? Is
he a man of large attainments? Does it show
refinement of thought and feeling? Does it display
literary art? Has it virile force? Does it show a
true sense of right? Is there a large, noble nature
back of it? Does it grow out of the author's personal
experience? Has it the force of conviction? How does
the author conceive of the world? What does he think
of God? How does he regard human life? Is he hopeful
or pessimistic? Is he a writer of prose, poetry, or
both? To what school of writing does he belong? What
is the mood or spirit,--humorous, buoyant, serious,
sad, ironical, angry, genial, urbane? What is its
purpose,--to instruct, please, persuade?

The love of dirt is among the earliest of passions, as it is
the latest. Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best
instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure. Fondness for
the ground comes back to a man after he has seen the round of
pleasure and business, eaten dirt, and sown wild-oats, drifted
about the world, and taken the wind of all its moods. The love
of digging in the ground (or of looking on while he pays
another to dig) is as sure to come back to him as he is sure,
at last, to go under the ground and stay there.--CHARLES
DUDLEY WARNER.

The end of learning is to repair the ruins of our first
parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that
knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we
may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which
being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the
highest perfection.
MILTON.

We are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the
eye of the butcher, who chooses out first one and then another
for his prey. So it is that in our good days we are all
unconscious of the evil Fate may have presently in store for
us--sickness, poverty, mutilation, loss of sight or
reason.--SCHOPENHAUER.

Alas! 'tis true I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view;
Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new;
Most times it is that I have looked on truth
Askance and strangely.--SHAKESPEARE.

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