is wholly inebriated from God, for she glories in the harmony under which the mortal body exists. The souls of those who quit the body violently are the most pure. Since the soul perpetually runs and passes through all things in a certain space of time -which being performed, it is presently compelled to run back again through all things and unfold the same web of generation in the world-as often as the same causes return the same effects will in like manner be returned. In us the ethereal vestment of the soul perpetually revolves. Let the immortal depths of your soul lead you, but earnestly extend your eyes upward. Man, being an intelligible mortal, must bridle his soul that she may not incur terrestrial infelicity, but be saved. MORAL MAXIMS. The most ancient of all things is God, for he is uncreated; the most beautiful is the world, because it is the work of God; the greatest is space, for it contains all that has been created; the quickest is the mind, the strongest is necessity, the wisest is time, for it teaches to become so; the most constant is hope, which alone remains to man when he has lost everything; the best is virtue, without which there is nothing good. It is the decree of the most just God that men shall be judged according to the good or evil which they shall have done. Their actions will be weighed in the balance of equity. The good will dwell in light. Honor thy father and thy mother if thou wishest to live eternal life. It is forbidden to quit a post without the permission of the commander. Life is the post of man. Temperance is the strength of the mind. Man is dead in the intoxication of wine. Man is not in safety except under the buckler of wisdom. Excessive liberty and grinding servitude are equally dangerous and produce nearly the same effects. Hate not each other because you differ in opinion rather love each other; for it is impossible that in such a variety of sentiments there should not be some fixed point. on which all men ought to unite. To live well we must abstain from those things which we consider as reprehensible in others. We ought not to become answerable for others, as we can hardly be answerable for ourselves. That we may not betray ourselves, it is necessary to learn the art of being silent. He who knows not how to be silent knows not how to speak. Live with thy friends as if they were one day to become thy enemies. Before thou quittest thy house know what thou art going to do, and at thy return ex Such as thou art unto thy father, such amine what thou hast done. shall thy children be unto thee. Translation of J. P. CORY. SELECTIONS FROM "SACONTALA," AN INDIAN DRAMA. FROM THE ORIGINAL SANSCRIT OF CALIDASA. O GOD OF LOVE. MY Y heart can no more return to its former placid state than water can reascend the steep down which it has fallen. O god of Love, how can thy darts be so keen, since they are pointed with flowers? Yes, I discover the reason of their keenness: they are tipped with the flames which the wrath of Hara kindled, and which blaze at this moment like the Bárava fire under the waves. How else couldst thou, who wast consumed even to ashes, be still the inflamer of our souls? By thee and by the moon, though each of you seems worthy of confidence, we lovers are cruelly deceived. They who love as I do ascribe flowery shafts to thee and cool beams to the moon with equal impropriety, for the moon sheds fire on them with her dewy rays and thou pointest with sharp diamonds those arrows which seem to be barbed with blossoms. Yet this god, who bears a fish on his banners and who wounds me to the soul, will give me real delight if he destroy me with the aid of my beloved, whose eyes are large and beautiful as those of a roe. O powerful divinity, even when I thus adore thy attributes, hast thou no compassion? Thy fire, O Love, is fanned into a blaze by a hundred of my vain thoughts. Does it become thee to draw thy bow even on thy ear, that the shaft, aimed at my bosom, may inflict a deeper wound? THE TIME OF THE NIGHT. I am ordered by the venerable Canna, who is returned from the place of his pilgrimage, to observe the time of the night, and am, therefore, come forth to see how much remains of it. On one side the moon, who kindles the flowers of the Oshadhì, has nearly sunk in his western bed, and on the other the sun, seated behind his charioteer Arun, is beginning his course. The lustre of them both is conspicuous when they rise and when they set, and by their example should men be equally firm in prosperous and in adverse fortune. The moon has now disappeared, and the night-flower pleases no more; it leaves only a remembrance of its odor and languishes like a tender bride whose pain is intolerable in the absence of her beloved. The ruddy morn impurples the dewdrops on the branches of yonder Vadarí; the peacock, shaking off sleep, hastens from the cottages of hermits interwoven with holy grass; and yonder antelope, springing hastily from the place of sacrifice, which is marked with his hoofs, raises himself on high and stretches his graceful limbs. How is the moon fallen from the sky with diminished beams !—the moon, who had set his foot on the head of Suméru, king of mountains, and had climbed, scattering the rear of darkness, even to the central palace of Vishnu. Thus do the great men of this world ascend with extreme labor to the summit of ambition, but easily and quickly descend from it. Translation of SIR WILLIAM JONES. |