But it is a very dangerous doctrine when it becomes the creed of a stupid people, for it flatters their self-sufficiency, and distracts their attention from the difficult, subtle, frail, and wavering conditions of human power.

Frail in his genius, in his heart, too, frail, Born but to err, and erring to bewail; Shalt thou his faults with eye severe explore, And give to life one human weakness more? Still mark if vice or nature prompts the deed; Still mark the strong temptation and the need; On pressing want, on famine's powerful call, At least more lenient let thy justice fall.

Frail in his genius, in his heart, too, frail, Born but to err, and erring to bewail; Shalt thou his faults with eye severe explore, And give to life one human weakness more? Still mark if vice or nature prompts the deed; Still mark the strong temptation and the need; On pressing want, on famine's powerful call, At least more lenient let thy justice fall.

Lo! at his throne the silent nymph appears, Frail by her shape, but modest in her tears; And while she stands abashed, with conscious eye, Some favourite female of her judge glides by, Who views with scornful glance the strumpet's fate, And thanks the stars that made her keeper great; Near her the swain, about to bear for life One certain, evil, doubts 'twixt war and wife;

Lo! now the direful monster, whose skin clings To his strong bones, strides o'er the groaning rocks: He withers all in silence, and in his hand Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life.

Aunt Patience, though a frail-looking little white-haired lady, had, it seemed, a wonderful tenacity of life.

Yea, well I see what folly 'twere to think That largess dropped from thee like dews from heaven Could e'er be paid by work so frail as mine!

When that which is divine in us doth try To shape a face, both brain and hand unite To give, from a mere model frail and slight, Life to the stone by Art's free energy.

Howbeit they err who praise this gloomy birth, So frail and desolate and void of mirth That one poor firefly can her might appal.

Now hath my life across a stormy sea Like a frail bark reached that wide port where all Are bidden, ere the final reckoning fall Of good and evil for eternity.

Thou gavest me on earth this soul divine; And Thou within this body weak and frail Didst prison ithow sadly there to live!

Freed from a burden sore and grievous band, Dear Lord, and from this wearying world untied, Like a frail bark I turn me to Thy side, As from a fierce storm to a tranquil land.

"Other murderers stab but at our existence, a frail and perishing trifle at the best.

* "'Yet soon he heals: for spirits, that live throughout Vital in every part, not as frail man In entrails, head, or heart, liver or veins, Can in the liquid texture mortal wound Receive no more, than can the liquid air, All heart they live, all head, all eye.'

" Soon after this he had a return, of his complaint in the stomach, which caused him to exclaim We are indeed but dust and ashes; how quickly the slender thread may be cut, and reduce this frail tabernacle to that state of earthly composition from which it was formed.

Oh change and time are storms For lives so thin and frail as ours; For change the work of grace deforms With love that soils, and help that overpowers; And time is strong, and, like some chafing sea, It seems to fret the shores of Thine eternity.

I was always slight, and my serious illness in the early spring had made me look rather frail and languid.

" Mrs. Price cast her eyes on the river filled with floating ice and, shuddering, said: "The water is so dark and cold, and the boat is so frail.

He did not know that, however judiciously frail her conduct might be, she was a very dragon of virtue in defence of her honour.

Cease, then, frail mortal, to dispute against what thou oughtest to adore.

But how frail are all human resolutionsoverturned by the merest trifle!

At the bottom of it, I distinguished a great dark patch where the shoots of the previous spring were decaying sadly, then slender stalks were growing up, stretching out, bending into a multitude of elegant forms, and producing frail colonnades, churches, virgin forests.

Then illness and the shock caused by the tragic death of her brother, in 1840, placed her frail life in danger, and for six years she was confined to her own room.

Browning's famous line, "O lyric love, half angel and half bird," may well apply to her frail life and aerial spirit.

A woman, frail and vicious, was at the bottom; a woman that neither of those men would have married as a gracious gift, was the guilty cause of one murder, and when the law would take its course, two deaths would lie at her door.