The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886Ontario. Department of Education
General
The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886
Ontario. Department of Education
Readers (Secondary)
As a dream seldom fails of dashing seriousness with impertinence, mirth
with gravity, methought I made several other experiments of a more
ludicrous nature, by one of which I found that an English octavo was
very often heavier than a French folio; and by another, that an old
Greek or Latin author weighed down a whole library of moderns. Seeing
one of my _Spectators_ lying by me, I laid it into one of the scales,
and flung a twopenny piece in the other. The reader will not inquire
into the event, if he remembers the first trial which I have recorded in
this paper. I afterwards threw both the sexes into the balance; but as
it is not for my interest to disoblige either of them, I shall desire to
be excused from telling the result of this experiment. Having an
opportunity of this nature in my hands, I could not forbear throwing
into one scale the principles of a Tory, and in the other those of a
Whig; but as I have all along declared this to be a neutral paper, I
shall likewise desire to be silent under this head also, though upon
examining one of the weights, I saw the word TEKEL engraven on it in
capital letters.
I made many other experiments, and though I have not room for them all
in this day's speculation, I may perhaps reserve them for another. I
shall only add, that upon my awaking I was sorry to find my golden
scales vanished, but resolved for the future to learn this lesson from
them, not to despise or value any things for their appearances, but to
regulate my esteem and passions towards them according to their real and
intrinsic value.
* * * * *
_It must be so--Plato, thou reasonest well!--
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man._
_From Cato._--ADDISON.
XVI. MISJUDGED HOSPITALITY.
JONATHAN SWIFT.--1667-1745.
_From_ THE TATLER, March 6, 1711.
_Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
Emollit mores._
OVID.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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