Title: Life and Literature
Author: John Purver Richardson
Release date: October 31, 2009 [eBook #30373]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Lisa Reigel, and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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Transcriber's Notes: Some typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected. The corrections have been underlined in the text like this. Position your mouse over the line to see an explanation. A complete list follows the text.
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[1]
BY
[2]
[3]
Good sir, or madam, whosoever thou mayest be, to whom this volume shall come, cast it not aside, but read it. Its quaint, curious, and helpful selections have been gathered through many years of careful research on both sides of the Atlantic. They will make thee wiser and better, and will conduce to the growth of thy mind, and the health of thy body. Let this book be to thee a magazine of literary food, of which thou shalt partake, and which thou shalt assimilate and digest to the constant increase of thy well being.
The gathering of this bouquet of literary gems has been a work of pleasure, but the compiler shall say nothing of himself for, "the least that one can say of himself is still too much."
[4]
[5]
DEDICATED
AFFECTIONATELY
TO
MY CHILDREN
JOHN PURVER AND ANNIE SUE,
AND
[6]
| PAGE | |
| PREFACE | 3 |
| Letter A | 7 |
| Letter B | 27 |
| Letter C | 46 |
| Letter D | 99 |
| Letter E | 112 |
| Letter F | 119 |
| Letter G | 148 |
| Letter H | 168 |
| Letter I | 199 |
| Letter J | 210 |
| Letter K | 213 |
| Letter L | 220 |
| Letter M | 248 |
| Letter N | 295 |
| Letter O | 300 |
| Letter P | 306 |
| Letter Q | 332 |
| Letter R | 333 |
| Letter S | 344 |
| Letter T | 379 |
| Letter U | 399 |
| Letter V | 400 |
| Letter W | 402 |
| Letter Y | 433 |
| Letter Z | 435 |
| INDEX | i |
[7]
Abilities—No man's abilities are so remarkably shining, as not to stand in need of a proper opportunity, a patron, and even the praises of a friend, to recommend them to the notice of the world.
Abuse is the weapon of the vulgar.
It is told of Admiral Collingwood that on his travels he carried a bag of acorns, and dropped one wherever there seemed a likely spot for an oak to grow, that England might never lack ships.
Acquaintances—It is easy to make acquaintances, but sometimes difficult to shake them off, however irksome and unprofitable they are found, after we have once committed ourselves to them.
[8]
Acquaintance softens prejudices.
Many persons I once thought great, dwindle into very small dimensions, on a short acquaintance.
All may do what has by Man been done.
An act, by which we make one friend, and one enemy, is a losing game; because revenge is a much stronger principle than gratitude.
All the world practices the art of acting.
Do what you can, when you cannot do what you would.
A good action performed in this world receives its recompense in the other, just as water poured at the root of a tree appears again above in fruit and flower.
[9]
If the world were to see our real motives, we should be ashamed of some of our best actions.
Our actions are our own; their consequences belong to Heaven.
What thou intendest to do, speak not of, before thou doest it.
There is as much eloquence in the tone of voice, in the eyes, and in the air of a speaker, as in his choice of words.
Actions—What I must do, is all that concerns me, and not what people think.
An actor, when asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury why actors were more successful in impressing their auditors than preachers, replied, "Actors speak of things imaginary as if they were real, while you preachers too often speak of things real as if they were imaginary."
[10]
Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.
Adversity does not take from us our true friends; it only disperses those who pretended to be so.
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.
He who never was acquainted with adversity, has seen the world but on one side, and is ignorant of half the scenes of nature.
In prosperity the proud man knows nobody; in adversity nobody knows him.
The finest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity.
It is a disingenuous thing to ask for advice, when you mean assistance; and it will be a just punishment if you get that which you pretended to want.
[11]
Before giving advice we must have secured its acceptance, or rather, have made it desired.
There is nothing more difficult than the art of making advice agreeable.
Every man, however wise, sometimes requires the advice of a friend in the affairs of life.
He who gives advice to a self-conceited man, stands himself in need of counsel.
Pouring water on a duck's back. (Fruitless counsel or advice).
Most people, when they come to you for advice, come to have their own opinions strengthened, not corrected.
The Cure of Affectation—Is to follow nature. If every one would do this, affectation would be almost unknown.
Affectation of any kind, is lighting up a candle to our defects.
Affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to appear rich.
