“In poetry, the bill of mortality is a long one; in real life the patients seldom die, unless they chance to be both vain and poor. Did a rich widow ever grieve to death for the loss of the noblest husband? Wealth is a potent antidote to the malady, and teaches resignation; while poverty, with the first blow of his iron sledge, will make his cold anvil smoke with the heart’s blood, for he is buried who for years had withstood the blow.” “That woman did not cast nettles on his grave.” “No nettles, but faded roses which she tore from it—blooming when she came there. Better cast stones and nettles than those withered flowers. Your boy has escaped this poor man’s destiny—the worst of deaths! His was the happiest! he died—smiling—on his fond mother’s bosom! But there is a grave around which weeds grow more luxuriantly, than about the sepulchre where mortal dust reposes. Daily watchfulness is required to prevent the bright creations therein buried, from being so over-run until nothing is seen to designate the beautiful tomb, where we had carefully embalmed them, as if in amber.” “What grave, sir, do you refer to?” “The human mind. A mighty grave wherein we daily bury crushed hopes and brilliant ephemerons, too fragile to survive the chill atmosphere of a solitary day. Keep the weeds from growing there and smothering their memories. They are the progeny of the soul, and should not be allowed to perish. Shall the joyous and beautiful creations of childhood be forgotten in age; must the noble aspirations of the vigor of manhood pass away without even an epitaph, because crushed in their vigor! Rather contemplate them hourly; plant flowers beside them, though they bloom but briefly and fade, they will send forth perfume even in decay, and inevitably revive in due season, bearing refreshing fruit; and old age, with palsied hand, will readily gather up the long account of his stewardship, and as he glances over the lengthened scroll that must become a record in the archives of eternity, may rejoice that he hath not been an ingrate and idler in the heat of the harvest-field, but hath diligently labored to make the entrusted talent yield the expected usage. Tear up the weeds that are incessantly growing there, ere he who was placed little lower than the angels, becomes an empty cenotaph—a stranger’s grave—mouldering and mingling with his mother earth unheeded and unknown.” * * * * * FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS FROM UNFAMILIAR SOURCES. BY A STUDENT.