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ΝΟΟΝ

BY

H. L. SIDNEY LEAR

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity.

SHAKESPEARE

(Sonnet LX.)

RIVINGTONS

Waterloo Place, London

MDCCCLXXXII

141.n 245.

II.

A Sundial.

HORAS non numero nisi serenas,

is the motto of a sundial near Venice. There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the thought unparalleled. Of all conceits it is surely the most classical.

I count only the hours that are serene." What a bland and caredispelling feeling! How the shadows seem to fade on the dial-plate as the sky lours, and time presents only a blank, unless as its progress is marked by what is joyous, and all that is not happy sinks into oblivion! What a fine lesson is conveyed to the mind-to take no note of time but by its benefits, to watch only for

the smiles and neglect the frowns of fate, to compose our lines of bright and gentle moments, turning always to the sunny side of things, and letting the rest slip from our imaginations, unheeded or forgotten! How different from the common act of self-tormenting! For myself, as I rode [rowed?] along the Brenta, while the sun shone hot upon its sluggish, slimy waves, my sensations were far from comfortable; but the reading this inscription on the side of a glaring wall in an instant restored me to myself; and still, whenever I think of or repeat it, it has the power of wafting me into the region of pure and blissful abstraction. . . . If our hours were all serene we might probably take as

little note of them as the dial does of those that are clouded. It is the shadow thrown across that gives us warning of their flight.-Hazlitt (Essays).

III.

THESE stones which men have

been cutting into slabs for thousands of years to ornament their principal buildings with, and which, under the general name of "marble," have been the delight of the eyes, and the wealth of architecture among all civilised nationsare precisely those on which the signs and brands of earth's agonies have been chiefly struck; and there is not a purple vein nor flaming zone in them which is not the record

What a

of their ancient torture. boundless capacity for sleep, and for serene stupidity, there is in the human mind! Fancy reflective beings who cut and polish stones for three thousand years for the sake of the pretty stains upon them, and educate themselves to an art at last (such as it is) of imitating these veins by dextrous painting, and never a curious soul of them all that while asks, "What painted the rocks?"-RUSKIN.

IV.

THOUGH we hear and understand, yet if the heart be not touched, what we hear is man's word and not God's; for the property of His Word is to pierce to

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