[13]
Affliction—For every sort of suffering there is sleep provided by a gracious Providence, save that of sin.
Affronts—Young men soon give, and soon forget affronts; old age is slow in both.
Old age is a joy, when youth has been well spent.
Age is a matter of feeling, not of years.
Men are as old as they feel, and women as they look.
Old age and faded flowers, no remedies can revive.
[15]
Goethe said: "It is only necessary to grow old to become more indulgent. I see no fault committed that I have not committed myself."
Elderly people look back upon the friends, relatives and acquaintances of thirty, forty or fifty years ago, and say, "There are no friends now-a-days like the old friends of long ago." It is natural for them to think this way, particularly when most of the old friends are dead; but the fact is, that there are friends as true now as ever.
Do you seek Alcides' equal? There is none but himself.
"When I look at my congregation," said a London preacher, "I say, 'Where are the poor?' When I count the offertory in the vestry I say, 'Where are the rich?'"
[16]
At table, discussing with some friends the subject of raffles, Bishop Wescott said that he objected to them as part of the gambling question, and also on wider grounds. He objected to all the "side means" which were sometimes combined with sales of work for "getting money out of people." Such money, he thought, as distinct from that which is given, was not wanted nor acceptable.
The following Hawaiian alphabet, consisting of twelve letters, was in use, and had been for something like a hundred years, when the compiler visited the Islands in 1886. It was given to the Hawaiians by the missionaries, viz.:
a, e, i, o, u, h, k, l, m, n, p, w.
A slave has but one master; the ambitious man has as many masters as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortune.
How easy it is to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success!
[17]
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.
Amusements—The mind ought sometimes to be amused, that it may the better return to thought, and to itself.
A few years ago a well-known Bostonian, the descendant of an honored family, began the ancestral quest with expert assistance. All went merry as a marriage bell for a time, when suddenly he unearthed an unsavory scandal that concerned one of his progenitors. Feeling a responsibility for the misdeeds of his great-grandfather, he ordered all investigation stopped, and the disagreeable data destroyed; but he had delved too far. His genealogist had told a friend, and the secret was out beyond recall.
He who constantly boasts of his ancestors, confesses that he has no virtue of his own.
Never mind who was your grandfather. What are you?
Have nothing to do with men in a passion, for they are not like iron, to be wrought on when they are hot.
Anger generally begins with folly, and ends with repentance.
He who subdues his anger, conquers his greatest enemy.
A fit of anger is as fatal to dignity as a dose of arsenic to life.
[19]
It is much better to reprove, than to be angry secretly.
Catch not too soon at an offence, nor give too easy way to anger; the one shows a weak judgment, the other a perverse nature.
He who can suppress a moment's anger, may prevent a day of sorrows.
Nothing can be more unjust, or ridiculous, than to be angry with others because they are not of our opinion.
When a man grows angry, his reason flies out.
Animals are such agreeable friends—they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
The daughter of an army officer, whose life had been spent in the far west, told the following anecdote: "Indians, when they accept Christianity, very often hold its truths with peculiar simplicity.
"There was near our fort an old chief called Tassorah. One day, when I was an impulsive girl, I was in a rage at my pony, and dismounting, beat him severely. The old man stood by, silent for a moment.
[20] "'What words have I heard from Jesus?' he said, sternly. 'If you love not your brother whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you have not seen?'
"'This horse is not my brother!' I said scornfully.
"The old man laid his hand on the brute's head and turned it toward me. The eyes were full of terror.
"'Is not God his creator? Must He not care for him?' he said. 'Not a sparrow falls to the ground without His notice.'
"I never forgot the lesson. It flashed on me then for the first time that the dog that ran beside me, the birds, the very worms were His, and I, too, was one of His great family."
Kindness to animals is no unworthy exercise of benevolence. We hold that the life of brutes perishes with their breath, and that they are never to be clothed again with consciousness. The inevitable shortness then of their existence should plead for them touchingly. The insects on the surface of the water, poor ephemeral things, who would needlessly abridge their dancing pleasure of to-day? Such feelings we should have towards the whole animate creation.
(The first half of each stanza should be subdued; the last half confident and full of assurance.)
Anxiety is the poison of human life.
Beware, as long as you live, of judging men by their outward appearance.
Appearance—Thou art after all what thou art. Deck thyself in a wig with a thousand locks; ensconce thy legs in buskins an ell high; thou still remainest just what thou art.
