th to
endure what is hard and painful. My father had the greatness that
belongs to integrity; he chose poverty and obscurity rather than
falsehood. And so, my Lillo, if you mean to act nobly and seek to know
the best things God has put within reach of men, you must learn to fix
your mind on that end, and not on what will happen to you because of it.
And remember, if you were to choose something lower, and make it the
rule of your life to seek your own pleasure and escape from what is
disagreeable, calamity might come just the same; and it would be
calamity falling on a base mind, which is the one form of sorrow that
has no balm in it, and that may well make a man say, 'It would have been
better for me if I had never been born.' I will tell you something,
Lillo."

Romola paused for a moment. She had taken Lillo's cheeks between her
hands, and his young eyes were meeting hers.

"There was a man to whom I was very near, so that I could see a great
deal of his life, who made almost everyone fond of him, for he was
young, and clever, and beautiful, and his manners to all were gentle and
kind. I believe, when I first knew him, he never thought of doing
anything cruel or base. But because he tried to slip away from
everything that was unpleasant, and cared for nothing else so much as
his own safety, he came at last to commit some of the basest deeds--such
as make men infamous. He denied his father, and left him to misery; he
betrayed every trust that was reposed in him, that he might keep himself
safe and get rich and prosperous. Yet calamity overtook him."

George Eliot: "Romola."

THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS

Last night among his fellows rough
He jested, quaffed, and swore:
A drunken private of the Buffs,
Who never looked before.
To-day, beneath the foeman's frown,
He stands in Elgin's place,
Ambassador from Britain's crown,
And type of all her race.

Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught,
Bewildered and alone,
A heart, with English instinct fraught,
He yet can call his own.
Ay! tear his body limb from limb;
Bring cord, or axe, or flame!--
He only knows that not through him
Shall England come to shame.

Far Kentish hopfields round him seemed
Like dreams to come and go;
Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleamed
One sheet of living snow:
The smoke above his father's door
In gray, soft eddyings