C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Mallet

Are afflictions aught

But mercies in disguise? th’ alternate cup,

Medicinal though bitter, and prepar’d

By love’s own hand for salutary ends.

He who can listen pleas’d to such applause,

Buys at a dearer rate than I dare purchase,

And pays for idle air with sense and virtue.

Look, from the turbid south

What floods of flame in red diffusion burst,

Frequent and furious, darted thro’ the dark

And broken ridges of a thousand clouds,

Pil’d hill on hill; and hark, the thunder rous’d,

Groans in long roarings through the distant gloom.

O grant me, heav’n, a middle state,

Neither too humble nor too great;

More than enough for nature’s ends,

With something left to treat my friends.

The multitude unaw’d is insolent;

Once seiz’d with fear, contemptible and vain.

True valor, friends, on virtue founded strong,

Meets all events alike.

Uncertainty!

Fell demon of our fears! the human soul,

That can support despair, supports not thee.

Who hath not known ill-fortune, never knew

Himself, or his own virtue.

Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue, where patience, honor, sweet humanity, calm fortitude, take root and strongly flourish.

Ambition! deadly tyrant! inexorable master! what alarms, what anxious hours, what agonies of heart, are the sure portion of thy gaudy slaves?

The human race are sons of sorrow born; and each must have his portion. Vulgar minds refuse, or crouch beneath their load; the brave bear theirs without repining.

The rose was budded in her cheek, just opening to the view.

The vulgar refuse or crouch beneath their load; the brave bear theirs without repining.

Who despises fame will soon renounce the virtues that deserve it.

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