A man's reception depends very much upon his coat.
A gentleman and his wife—Pierrepont by name—passengers on one of the great Atlantic steamers, not knowing any of the other passengers, kept very much to themselves; he usually reading aloud to his wife, and she occupied in some needle work; for this, they were commented upon, [24]and not very favorably, and generally were called the "stupid couple." Little did these same passengers know the true character of that gentleman and lady. An incident that occurred on board soon proved the bravery and heroism of the one, and the gentleness and self-sacrifice of the other. The captain had with him his only son, a boy of some eight summers, a great favorite of all on board from fore to aft. The little fellow, climbing on the side of the ship, somehow fell overboard. The lady happening to be on the other side of the deck, saw the child climb up, and immediately missed him. She quickly laid her hand on her husband's shoulder, looking in his eyes, and cried out, "Oh, save the boy, he has fallen overboard." In one moment he was on his feet, kicked off his canvas shoes, threw his hat on the deck, and turning his face toward the bridge, where he knew some of the ship's officers were always stationed, he called out in a voice which rang like a trumpet call over the ship, "Man overboard." Then, with a quick run and leap, he cleared the rail, and the broken twisting water of the ship's track had closed over him. He was on the surface again in a moment, and taking a glance back at the ship to know his position, stretched out into a long steady stroke in the direction where he knew the child was.
Instantly the captain's hand was on the engine-room telegraph, and down into the depths of the ship went the signals. First to "stop," and the tremor all over the ship ceased. The bell rang again, and the index moved to "astern-slow;" then in a minute or two, to, "half;" then he called out to the second officer—"Man overboard! Stand by to lower away the gig," which was quickly obeyed, and four hands, a coxswain, and a man for the boat's bow were instantly off and rowed fiercely.
[25] In a little while Mrs. Pierrepont—who was on the bridge with Captain Hood—said, "Do you see them; are they together?"
"Yes," replied the captain, "I believe they are." But his voice was now broken, and he took hold of Mrs. Pierrepont's hand. "I have watched my child from here with the glass, till at last he floated so low that I could scarcely see him, and just as he seemed sinking your husband dashed across the spot where he was, and I saw by a wave of his hand towards the ship that he caught him. He is now waiting for the boat."
It was getting dark when they returned. The child, who was shivering, was immediately carried away to have a warm bath, and a little later was in the saloon with dry clothes on, as merry as if nothing had happened.
When Pierrepont stepped on the deck, a rush was made at him, and both hands were shaken till he thought his arms would be pulled off.
The captain said all he had to say in a very few words, and with a hand-grasp which said more than words.
A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honor, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it.
To love applause is praiseworthy; to seek it is weakness.
Eat an apple on going to bed, and you will very soon send the Doctor begging his bread.
[26]
Dr. Johnson to Boswell—"If general approbation will add anything to your enjoyment, I can tell you that I have heard you mentioned, as a man whom everybody likes. I think life has little more to give."
If you arbitrate a dispute between two of your friends, you are sure to make an enemy; if you arbitrate between two of your enemies, you are sure to make a friend.
Never contend with one that is foolish, proud, positive, testy; or with a superior, or a clown, in matter of argument.
Those who are constrained to solicit for assistance are really to be pitied; those who receive it without, are to be envied; but those who bestow it unasked, are to be admired.
Associates—A man should live with his superiors as he does with his fire; not too near, lest he burn; nor too far off, lest he freeze.
If you always live with those who are lame, you will yourself learn to limp.
[27]
Never forget that if you are not interesting your audience, you are fatiguing it.
There is the beauty of infancy, the beauty of youth, the beauty of maturity, and, believe me, ladies and gentlemen, the beauty of age.
Beauty with selfishness, is a flower without perfume.
What is beauty?
[28]
Beauty without kindness dies unenjoyed and undelighting.
Generally men are ready to believe what they desire.
The kindest benefactors have no recollection of the good they do, and are surprised when men thank them for it.
A beneficent person is like a fountain watering the earth, and spreading fertility; it is, therefore, more delightful and more honorable to give than receive.
There is no benefit so small, that a good man will not magnify it.
[29]
To receive a benefit is to sell your liberty.
He who receives a benefit should never forget it; he who bestows one should never remember it.
To act always from pure benevolence is not possible for finite beings. Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive.
