twilight of the captive's grated door, to take his picture. "I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it is, which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish in thirty years, the western breeze had not once fanned his blood; he had seen no sun. no moon, in all that time: - nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice: - his children "But here my heart began to bleed;- and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait. "He was sitting upon the ground, upon a little straw, in the farthest corner of his dungeon, — which was alternately his chair and his bed. A little calendar of small sticks was laid at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there:- he had one of these little sticks in his hand; and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery, to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down, shook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle:— He gave a deep sigh-I saw the iron enter into his soul. I burst into tears: - I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn." Exercise 1.- Repose in external Objects. [A Day in August.] Wilcox. "O'er all the woods the topmost leaves are still; - Rest in the general calm. The thistledown,-- 3.- Repose of Nature and of Feeling. “Twilight! sweet hour of pea. `, Now art thou stealing on; Cease from thy tumult, thought! and ncy, cease! Day and its cares are gone! Mysterious hour! Thy magic power Steals o'er my heart like music's softest tone. "The golden sunset hues Are fading in the west; The gorgeous clouds their brighter radiance lose, Folded on evening's breast. So doth each wayward thought, From fancy's altar caught, Fade like thy tints, and muse itself to rest. "Wearied with care, how sweet to hail When all is silent but the whispering gale When, as thy shadows blend, The trembling thoughts ascend, And borne aloft, the gates of heaven unclose!" "Weep not for her!-her memory is the shrine Sweet as the song of birds among the bowers, "Weep not for her!- there is no cause for woe, And from earth's low defilements keep thee back: Weep not for her!" and lead thee on! 5.- Example of Tranquillity of Effect in Prose Style. [The Sabbath Bell, in the country.] Willis. "Beautiful and salutary, as a religious influence, is the sound of a distant Sabbath bell, in the country. It comes floating over the hills, like the going abroad of a spirit; and, as the leaves stir with its vibrations, and the drops of dew tremble in the cups of the flowers, you could almost believe that there was a Sabbath in nature, and that the dumb works of God rendered visible worship for His goodness. The effect of nature alone is purifying; and its thousand evidences of wisdom are too eloquent of their Maker, not to act as a continual lesson; but combined with the instilled piety of childhood, and the knowledge of the inviolable holiness of the time, the mellow cadences of a church bell give to the hush of the country Sabbath, a holiness to which only a desperate heart could be insensible." III.- SOLEMNITY. Exercise 1.- Emotion inspired by Scenery. [Sonnet.] J. H. Abbot. "What time have died the vesper anthemings, - While sleeps the lake, holding in calm embrace The star-gemmed arch, pure counterpart and bright,— Gleaming reflected from her glassy face, Of that which heavenward lures the heart and sight; Oh! how intensely glow through soul and sense Night's boundless beauty and magnificence!" |