cover Holland with troops, he said, "Break down the dykes,
give Holland back to ocean"; and Europe said, "Sublime!" When Alexander
saw the armies of France descend upon Russia, he said: "Burn Moscow,
starve back the invaders"; and Europe said, "Sublime!" This black saw
all Europe marshalled to crush him, and gave to his people the same
heroic example of defiance.
* * * * *
=_Thomas Starr King, 1824-1864._= (Manual, p. 532.)
From "Patriotism and other Papers."
=_174._= GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES.
If we go to Nature for our morals, we shall learn the necessity of
perfection in the smallest act. Infinite skill is not exhausted nor
concentrated in the structure of a firmament, in drawing the orbit of a
planet, in laying the strata of the earth, in rearing the mountain cone.
The care for the bursting flower is as wise as the forces displayed in
the rolling star; the smallest leaf that falls and dies unnoticed in the
forest is wrought with a beauty as exquisite as the skill displayed in
the sturdy oak. All the wisdom of Nature is compressed and revealed
in the sting of the bee; and the pride of human art is mocked by the
subtile mechanism and cunning structure of a fly's foot and wing.
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