ABBREVIATIONS. In marking the source of each selection, the following abreviations have been used: Where both Roman and Arabic numerals are given, the Roman nu. merals refer to the 'Book,' the Arabic to the 'Chapter,' (S. R., II. 8— Sartor Resartus, Book II., Chap. VIII). Where the Chapter only is marked, Roman numerals alone are used. (Ch. X.-Chartism, Chap. X). Selections from the 'Miscellaneous' are marked with an M. fol. lowed by the Title of the Essay in Italics, (M. Burns.) LIFE, AND THE CONDUCT OF LIFE. THE SPHINX. How true is that old Fable of the Sphinx, who sat by the wayside, propounding her riddle to the passengers, which if they could not answer she destroyed them! Such a Sphinx is this Life of ours, to all men and societies of men. Nature, like the Sphinx, is of womanly celestial loveliness and tenderness; the face and bosom of a goddess, but ending in claws and the body of a lioness. There is in her a celestial beauty,-which means celestial order, pliancy to wisdom; but there is also a darkness, a ferocity, fatality, which are infernal. She is a goddess, but one not yet disimprisoned; one still half imprisoned,-the articulate, lovely still encased in the inarticulate, chaotic. How true! And does she not propound her riddles to us? Of each man she asks daily, in mild voice, yet with a terrible significance, "Knowest thou the meaning of this Day? What thou canst do To-day; wisely attempt to do." Nature, Universe, Destiny, Existence, howsoever we name this grand unnamable Fact in the midst of which we live. and struggle, is as a heavenly bride and conquest to the wise and brave, to them who can discern her behests and do them; a destroying fiend to them who cannot. Answer her riddle, it is well with thee. Answer it not, pass on regarding it not, it will answer itself; the solution for thee is a thing of teeth and claws; Nature is a dumb lioness, deaf to thy pleadings, fiercely devouring. Thou art not now her victorious bridegroom; thou art her mangled victim, scattered on the precipices, as a slave found treacherous, recreant, ought to be and must. -P. & P. I. 2. INFLUENCES. We know not what we are, any more than what we shall be. It is a high, solemn, almost awful thought for every individual man, that his earthly influence, which has had a commencement, will never through all ages, were he the very meanest of us, have an end! What is done is done; has already blended itself with the boundless, ever-living, ever-working Universe, and will also work there for good or for evil, openly or secretly, throughout all time. -M. Voltaire. SELF-DEVELOPMENT. THE meaning of life here on earth might be defined as consisting in this: To unfold your self, to work what thing you have the faculty for. It is a necessity for the human being, the first law of our existence. Coleridge beautifully remarks that the infant learns to speak by this necessity it feels. -H. VI. Cromwell. KNOW THYSELF. THE painfullest feeling is that of your own Feebleness; ever, as Milton says, to be weak is the true misery. And yet of your Strength there is and can be no clear feeling, save by what you have prospered in, by what you have done. Between vague wavering Capability and fixed indubitable Performance, what a difference! A certain inarticulate Self-consciousness dwells dimly in us, which only our Works can render articulate and decisively discernible. Our Works are the mirror wherein the spirit first sees its natural lineaments. |