Matthew Arnold speaks of "the huge Mississippi of falsehood called History." The wind blows north, the wind blows south, The wind blows east and west; No matter how the free wind blows, Some ship will find it best. Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you, and be silent.--_Epictetus_. Victor Hugo makes a donkey meditate and apostrophize thus: My brother, man, if you would know the truth, We both are by the same dull walls shut in; The gate is massive and the dungeon strong. But you look through the key-hole out beyond, And call this knowledge; yet have not at hand The key wherein to turn the fatal lock. "William Cullen Bryant surprised me once," relates a writer in a New York paper, "by saying that prose was the natural language of composition, and he wonder'd how anybody came to write poetry." Farewell! I did not know thy worth; But thou art gone, and now 'tis prized: So angels walk'd unknown on earth, But when they flew were recognized.--_Hood_. John Burroughs, writing of Thoreau, says: "He improves with age--in fact requires age to take off a little of his asperity, and fully ripen him. The world likes a good hater and refuser almost as well as it likes a good lover and accepter--only it likes him farther off." _Louise Michel at the burial of Blanqui, (1881.)_ Blanqui drill'd his body to subjection to his grand conscience and his noble passions, and commencing as a young man, broke with all that is sybaritish in modern civilization. Without the power to sacrifice self, great ideas will never bear fruit. Out of the leaping furnace flame A mass of molten silver came; Then, beaten into pieces three, Went forth to meet its destiny. The first a crucifix was made, Within a soldier's knapsack laid; The second was a locket fair, Where a mother kept her dead child's hair; The third--a bangle, bright and warm, Around a faithless woman's arm. A mighty pain to love it is, And'tis a pain that pain to miss; But of all pain the greatest pain, It is to love, but love in vain. _Maurice F. Egan on De Guerin._ A pagan heart, a Christian soul had he, He followed Christ, yet for dead Pan he sigh'd, Till earth and heaven met within his breast: As if Theocritus in Sicily Had come upon the Figure crucified, And lost his gods in deep, Christ-given rest. And if I pray, the only prayer That moves my lips for me, Is, leave the mind that now I bear, And give me Liberty.--_Emily Bronte._ I travel on not knowing, I would not if I might; I would rather walk with God in the dark, Than go alone in the light; I would rather walk with Him by faith Than pick my way by sight MY NATIVE SAND AND SALT ONCE MORE