Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.

Thomas Moore

Whatever may be thought of particular faiths and sects, a belief in a life beyond this world is the only thing that pierces through the walls of our prison-house and lets hope shine in upon a scene that would be otherwise bewildered and desolate. The proselytism of the atheist is, indeed, a dismal mission. That believers, who have each the same heaven in prospect, should invite us to join them on their respective way to it, is at least a benevolent officiousness; but that he who has no prospect or hope himself should seek for companionship in his road to annihilation, can only be explained by that tendency in human creatures to count upon each other in their despair as well as their hope.

The conversation of Burke must have been like the procession of a Roman triumph, exhibiting power and riches at every step,—occasionally, perhaps, mingling the low Fescennine jest with the lofty music of its march, but glittering all over with the spoils of the whole ransacked world.

High minds are as little affected by such unworthy returns for services, as the sun is by those fogs which the earth throws up between herself and his light.