Bereavement makes the heart tender and sympathetic.
If you wish to become acquainted with your betrothed, travel with him for a few days—especially if he is accompanied with his own folks—and take your mother along.
The following lines of Sir Walter Scott are said to have been copied in his Bible:
Remember, that in prayer, you are speaking to God; that in reading the Bible, God is speaking to you.
The learned prince of Grenada, heir to the Spanish throne, imprisoned by order of the Crown for fear he would aspire to the throne, was kept in solitary confinement in the old prison at the Palace of Skulls, Madrid. After thirty-three years in this living tomb, death came to his release, and the following remarkable researches, taken from the Bible, and marked with an old nail on the rough walls of his cell, told how the brain sought employment through the weary years.
The 35th verse, 11th chapter of John, is the shortest.
The 9th verse of the 8th chapter of Esther is the longest.
The 8th verse of the 97th Psalm is the middle verse of the Bible.
Each verse in Psalm 136 ends alike.
The 37th chapter of Isaiah and 19th chapter of 2d Kings are alike.
The word "girl" occurs but once in the Bible, and that in Joel, 3d chapter and 3d verse.
The word "Lord" is found 1853 times, the word "Jehovah" 6855 times, the word "reverend" but once, and that in Psalms 111th chapter and 9th verse.
[31] The four most inspiring promises are in John, 14th chapter, 2d verse, 6th chapter and 37th verse; Matthew, 11th chapter and 28th verse, and in Psalms, 37th chapter and 4th verse.
The finest chapter is in Acts, 26th.
Who, coming to this sacred book, with a sincere desire to know God's will for the direction of his life, will say that he can not find it? Who, desiring to be instructed in the way of salvation "through faith which is in Christ Jesus," will consult its pages, and say it is not made plain to him? Who, coming to it for equipment of his spiritual life, will say that there are still needs of that life which are left unprovided for? Who, seeking direction in the way of the life everlasting, can doubt that, if he faithfully obeys its teaching, he will reach that goal? The Scripture fulfils the ends for which it was given; no higher proof of its inspiration can be demanded. * * * * * What the closing verse of the 20th chapter of John's Gospel says of that book: "But these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye may have life through His name," may with equal truth be applied to the Bible as a whole.
A Little Bird Told Me—The origin of this phrase is doubtless to be found in Ecclesiastes, x, 20:—For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.
[32]
Old birds are hard to pluck.
A man ashamed of his humble birth is never alone, because all good people are ashamed of him for being ashamed.
Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others, can not keep it from themselves.
Boasters—For boasters the world has no use; but it is always on the lookout for men who do things. Solomon said: "Let another man praise thee, and not thine own lips."
[33]
Sir Walter Scott, in lending a book one day to a friend, cautioned him to be punctual in returning it. "This is really necessary," said the poet in apology; "for though many of my friends are bad arithmeticians, I observe almost all of them to be good book-keepers."
We should make the same use of a book that the bee does of a flower; she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it.
Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as the latter.
The feeling that books are real friends is constantly present to all who love reading. "I have friends," said Petrarch, "whose society is extremely agreeable to me, they are of all ages, and of every country. They have distinguished themselves both in the cabinet and in the field, and obtained high honors for their knowledge of the sciences. It is easy to gain access to them, for they are always at my service, and I admit them to my company, and dismiss them from it, whenever I please. They are never troublesome, but immediately answer every question I ask them. Some relate to me the events of past ages, while others reveal to me the secrets of Nature. Some teach me how to live, and others how to die. Some, by their vivacity, drive away my cares and exhilarate my spirits; while others give fortitude to my mind, and teach me the important lesson how to deport myself, and to depend wholly on myself. They open to me, in short, the various avenues of all the arts and sciences and upon their information I may safely rely in all emergencies. In return for all their services, they only ask me to accommodate them with a convenient chamber in some corner of my humble habitation where they may repose in peace; for these friends are more delighted by the tranquility of retirement than with the tumults of society."
[36]
Books introduce us into the best society; they bring us into the presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what they said and did; we see them as if they were really alive; we are participators in their thoughts; we sympathize with them, enjoy with them, grieve with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if we were in a measure actors with them in the scenes which they describe.
