LETTERS.

  Kind messages, that pass from land to land;
    Kind letters, that betray the heart’s deep history,
  In which we feel the pressure of a hand,—­
    One touch of fire,—­and all the rest is mystery!
The Seaside and the Fireside:  Dedication.  H.W.  LONGFELLOW.

  Every day brings a ship,
  Every ship brings a word: 
  Well for those who have no fear,
  Looking seaward well assured
  That the word the vessel brings
  Is the word they wish to hear.
Letters.  R.W.  EMERSON.

And oft the pangs of absence to remove
By letters, soft interpreters of love.
Henry and Emma.  M. PRIOR.

Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words
That ever blotted paper!
Merchant of Venice, Act iii.  Sc. 2.  SHAKESPEARE.

                           I will touch
  My mouth unto the leaves, caressingly;
  And so wilt thou.  Thus from these lips of mine
  My message will go kissingly to thine. 
  With more than Fancy’s load of luxury,
  And prove a true love-letter.
Sonnet (With a Letter).  J.G.  SAXE.

Jove and my stars be praised!  Here is yet a postscript. Twelfth Night, Act ii.  Sc. 5.  SHAKESPEARE.

  Go, little letter, apace, apace,
       Fly;
  Fly to the light in the valley below—­
    Tell my wish to her dewy blue eye.
The Letter.  A. TENNYSON.

LIFE.

  Let observation, with extensive view,
  Survey mankind from China to Peru;
  Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife,
  And watch the busy scenes of crowded life.
The Vanity of Human Wishes.  DR. S. JOHNSON.

It matters not how long we live, but how. Festus, Sc.  Wood and Water.  P.J.  BAILEY.

  Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv’st
  Live well; how long or short permit to heaven.
Paradise Lost, Bk, XI.  MILTON.

  All is concentred in a life intense,
  Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
  But hath a part of being.
Childe Harold, Canto III.  LORD BYRON.

  Life for delays and doubts no time does give,
  None ever yet made haste enough to live.
Martial, Liber II.  A. COWLEY.

  Learn to live well, that thou may’st die so too;
  To live and die is all we have to do.
Of Prudence.  SIR J. DENHAM.

  “Live, while you live,” the epicure would say,
  “And seize the pleasures of the present day;”
  “Live while you live,” the sacred preacher cries,
  “And give to God each moment as it flies.” 
  “Lord, in my views let both united be;
  I live in pleasure, when I live to Thee.”
"Dum vivimus vivamus.” (Motto of his Family Arms.) P. DODDRIDGE.

  A man’s ingress into the world is naked and bare,
  His progress through the world is trouble and care;
  And lastly, his egress out of the world, is nobody knows where. 
  If we do well here, we shall do well there;
  I can tell you no more if I preach a whole year.
Eccentricities, Vol.  I.  J. EDWIN.