Stormed at with shot and shell, Into the mouth of Hell, Rode the six hundred. IV. Flashed all their sabers bare, Flashed as they turned in air, All the world wondered! Reeled from the saber-stroke, Shattered and sundered. Then they rode back; but not Not the six hundred. V. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volleyed and thundered: Left of six hundred. VI. When can their glory fade? A. TENNYSON. C LXXXIV.-HEARTY READING. URIOSITY is a passion very favorable to the love of study, and a passion very susceptible of increase by cultivation. Sound travels so many feet in a second; and light travels so many feet in a second. Nothing more probable: but you do not care how light and sound travel. Very likely but make yourself care; get up, shake yourself well, pretend to care, make believe to care, and very soon you will care, and care so much, that you will sit for hours thinking about light and sound, and be extremely angry with any one who interrupts you in your pursuits; and tolerate no other conversation but about light and sound; and catch yourself plaguing everybody to death who approaches you, with the discussion of these subjects. 2. I am sure that a man ought to read as he would grasp a nettle: do it lightly, and you get molested; grasp it with all your strength, and you feel none of its asperities. There is nothing so horrible as languid study; when you sit looking at the clock, wishing the time was over, or that somebody would call on you and put you out of your misery. The only way to read with any efficacy, is to read so heartily, that dinner-time comes two hours before you expected it. 3. To sit with your Livy before and hear the geese you, cackling that saved the Capitol; and to see with your own eyes the Carthaginian sutlers gathering up the rings of the Roman knights after the battle of Cannæ, and heaping them into bushels; and to be so intimately present at the actions you are reading of, that when anybody knocks at the door, it will take you two or three seconds to determine whether you are in your own study, or in the plains of Lombardy, looking at Hannibal's weather-beaten face, and admiring the splendor of his single eye; this is the only kind of study which is not tiresome; and almost the only kind which is not useless: this is the knowledge which gets into the system, and which a man carries about and uses like his limbs, without perceiving that it is extraneous, weighty, or inconvenient. SYDNEY SMITH. LXXXV. THE TENT-SCENE BETWEEN ASSIUS. That you have wronged me doth appear in this: CASS For taking bribes here of the Sardians; Wherein, my letters (praying on his side, Because I knew the man) were slighted off. Brutus. You wronged yourself, to write in such a case. Cas. At such a time as this, it is not meet That every nice offense should bear its comment. Bru. Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself Are much condemned to have an itching palm; To undeservers. Cas. I an itching palm? You know that you are Brutus that speak this, Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last. Bru. The name of Cassius honors this corruption, And chastisement doth therefore hide its head. Bru. Remember March, the ides of March remember! Cas. Brutus, bay not me: I'll not endure it. You forget yourself, To hedge me in: I am a soldier, I, Older in practice, abler than yourself To make conditions. Bru. Go to! you're not, Cassius. Cas. I am. Bru. I say you are not. Cas. Urge me no more: I shall forget myself: Have mind upon your health: tempt me no further. Cas. Is 't possible! Bru. Hear me, for I will speak. Must I give way and room to your rash choler? Shall I be frighted when a madman stares? Cas. Must I endure all this? Bru. All this? Ay, more. Fret till your proud heart break. Go, show your slaves how choleric you are, And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge? You shall digest the venom of your spleen, Cas. Is it come to this? Bru. You say you are a better soldier; Let it appear so; make your vaunting true, And it shall please me well. For mine own part, I shall be glad to learn of noble men. Cas. You wrong me every way; you wrong me, I said an elder soldier, not a better. Did I I say better? Bru. If you did, I care not. Brutus; Cus. When Cæsar lived, he durst not thus have moved me. Bru. Peace, peace! you durst not so have tempted him. Bru. For your life you durst not. Cas. Do not presume too much upon my love; may do that I shall be sorry for. Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for. There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats; For I am armed so strong in honesty, For certain sums of gold, which you denied me:— I had rather coin my heart, And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring Το you for gold to pay my legions; Which you denied me. Was that done like Cassius? When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, To lock such rascal counters from his friends, Cas. I denied you not. Cas. I did not: he was but a fool That brought my answer back.-Brutus hath rived my heart. A friend should bear a friend's infirmities; But Brutus makes mine greater than they are. Bru. I do not, till you practice them on me. You love me not. Bru. I do not like your faults. Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults. Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear As huge as high Olympus. Cas. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come! Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius: For Cassius is a-weary of the world— Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother; |