EXTRACTS FOR EXERCISE. Historic.-Natural Key, Plain Style. (p. 461.) 1. GENIUS AND LABOR.-N. Y. Ledger. ALEXANDER HAMILTON once said to an intimate friend"Men give me some credit for genius. All the genius that I have lies just in this. When I have a subject in hand I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. I explore it in all its bearings. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort which I make is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and of thought." Mr. Webster once replied to a gentleman, who pressed him to speak on a subject of great importance; "The subject interests me deeply, but I have not time. There, sir," pointing to a huge pile of letters on his table, "is a pile of unanswered letters, to which I must reply before the close of the session [which was then three days off]. I have not time to master the subject so as to do it justice." "" But, Mr. Webster, a few words from you would do much to awaken public attention to it."—"If there be such weight in my words as you represent, it is because I do not allow myself to speak on any subject until I have imbued my mind with it." Demosthenes was once urged to speak on a great and sudden emergency. "I am not prepared," said he, and obstinately refused. Hundreds have attempted the definition of genius. When Sir Isaac Newton was asked for it, he replied, "Patience and work." The answer was eminently characteristic, and whether correct or not, it is pregnant with meaning, and affords large food for thought. Sir Isaac would spend whole months in the examination of a single numerical relation, or the bearings of an angle of incidence, and if he was not then perfectly satisfied, other months were consumed in the same studies. Then, when he had grasped fact after fact in an iron hand, and on them built up his sublime theory of the physical universe, it is no wonder that, with a humility of intellect, which, alike with his power of discovery, was the wonder of his age, he attributed the massive laurels encircling his broad forehead, to "Patience." Emotional.-Beginning in the historic, this extract runs through the key of the emotions into the key of the passions. 2. MY MOTHER'S GRAVE.-W. Irving. I SOUGHT the village church. It is an old, low cdifice, of gray stone, on the brow of a small hill, looking over fertile fields towards where the proud towers of Warwick Castle lift themselves against the distant horizon. Under one A part of the churchyard is shaded by large trees. of them my mother lay buried. You have no doubt thought me a light, heartless being. I thought myself so; but there are moments of adversity, which let us into some feelings of our nature to which we might otherwise remain perpetual strangers. I sought my mother's grave; the weeds were already matted over it, and the tombstone was half hid among nettles. I cleared them away, and they stung my hands; but I was heedless of the pain, for my heart ached too severely. I sat down on the grave, and read over and over again the epitaph on the stone. It was simple, but it was true. I had written it myself. I had tried to write a poetical epitaph, but in vain; my feelings refused to utter themselves in rhyme. My heart had been gradually filling during my lonely wanderings; it was now charged to the brim, and overflowed. I sunk upon the grave, and buried my face in the tall grass, and wept like a child. Yes, I wept in manhood upon the grave, as I had in infancy upon the bosom of my mother. Alas! how little do we appreciate a mother's tenderness while she is living! How heedless are we in youth of all her anxieties and kindness! But when she is dead and gone; when the cares and coldness of the world come withering to our hearts; when we learn how hard it is to find true sympathy, how few love us for ourselves, how few will befriend us in our misfortunes then it is that we think of the mother we have lost. It is true I had always loved my mother, even in my most heedless days; but I felt how inconsiderate and ineffectual had been my love. My heart melted as I retraced the days of infancy, when I was led by a mother's hand, and rocked to sleep in a mother's arms, and was without care and sorrow. "O my mother!" exclaimed I, burying my face again in the grass of the grave, "O that I were once more by your side, sleeping never to wake again on the cares and troubles of this world!" I am not naturally of a morbid temperament, and the violence of my emotion gradually exhausted itself. It was a hearty, honest, natural discharge of grief, which had been slowly accumulating, and the discharge gave me wonderful relief. I rose from