=Brains.=

The times have been
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end; but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools.
224
SHAKS.:  Macbeth, Act iii., Sc. 4.

=Bravery.=

’Tis more brave
To live, than to die.
225
OWEN MEREDITH:  Lucile, Pt. ii., Canto vi., St. 11.

None but the brave deserves the fair. 226 DRYDEN:  Alex.  Feast, St. 1.

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country’s wishes blest!
227
COLLINS:  Lines in 1764.

=Breach.=

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead! 228 SHAKS.:  Henry V., Act ii., Sc. 4.

=Bread.=

O God! that bread should be so dear,
   And flesh and blood so cheap!
229
HOOD:  The Song of the Shirt.

=Breast.=

The yielding marble of her snowy breast. 230 WALLER:  On a Lady passing through a Crowd of People.

A word in season spoken
   May calm the troubled breast.
231
CHARLES JEFFERYS:  A Word in Season.

=Breath.=

When the good man yields his breath
(For the good man never dies).
232
JAMES MONTGOMERY:  The Wanderer of Switzerland, Pt. v.

=Breeches.=

But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
   Are so queer!
233
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES:  The Last Leaf.

=Breezes.=

Breezes of the South! 
Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers,
And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high,
Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not—­ye have played
Among the palms of Mexico and vines
Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks
That from the fountains of Sonora glide
Into the calm Pacific—­have ye fanned
A nobler or a lovelier scene than this?
234
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT:  The Prairies.

=Brevity.=

Since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes—­
I will be brief.
235
SHAKS.:  Hamlet, Act ii., Sc. 2.

For brevity is very good,
When we are, or are not, understood.
236
BUTLER:  Hudibras, Pt. i., Canto i., Line 669.

=Bribes.=

What! shall one of us,
That struck the foremost man of all this world,
But for supporting robbers;—­shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes? 
And sell the mighty space of our large honors
For so much trash as may be grasped thus? 
I’d rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.
237
SHAKS.:  Jul.  Caesar, Act iv., Sc. 3.

=Bride.=

You are just a sweet bride in her bloom,
All sunshine, and snowy, and pure.
238
THOMAS B. ALDRICH:  An Untimely Thought.