Selections For Analysis And Parsing

1. Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.

2. If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest

3. A cheerful temper, joined with innocence, will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit goodnatured. It will lighten sickness, poverty, and affliction; convert ignorance into an amiable simplicity; and render deformity itself agreeable.

4. Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army. If we retrench the wages of the schoolmaster, we must raise those of the recruiting sergeant.

5. Men of the noblest dispositions think themselves happiest when others share their happiness with them.

6. Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.

7. That man is worthless who knows how to receive a favor, but not how to return one.

8. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

9. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds.

10. We measure great men by their character, not by their success.

11. Trust men, and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.

12. Oh, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.

13. Men who see clearly how they ought to act when they meet with obstacles, are invaluable helpers.

14. In the corner of a large field, and close to a swift-running brook, grew a great many wild flowers.

15. An old clock, that had stood for fifty years in a farmer's kitchen without giving its owner any cause of complaint, early one summer's morning, before the family was stirring, suddenly stopped.

16. One of the Americans who rendered the greatest services to the liberty of their country was Dr. Benjamin Franklin. He was born in Boston in 1706, and was the son of a poor tallow chandler.

17. The most remarkable of all the attempts to people the Western country, during the period just preceding the Revolutionary War, was made by Colonel Daniel Boone of North Carolina. He was a great hunter, and had rambled in the forests of the "Mighty West" several years before he ventured, in defiance of wild beasts, and still wilder men, to take up his residence there.

18. When you have a number of duties to perform, always do the most disagreeable one first.

19. Having these powerful spirits obedient to his will, Prospero could by their means command the winds, and the waves of the sea.

20. In those times wrestling, which is only practiced now by country clowns, was a favorite sport even in the courts of princes, and before fair ladies and princesses.

21. The robbers, hearing that he was a distressed man, and being struck with his noble air and manly behavior, told him, if he would live with them, and be their chief or captain, they would put themselves under his command; but that if he refused to accept their offer, they would kill him.

22. The cocoanut trees are first sprouted by placing a lot of nuts on the top of the ground a few inches apart. After a while each nut sends out a sprout from one of the little eyes at its end. The sprout grows up into the air, and at the same time a root shoots out of its base down into the ground.

23. Once upon a time, a thousand years ago, there dwelt by the sea a little maid. Had I said in the sea, it would perhaps have been as well, for such a spray sprite never danced before at breaker's edge.

24. The rest of the family were at dinner. From the dining-room windows they saw the great disk of the full moon rising in the violet east, while the west was yet glowing with sunset. The sea was full of rosy reflections; across the waves fell the long path of scattered silver radiance the moon sent down; a warm wind breathed gently from the land.

25. A little boy sat at his mother's knees, by the long western window, looking out into the garden. It was autumn, and the wind was sad; and the golden elm leaves lay scattered about among the grass and on the gravel path. The mother was knitting a little stocking; her fingers moved the bright needles, but her eyes were fixed on the clear evening sky.

26. I see a happy little boy in the warm, fire-lighted room. The wind blows cold, and here it is dark and lonely; but that little boy is warm and happy and safe at his mother's knees. I nod to him, and he looks at me. I wonder if he knows how happy he is!

27. Long years ago there were no mills where the farmer could take his wheat and have it ground into flour, or where he could take his corn and have it made into golden meal. He had to crush his grain himself between two heavy stones, or pound it with a heavy pestle.

28. We were in our winter camp on Port Royal Island. It was a lovely November morning, soft and spring-like; the mocking-birds were singing, and the cotton fields still white with fleecy pods. Morning drill was over, the men were cleaning their guns, and singing very happily; the officers were in their tents, reading still more happily their letters just arrived from home.

29. The river was dangerous for sailboats. Squalls, without the slightest warning, were of frequent occurrence; scarcely a year passed that six or seven persons were not drowned under the very windows of the town, and these, oddly enough, were generally sea captains, who either did not understand the river, or lacked the skill to handle a small craft.

30. It took us an hour or two to transport our stores to the spot selected for the encampment. Having pitched our tent, using the five oars to support the canvas, we got out our lines and went down the rocks seaward to fish. It was early for cunners, but we were lucky enough to catch as nice a mess as ever you saw. A cod for the chowder was not so easily secured. At last Binny Wallace hauled in a plump little fellow crested all over with flaky silver.

31. The snow had begun in the gloaming,

And busily all the night Had been heaping field and highway With a silence deep and white.

Every pine and fir and hemlock Wore ermine too dear for an earl;

And the poorest twig on the elm tree Was ringed inch deep with pearl.

32. In a short time other causes sprang up to bind the Pilgrims with new cords to their chosen land. Children were born, and the hopes of future generations arose, in the spot of their new habitation.

The second generation found this the land, of their nativity, and saw that they were bound to its fortunes. They beheld their fathers' graves around them, and while they read the memorials of their toils and labors, they rejoiced in the inheritance which they found bequeathed to them.

33. When the mornings were colder, and the stove upstairs smoked the wrong way, Baby was brought downstairs in a very incomplete state of toilet, and finished her dressing by the great fire.

After a very slow dressing she had a still slower breakfast out of a tin cup of warm milk, of which she generally spilt a good deal, as she had much to do in watching everybody who came into the room. Then she would be placed on the floor on our only piece of carpet, and the kittens would be brought in for her to play with.

