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Obscurity: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

It is not in the storm nor in the strife We feel benumb'd, and wish to be no more, But in the after-silence on the shore, When all is lost, except a little life.— BYRON — Lines on Hearing that Lady Byron was Ill. L. 9.

Without oblivion, there is no remembrance memory man is possible. When both oblivion and are wise, when the general soul of man is Past. clear, melodious, true, there may come a modern Iliad as memorial of the— CARLYLE — Cromwell's Letters and Speeches. Introduction. Ch. I.

And o'er the past oblivion stretch her wing.— HOMER — Odyssey. Bk. XXIV. L. 557.

trans. Pope's What's past and what's to come is strew'd with husks And formless ruin of oblivion.— Shakespeare — Troilus and Cressida. Act IV. Sc. 5. L. 166.

But from your mind's chilled sky It needs must drop, and lie with stiffened wings Among your soul's forlornest things; A speck upon your memory, alack! A dead fly in a dusty window-crack.— FRANCIS THOMPSON — " Manus Animam Pinxit." St. 2.

Content thyself to be obscurely good.— S. ADDISON — Cato. Act IV. Sc. 4.

I give the fight up; let there be an end, me, . A privacy, an obscure nook for I want to be forgotten even by God— ROBERT BROWNING — Paracelsus. Pt. V.

As night the life-inclining stars best shows, souls disclose. So lives obscure the starriest souls disclose.— GEORGE CHAPMAN — Hymns and

74 Epigrams of Homer. The Translator's . Epilogue: L. Our wasted oil unprofitably burns, L. 357. Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns.— COWPER — Conversation.

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, desert air. And waste its sweetness on the desert air.— GRAY — Elegy in a Country Churchyard. St. 14.

Some write their wrongs in marble: he more just, Stoop'd down serene and wrote them in the dust, Trod under foot, the sport of every wind, blotted from Swept from the earth and blotted from his his mind. There, secret in the grave, he bade them lie, not 'scape And grieved they could not 'scape the the Almighty eye.— SAMUEL MADDEN — Boulter's Monument.

The palpable obscure.— MILTON — Paradise Lost. Bk. II. L. 406.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! happy The world forgetting, by the world forgot.— POPE — Eloisa to Abelard. L. 207.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die; Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.— POPE — Ode on Solitude.

Yet was he but a squire of low degree.— SPENSER — Faerie Queene. Bk. IV. Canto VII. St. 15.

The world knows nothing of its greatest men.— SIR HENRY TAYLOR — Philip Van Artevelde. Pt. I. Act I. Sc. 5.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love.— WORDSWORTH — She Dwelt Among the

Untrodden Ways. I hold every man a debtor to his profession; from the which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor themselves, by way of amends, to be a helpand ornament thereunto.— BACON — Maxims of the Law. Preface.

The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I were a grave-digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.— DOUGLAS JERROLD — Jerrold's Wit.

Ugly Trades. Acting-The Stage. Farce follow'd Comedy, and reach'd her prime, In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic time; Mad wag! who pardon'd none, nor spared the best, And turn'd some very serious things to jest. Nor church nor state escaped his public sneers, Arms nor the gown, priests, lawyers, volunteers; "Alas, poor Yorick!" now forever mute! Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote. We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes Ape the swoln dialogue of kings and queens, When "Chrononhotonthologos must die," And Arthur struts in mimic majesty.— BYRON — Hints from Horace. L. 329.

OCCUPATIONS-ACTING. 421 She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and oh! The difference to me!— WORDSWORTH — She Dwelt Among the

Untrodden Ways.

Bene qui latuit, bene vixit. He who has lived obscurely and quietly has lived well.— OVID — Tristium. III. 4. 25.

Eo magis præfulgebat quod non videbatur. He shone with the greater splendor, because he was not seen.— TACITUS — Annales. III. 76.