Personal Memoirs and Recollections of Editorial Life, Volume 2

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Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1852

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Page 203 - New occasions teach new duties ; Time makes ancient good uncouth ; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth ; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key.
Page 201 - Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side ; Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
Page 202 - Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just ; Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.
Page 201 - Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word; Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, — Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
Page 202 - Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, — they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.
Page 205 - ... neath the all-beholding sun. That wrong is also done to us ; and they are slaves most base. Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their race. God works for all. Ye cannot hem the hope of being free With parallels of latitude, with mountain-range or sea. Put golden padlocks on Truth's lips, be callous as ye will, From soul to soul, o'er all the world, leaps one electric thrill.
Page 150 - Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, And the spirit shall return to God who gave it.
Page 201 - Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shall stand, Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land? Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 't is Truth alone is strong...
Page 15 - Albany — a project which every one knows, who knows the simplest rule in arithmetic, to be impracticable, but at an expense little less than the market value of the whole territory of Massachusetts; and which, if practicable, every person of common sense knows, would be as useless as a railroad from Boston to the moon.
Page 70 - One voice that silence breaks — the prayer is said, And the last rite man pays to man is paid ; The plashing waters mark his resting-place, And fold him round in one long, cold embrace ; Bright bubbles for a moment sparkle o'er. Then break, to be, like him, beheld no more ; Down, countless fathoms down, he sinks to sleep. With all the nameless shapes that haunt the deep.

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