the grave as if I had been offering up a sacrifice, and I felt as it that sacrifice had been accepted. I sat down again on the grass, and plucked, one by one, the weeds from her grave; the tears trickled more slowly down my cheeks, and ceased to be bitter. It was a comfort to think tha she had died before sorrow and poverty came upon her child and before all his great expectations were blasted. I leaned my cheek upon my hand, and looked upon the land scape. Its quiet beauty soothed me. The whistle of a peasant from an adjoining field came cheerily to my ear. I seemed to respire hope and comfort with the free air, that whispered through the leaves, and played lightly with my hair, and dried the tears upon my cheek. A lark, rising from the field before me, and leaving, as it were, a stream of song behind him as he rose, lifted my fancy with him. He hovered in the air just above the place where the towers of Warwick Castle marked the horizon, and seemed as if fluttering with delight at his own melody. "Surely," thought I, "if there was such a thing as transmigration of souls, this might be taken for some poet let loose from earth, but still revelling in song, and carolling about fair fields and lordly towers." At this moment, the long-forgotten feeling of poetry rose within me. A thought sprung at once into my mind. "I will become an author!" said I. "I have hitherto indulged in poetry as a pleasure, and it has brought me nothing but pain; let me try what it will do when I cultivate it with devotion as a pursuit." The resolution thus suddenly roused within me heaved a load from my heart. I felt a confidence in it, from the very place where it was formed. It seemed as though my mother's spirit whispered it to me from the grave. "I will henceforth," said I, "endeavor to act as if she were witness of my actions; I will endeavor to acquit myself in such a manner, that, when I revisit her grave, there may at least be no compunctious bitterness in my tears." Passionate.-Intensified Grave Key. Neat style. 3. SCENE IN THE ROMAN SENATE.- Oroly. CICERO. Fathers of Rome! If man can be convinced Look on these letters! Here is a deep-laid plot CATILINE. [Haughtily rising.] Come, consecrated lictors, Fling down your sceptres; take the rod and axe, And make the murder as you make the law Cicero. [Interrupting.] Give up the record of his banishment. [The OFFICER gives it to the CONSUL in the chair.] Catiline. [Indignantly.] Banished from Rome! What's banished, but set free From daily contact of the things I loathe ? "Tried and convicted traitor!" Who says this? Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my head? chain! I held some slack allegiance till this hour, To leave you in your lazy dignities. But here I stand and scoff you; here, 1 fling Your Consul's merciful. For this, all thanks. He dares not touch a hair of Catiline! [The CONSUL reads.] "Lucius Sergius Catiline; by the decree of the Senate, you are declared an enemy and alien to the state, and banished from the territory of the Commonwealth." The Consul. Lictors, drive the traitor from the temple! Catiline. [Furious.] “Traitor!" I go, but I return. This -trial! Here I devote your Senate! I've had wrongs Or make the infant's sinews strong as steel. This day's the birth of sorrows! this hour's work Will breed proscriptions. Look to your hearths, my lords! [The SENATORS rise in tumult and cry out, Go, enemy and parricide, from Rome Cicero. Expel him, lictors! Clear the Senate House! [They surround him. Catiline. [Struggling through them.] I go, but not to leap the gulf alone. I go; but when I come, 't will be the burst Of ocean in the earthquake; rolling back In swift and mountainous ruin. Fare you well! You build my funeral-pile, but your best blood Shall quench its flame. Back, slaves! I will return ! Historic. Somewhat approaching the Gay Key. 4. TROUBLES. -By H. W. Beecher. WE should brave troubles, as the New England schoolboy braves winter. The school is a mile away over the hill, yet he lingers not by the fire, but with his books slung over his shoulders, and his cap tied closely under his chin, he sets forth to face the storm. And when he reaches the topmost ridge, where the powdered snow lies in drifts, and the north wind comes keen and biting, does he shrink and cower down beneath the fences, or run into the nearest house to warm himself? No; he buttons up his coat and rejoices to defy the blast, and tosses the snow wreathes with his foot, and so, erect and fearless, with strong heart and ruddy cheek, he goes on to his place at school. Now, when the fierce winds of adversity blow over you, and your life's |