Page:Sarah Sheppard - L. E. L.pdf/49

 At present our quotations must be few and brief; yet we trust they will be sufficient to prove the intrinsic excellence of the volumes from which they have been selected. The Pilgrim's Tale, in "The Troubadour," a record of life's experience, is too long for these pages; as also are many other passages we would fain quote. The following lines will read us a true lesson on the heartlessness and selfishness of the world:—

"We judge Of others but by outward show, and that Is falser than the actor's studied part. We dress our words and looks in borrowed robes; The mind is as the face, for who goes forth In public walks without a veil, at least? 'Tis this constraint makes half life's misery. 'Tis a false rule, we do too much regard Other's opinions, but neglect their feelings; Thrice happy if such order were reversed. Oh! why do we make sorrow for ourselves?" And not content with the great wretchedness Which is our native heritage,—those ills We have no mastery over-sickness, toil, Death, and the natural grief which comrades death; Are not all these enough, that we must add Mutual and moral torment, and inflict Ingenious tortures we must first contrive?"

The following lines contain a fine burst of moral indignation against one of the greatest evils with which the spirit of man can be cursed,—the love of money. The poem itself is in the "Drawing-room Scrap Book," for 1834, and seems to have been called forth by the picture of a lonely burying-ground in India:—

'Tis the worst curse on this our social world, Fortune's perpetual presence; wealth which now Is like life's paramount necessity: For this the household band is broken up, The hearth made desolate, and sundered hearts Left to forget or break. For this the earth