One Of The Pleasures Of Reading Old

Life Is Too Short For Chess.

Egypt! From Whose All Dateless Tombs Arose Forgotten Pharaohs From Their Long Repose, And Shook Within Their Pyramids To Hear A New Cambyses Thundering In Their Ear; While The Dark Shades Of Forty Ages Stood Like Startled Giants By Nile's Famous Flood.

A Bargain Is In Its Very Essence A Hostile Transaction Do Not All Men Try To Abate The Price Of All They Buy? I Contend That A Bargain Even Between Brethren Is A Declaration Of War.

...and These Vicissitudes Come Best In Youth; For When They Happen At A Riper Age, People Are Apt To Blame The Fates, Forsooth, And Wonder Providence Is Not More Sage. Adversity Is The First Path To Truth: He Who Hath Proved War, Storm, Or Woman's Rage, Whether His Winters Be Eighteen Or Eighty, Has Won Experience Which Is Deem'd So Weighty.

As Falls The Dew On Quenchless Sands, Blood Only Serves To Wash Ambition's Hands.