Part 43 (1/2)

LXXI SONNETS

CHARLES HEAVYSEGE--1816-1876

I

The day was lingering in the pale north-west, And night was hanging o'er ht where a myriad stars were spread; While down in the east, where the light was least, Seeazed on the field subli stars, Adown the deep where the angels sleep Careat spheres that sound the years For the horologe of time

Millenniums numberless they told, Millenniums a million-fold Frolittering in the frosty sky, Frequent as pebbles on a broad sea-coast; And o'er the vault the cloud-like galaxy Has marshall'd its innulow Tenfold refulgent every star appears, As if soale did blow, And thrice illulad orbs rejoicing, burning, beam, Ray-crown'd, with laled spaces seeels on their thrones; A host divine, whose eyes are sparkling geht than diamond diadems

III

Hush'd in a cal spread; Suspended in its pale, serene expanse, Like scatter'd fla cloudlets red

Clear are those clouds; and that pure sky's profound, Transparent as a lake of hyaline; Nor motion, nor the faintest breath of sound, Disturbs the steadfast beauty of the scene

Far o'er the vault, the elkin wide, From the bronzed east unto the whiten'd west, Moor'd, seem, in their sweet, tranquil, roseate pride, Those clouds the fabled islands of the blest;-- The lands where pious spirits breathe in joy, And love and worshi+p all their hours employ

LXXII DOCTOR ARNOLD AT RUGBY

ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY--1815-1880

With his usual and undoubting confidence in what he believed to be a general law of Providence, he based his whole e conviction that what he had to look for, both intellectually and morally, was not performance but promise; that the very freedoht so dangerous, ht be made the best preparation for Christian manhood; and he did not hesitate to apply to his scholars the principle which see of the childhood of the hu on the conscience of boys rules of action which he felt they were not yet able to bear, and froht in the motives Keenly as he felt the risk and fatal consequences of the failure of this trial, still it was his great, sometimes his only support to believe that ”the character is braced areater beauty and fir them Our work here would be absolutely unendurable if we did not bear in mind that we should look forward as well as backward--if we did not remember that the victory of fallen man lies not in innocence but in tried virtue” ”I hold fast,” he said, ”to the great truth, that 'blessed is he that overcos connected witha boy co the corruption of his character from the influence of the teht to have strengthened and improved it But in ood are benefited; it is the neutral and indecisive characters which are apt to be decided for evil by schools, as they would be in fact by any other tereater eagerness to catch at every ht be shortened or alleviated ”Can the change from childhood tothe faculties of body or mind?” was one of the chief questions on which his ment of some he was disposed to answer too readily in the affirmative It ith the elder boys, of course, that he chiefly acted on this principle, but with all above the very young ones he trusted to it more or less Firmly as he believed that _a_ time of trial was inevitable, he believed no less firht be passed at public schools sooner than under other circumstances; and, in proportion as he disliked the assumption of a false manliness in boys, was his desire to cultivate in theher, and to dwell on earnest principle andood and evil Hence his wish that as_for_ them; hence arose his practice, in which his own delicacy of feeling and uprightness of purpose powerfully assisted his, ofthem respect the that he appealed and trusted to their own co, for exa implicit confidence in a boy's assertion, and then, if a falsehood was discovered, punishi+ng it severely,--in the upper part of the school, when persisted in, with expulsion Even with the lower forher forms any attempt at further proof of an assertion was ih--_of course_ I believe your word;” and there grew up in consequence a general feeling that ”it was a shame to tell Arnold a lie--he always believes one”

Perhaps the liveliest representation of this general spirit, as distinguished from its exemplification in particular parts of the discipline and instruction, would be forreat school, where the boys used to meet when the whole school was assembled collectively, and not in its different forms or classes Then, whether on his usual entrance everyto prayers before the first lesson, or on the ht require his presence, he seemed to stand before them, not merely as the head-master, but as the representative of the school There he spoke to thereat institution, whose character and reputation they had to sustain as well as he He would dwell on the satisfaction he had in being head of a society, where noble and honorable feelings were encouraged, or on the disgrace which he felt in hearing of acts of disorder or violence, such as in the humbler ranks of life would render theain, on the trust which he placed in their honor as gentlemen, and the baseness of any instance in which it was abused ”Is this a Christian school?” he indignantly asked at the end of one of those addresses, in which he had spoken of an extensive display of bad feeling ast the boys; and then added,--”I cannot remain here if all this is to be carried on by constraint and force; if I an my office at once” And few scenes can be recorded more characteristic of him than on one of these occasions, when, in consequence of a disturbance, he had been obliged to send away several boys, and when in the eneral spirit of discontent which this excited, he stood in his place before the assembled school and said: ”It is _not_ necessary that this should be a school of three hundred, or one hundred, or of fifty boys; but it _is_ necessary that it should be a school of Christian gentlemen”

LXXIII ODE TO THE NORTH-EAST WIND

CHARLES KINGSLEY--1819-1875

Welcome, wild North-easter!

Shame it is to see Odes to every zephyr; Ne'er a verse to thee

Welcome, black North-easter!

O'er the German foam; O'er the Danish moorlands, Froaudy glare, Showers soft and stea Through the lazy day: Jovial wind of winter Turns us out to play!

Sweep the golden reed-beds; Crisp the lazy dyke; Hunger intopike

Fill the lake ild-fowl; Fill the marsh with snipe; While on dreary h the black fir-forest Thunder harsh and dry, Shattering down the snow-flakes Off the curdled sky

Hark! The brave North-easter!