34. For flowers that bloom about our feet; For tender grass, so fresh and sweet; For song of bird and hum of bee; For all things fair we hear and see, - Father in heaven, we thank thee I

35. The every-day cares and duties, which men call drudgery, are the weights and counterpoises of the clock of time, giving its pendulum a true vibration, and its hands a regular motion; and when they cease to hang upon the wheels, the pendulum no longer swings, the hands no longer move, the clock stands still.

36. But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of that sordid visage, and gazed up the valley, where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last sunbeams, he could still distinguish those glorious features which had impressed themselves into his soul. Their aspect cheered him. What did the benign lips seem to say?

37. While Ernest had been growing up and growing old, a bountiful Providence had granted a new poet to this earth. He, likewise, was a native of the valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance from the romantic region, pouring out his sweet music amid the bustle and din of cities.

38. Political eminence and professional fame fade away and die with all things earthly. Nothing of character is really permanent but virtue and personal worth. These remain. Whatever of excellence is wrought into the soul itself belongs to both worlds. Real goodness does not attach itself merely to this life: it points to another world. Political or professional eminence cannot last forever; but a conscience void of offense before God and man is an inheritance for eternity.

39. If I am weak and you are strong,

Why then, why then To you the braver deeds belong;

And so again, If you have gifts and I have none,

If I have shade and you have sun,

'Tis yours with freer hand to give, 'Tis yours with truer grace to live,

Than I who giftless, sunless stand, With barren life and hand.

40. Work while it is called to-day, for you know not how you may be hindered to-morrow.

41. Leisure is the time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never.

42. He that riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night; while Laziness travels so slowly that Poverty soon overtakes him.

43. If you were a servant, would you not be ashamed that a good master should catch you idle?

44. The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.

45. Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. The people heard it, and approved the doctrine; and immediately practiced the contrary, just as if it had been a common sermon.

46. In some respects the animals excel us. The birds have a longer sight, besides the advantage by their wings of a higher observatory. A cow can bid her calf, by secret signal, probably of the eye, to run away, or to lie down and hide itself. The jockeys say of certain horses, that "they look over the whole ground." The out-door life, and hunting, and labor give equal vigor to the human eye. A farmer looks out at you as strong as the horse; his eye-beam is like the stroke of a staff. An eye can threaten like a loaded leveled gun, or can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance with joy.

47. All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all.

48. There lies at the other side of the Atlantic a beautiful island, famous in story and in song. Its area is not so great as that of the State of Louisiana, while its population is almost half that of the Union. It has given to the world more than its share of genius and of greatness.

It has been prolific in statesmen, warriors, and poets. Its brave and generous sons have fought successfully all battles but their own. In wit and humor it has no equal; while its harp, like its history, moves to tears by its sweet but melancholy pathos.

49. Firmly builded with rafters of oak the house of the farmer Stood on the side of a hill commanding the sea; and a shady Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine around it. Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath; and a foot-path Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the meadow. Under the sycamore tree were hives overhung by a penthouse. Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well with its moss-grown Bucket fastened with iron, and near it a trough for the horses.

50. Truth, justice, and reason lose all their force and all their luster when they are not accompanied by agreeable manners.

51. Good nature is the very air of a good mind, the sign of a large and generous soul, and the peculiar soil in which virtue prospers.

52. We are ruined, not by what we really want, but by what we think we do; therefore, never go abroad in search of your wants; if they be real wants, they will come home in search of you; for he that buys what he does not want will soon want what he cannot buy.

53. My purse is very slim, and very few

The acres that I number; But I am seldom stupid, never blue; My riches are an honest heart and true, And quiet slumber.

54. It is only through the morning gate of the beautiful that you can penetrate into the realm of knowledge. That which we feel here as beauty, we shall know one day as truth.

55. It may not be our lot to wield

The sickle in the ripened field; Nor ours to hear on summer eves

The reaper's song among the sheaves; Yet where our duty's task is wrought

In unison with God's great thought, The near and future blend in one,

And whatsoe'er is willed is done.

56. There is nothing more to be esteemed than a manly firmness and decision of character. I like the person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what is to be done in given circumstances and does it.

57. A good man doubles the length of his existence; to have lived so as to look back with pleasure on our past existence, is to live twice.

58. When I call back to my mind the grandeur and beauty of those almost uninhabited shores; when I picture to myself the dense and lofty summits of the forests that everywhere spread along the hills, and overhang the margins of the streams; when I see that no longer any aborigines are found there, and that the vast herds of deer, elk, and buffalo, which once pastured on these hills and in these valleys, have ceased to exist; when I reflect that this grand portion of our Union is now more or less covered with villages, farms, and towns, where the din of hammers and machinery is constantly heard, - that the woods are fast disappearing under the ax by day and the fire by night, that hundreds of steamboats are plying to and fro over the whole length of our majestic rivers; when I remember that these extraordinary changes have all taken place in the short period of twenty years, - I pause, wonder, and, although I know all to be true, can scarcely believe its reality.

59. Gentlemen, soldiers, comrades, the silken folds that twine about us here, for all their soft and careless grace, are yet as strong as hooks of steel! They hold together a united people and a great nation; for realizing the truth at last - with no wounds to be healed and no stings of defeat to remember - the South says to the North, as simply and as truly as was said three thousand years ago in the far away meadow on the shores of the mystic sea: "Whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy Grod my God"

60. Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free, Leaving thy out-grown shell by life's unresting sea!