C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Joanna Baillie

But dreams full oft are found of real events

The form and shadows.

He is so full of pleasant anecdote;

So rich, so gay, so poignant in his wit,

Time vanishes before him as he speaks,

And ruddy morning through the lattice peeps

Ere night seems well begun.

I am as one

Who doth attempt some lofty mountain’s height,

And having gained what to the upcast eye

the summit’s point appear’d, astonish’d sees

Its cloudy top, majestic and enlarged,

Towering aloft, as distant as before.

I would, God knows, in a poor woodman’s hut

Have spent my peaceful days, and shared my crust

With her who would have cheer’d me, rather far

Than on this throne; but being what I am,

I’ll be it nobly.

She who only finds her self-esteem

In others’ admiration, begs an alms;

Depends on others for her daily food,

And is the very servant of her slaves;

Tho’ oftentimes, in a fantastic hour,

O’er men she may a childish pow’r exert,

Which not ennobles but degrades her state.

Some men are born to feast, and not to fight;

Whose sluggish minds, e’en in fair honor’s field,

Still on their dinner turn—

Let such pot-boiling varlets stay at home,

And wield a flesh-hook rather than a sword.

Stand there, damn’d meddling villain, and be silent;

For if thou utt’rest but a single word,

A cough or hem, to cross me in my speech,

I’ll send thy cursed spirit from the earth,

To bellow with the damn’d!

Sweet sleep be with us, one and all!

And if upon its stillness fall

The visions of a busy brain,

We’ll have our pleasure o’er again,

To warm the heart, to charm the sight.

Gay dreams to all! good night, good night.

That look’d

As though an angel, in his upward flight,

Had left his mantle floating in mid-air.

The brave man is not he who feels no fear,

For that were stupid and irrational;

But he, whose noble soul its fear subdues,

And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.

The inward sighs of humble penitence

Rise to the ear of Heaven, when peal’d hymns

Are scatter’d with the sounds of common air.

Think’st thou there are no serpents in the world

But those who slide along the grassy sod,

And sting the luckless foot that presses them?

There are who in the path of social life

Do bask their spotted skins in Fortune’s sun,

And sting the soul.

This pure air

Braces the listless nerves, and warms the blood:

I feel in freedom here.

’Tis ever thus when favours are denied;

All had been granted but the thing we beg:

And still some great unlikely substitute—

Your life, your soul, your all of earthly good—

Is proffer’d, in the room of one small boon.

’Tis ever thus: indulgence spoils the base;

Raising up pride, and lawless turbulence,

Like noxious vapors from the fulsome marsh

When morning shines upon it.

Twice it call’d, so loudly call’d,

With horrid strength, beyond the pitch of nature;

And murder! murder! was the dreadful cry.

A third time it return’d with feeble strength,

But o’ the sudden ceas’d, as though the words

Were smother’d rudely in the grappl’d throat,

And all was still again, save the wild blast

Which at a distance growl’d—

Oh! it will never from my mind depart!

That dreadful cry, all i’ the instant still’d.

War is honorable

In those who do their native rights maintain;

In those whose swords an iron barrier are

Between the lawless spoiler and the weak;

But is, in those who draw th’ offensive blade

For added power or gain, sordid and despicable

As meanest office of the worldly churl.

Words of affection, howsoe’er express’d,

The latest spoken still are deem’d the best.

A good man’s prayers will from the deepest dungeon climb heaven’s height, and bring a blessing down.

A willing heart adds feather to the heel, and makes the clown a winged Mercury.

A woman is seldom roused to great and courageous exertion but when something most dear to hear is in immediate danger.

Half-uttered praise is to the curious mind, as to the eye half-veiled beauty is, more precious than the whole.

Heaven oft in mercy smites, even when the blow severest is.

I believe this earth on which we stand is but the vestibule to glorious mansions through which a moving crowd forever press.

I can bear scorpion’s stings, tread fields of fire, in frozen gulfs of cold eternal lie, be tossed aloft through tracts of endless void, but cannot live in shame.

It ever is the marked propensity of restless and aspiring minds to look into the stretch of dark futurity.

Men’s actions to futurity appear but as the events to which they are conjoined do give them consequence.

My day is closed! the gloom of night is come! a hopeless darkness settles over my fate.

O mysterious Night! thou art not silent; many tongues hast thou.

Pampered vanity is a better thing perhaps than starved pride.

Some men are born to feast, and not to fight; whose sluggish minds, even in fair honor’s field, still on their dinner turn.

Still on it creeps, each little moment at another’s heels, till hours, days, years, and ages are made up.

The brave man is not he who feels no fear, for that were stupid and irrational; but he whose noble soul its fear subdues, and bravely dares the danger which it shrinks from.

The inward sighs of humble penitence rise to the ear of heaven, when pealèd hymns are scattered with the sounds of common air.

The mind doth shape itself to its own wants, and can bear all things.

The strength of man sinks in the hour of trial; but there doth live a Power that to the battle girdeth the weak.

The visions of a busy brain.

Though duller thoughts succeed, the bliss e’en of a moment still is bliss.

Time never bears such moments on his wing as when he flies too swiftly to be marked.

To make the cunning artless, tame the rude, subdue the haughty, shake the undaunted soul; yea, put a bridle in the lion’s mouth, and lead him forth as a domestic cur, these are the triumphs of all-powerful beauty.

Woman’s grief is like a summer storm, short as it is violent.

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