Rich, dowered with health and ease, from birth designed

To rule if he would rule-a king of kings;

If one not worn and wrinkled, sadly sage,

But joyous in the glory and the grace

5 That mix with evils here, and free to choose Earth's loveliest at his will: one even as I,

Who ache not, lack not, grieve not, save with griefs
Which are not mine, except as I am man; -

If such a one, having so much to give,
10 Gave all, laying it down for love of men,
And thenceforth spent himself to search for truth,
Wringing the secret of deliverance forth,
Whether it lurks in hells or hides in heavens,
Or hover, unrevealed, nigh unto all:
15 Surely at last, far off, sometime, somewhere,
The veil would lift for his deep-searching eyes,
The road would open for his painful feet,
That should be won for which he lost the world,
And Death might find him conqueror of death.
20 This will I do, who have a realm to lose,

Because I love my realm, because my heart
Beats with each throb of all the hearts that ache,
Known and unknown, these that are mine and those
Which shall be mine, a thousand million more

25 Saved by this sacrifice I offer now.

kin to all that is: this is one of the principles of the Buddhists. To them all life is sacred. - mowed (moud): made wry faces.

CHARLES LAMB (1775-1834) was an English writer and critic who is still spoken of as the most delightful of essayists. The author's quaint and lovable personality gave his writings their chief charm.

NOTE.

In the essay from which the following selection is taken Lamb gives an attractive picture of his home life with his sister, who appears as "Cousin Bridget."

5

I have an almost feminine partiality for old china. When I go to see any great house, I inquire for the china closet, and next for the picture gallery. I cannot defend the order of preference but by saying that we all 10 have some taste or other, of too ancient a date to admit of our remembering distinctly that it was an acquired one. I can call to mind the first play and the first exhibition that I was taken to; but I am not conscious of a time when china jars and saucers were introduced into 15 my imagination.

I had no repugnance then-why should I now have? -to those little lawless, azure-tinted grotesques, that

under the notion of men and women, float about, uncircumscribed by any element, in the world before perspective a china teacup.

Here is a young and courtly mandarin, handing tea to 5 a lady from a salver-two miles off. See how distance seems to set off respect! And here the same lady, or another for likeness is identity on teacups-is stepping into a little fairy boat, moored on the hither side of this calm garden river, with a dainty mincing foot, 10 which in a right angle of incidence (as angles go in our world) must infallibly land her in the midst of a flowery mead a furlong off on the other side of the same strange stream!

I could not help remarking to my cousin last evening 15 how favorable circumstances had been to us of late years, that we could afford to please the eye sometimes with trifles of this sort - when a passing sentiment seemed to overshade the brows of my companion. I am quick at detecting these summer clouds in Bridget.

20 "I wish the good old times would come again," she said, "when we were not quite so rich. I do not mean that I want to be poor; but there was a middle state; SO she was pleased to ramble on," in which I am sure we were a great deal happier. A purchase is but a purchase, 25 now that you have money enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be a triumph. When we coveted a cheap luxury (and, O! how much ado I had to get you

to consent in those times!) we were used to have a debate two or three days before, and to weigh the for and against, and think what we might spare it out of, and what saving we could hit upon, that should be an equivalent. A thing was worth buying then, when we 5 felt the money that we paid for it.

"When you came home with twenty apologies for laying out a less number of shillings upon that print after Leonardo; when you looked at the purchase, and thought of the money and thought of the money, and looked 10 again at the picture - was there no pleasure in being a poor man? Now, you have nothing to do but to buy a wilderness of Leonardos. Yet do you?

"There was pleasure in eating strawberries, before they became quite common in the first dish of peas, while 15 they were yet dear-to have them for a nice supper, a treat. What treat can we have now? If we were to treat ourselves now that is, to have dainties a little above our means, it would be selfish and wicked.

"I know what you were going to say, that it is 20 mighty pleasant at the end of the year to make all meet

and much ado we used to have every thirty-first night of December to account for our exceedings- many a long face did you make over your puzzled accounts, and in contriving to make it out how we had spent so much—or 25 that we had not spent so much—or that it was impossible we should spend so much next year; but then, betwixt

ways, and projects, and compromises of one sort or another, and talk of curtailing this charge, and doing without that for the future and the hope that youth brings, and laughing spirits (in which you were never poor till now), we 5 pocketed up our loss, and in conclusion we used to wel

at all at the end of the old year- no flattering promises about the new year doing better for us."

how I interrupt it.

at the phantom of

Bridget is so sparing of her speech on most occasions, 10 that when she gets into a rhetorical vein, I am careful I could not help, however, smiling wealth which her dear imagination had conjured up out of our income. "It is true we were happier when we were poorer, but we were also younger, 15 my cousin. I am afraid we must put up with the excess, for if we were to shake the superflux into the sea, we should not much mend ourselves. That we had much to struggle with, as we grew up together, we have reason to be most thankful. It strengthened, and knit our com20 pact closer. We could never have been what we have been to each other, if we had always had the sufficiency which you complain of. . . . And now do just look at that merry little Chinese waiter holding an umbrella over the head of that pretty, insipid lady in that very blue 25 summerhouse."

Adapted.

Leonardo Leonardo da Vinci (dah vìn'chee) (1452-1519): a great Florentine painter.