Those who have collected books, and whose good nature has prompted them to accommodate their friends with them, will feel the sting of the answer made by a man of wit to one who lamented the difficulty which he found in persuading his friends to return the volumes that he had lent them:
"Sir," said he, "your acquaintances find, I suppose, that it is much more easy to retain the books themselves, than what is contained in them."
The following gives a pathetic description of a studious boy lingering at a bookstall:
Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all. A man will often look at them, and be tempted to go on, when he would have been frightened at books of a larger size and of a more erudite appearance.
How foolish is the man who sets up a number of costly volumes, like superfluous furniture, for mere ornament, and is far more careful to keep them from contracting a single spot of ink, than to use them, as the means of instructing his ignorance, and correcting his faults! Better a man without books, than books without a man.
There are two bores in society—the man who knows too much, and the man who knows too little.
A boy of 17, 18 or 19 has reached an age when he should win his own way, and seek his own sustenance, physical and mental.
[38]
"My boy," said a father to his son, "treat everybody with politeness, even those who are rude to you, for remember that you show courtesy to others, not because they are gentlemen, but because you are one."
It is reasonably safe to assume from a story in the New York Tribune that the late Henry Harland, the novelist, was seldom kept after school in his boyhood.
Among Harland's early teachers was a charming young lady, who called him up in class one morning and said to him:
"Henry, name some of the chief beauties of education."
"Schoolmistresses," the boy answered, smiling into his teacher's pretty eyes.
John Ruskin, in one of his lectures, said: "There is just this difference between the making of a girl's character and a boy's: You may chisel a boy into shape as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze; but you can not hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does—she will wither without sun; she will decay in her sheath as a narcissus will if you do not give her air enough; she must take her own fair form and way if she take any, and in mind as in body, must have always—
You bring up your girls as if they were meant for sideboard ornaments, and then complain of their frivolity. [39]Give them the same advantages that you give their brothers; teach them, that courage and truth are the pillars of their being.
Again: "The man's work for his own home, is to secure its maintenance, progress, and defence; the woman's to secure its order, comfort, and loveliness.
"What the man is at his own gate, defending it if need be, against insult and spoil, that also, not in a less, but in a more devoted measure, he is to be at the gate of his country, leaving his home, if need be, even to the spoiler, to do his more incumbent work there.
"And in like manner what the woman is to be within her gates, as the centre of order, the balm of distress, and the mirror of beauty, that she is also to be without her gates, where order is more difficult, distress more imminent, loveliness more rare."
You can lead a boy to college, but you can't make him think.
The boy who does not respect parental authority, will very soon be apt to repudiate all law, both civil and ecclesiastical, human and Divine.
Emerson said: "Give a boy address and accomplishments, and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes wherever he goes; he has not the trouble of earning or owning them; they solicit him to enter and possess."
A great man being asked what boys should learn, he replied, "That which they will use when men."
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
Eaten bread is soon forgotten.
Birth is much, but breeding is more.
Good breeding consists in having no particular mark of any profession, but a general elegance of manners.
[42]
Good breeding is the result of much good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial.
Climate—The climate of Great Britain, as that of no other country in a like latitude, derives its peculiarity from its situation and from the prevailing winds, which are from the southwest, except in the months of April and May. The thermometer for six months in the year averages near 60 degrees, and seldom, if ever, drops below 36 degrees during the remaining six months, thus affording, according to all authorities, one of the healthiest climates in the world.
The Nobility of Great Britain—The British nobility is the most enlightened, the best educated, the wisest, and bravest in Europe.
A brother's sufferings claim a brother's pity.
When thy brother has lost all that he ever had, and lies languishing, and even gasping under the utmost extremities of poverty and distress, dost thou think to lick him whole again only with thy tongue?
A Saying of Napoleon—Once at St. Helena, when walking with a lady, some servants came along carrying a load. The lady, in an angry tone, ordered them out of the way, [43]on which Napoleon interposed, saying, "Respect the burden, madam." Even the drudgery of the humblest laborer contributes towards the general well-being of society; and it was a wise saying of a Chinese Emperor that, "If there was a man who did not work, or a woman that was idle, somebody must suffer cold or hunger in the Empire."
No one knows the weight of another's burden.
The more we help others to bear their burdens, the lighter our own will be.
Burns has been one of the world awakeners. His voice rang out of the stillness, like the clear sweet notes of a bugle horn, and his songs were sung with a nerve and strength of nature that stirred to its depths the popular heart.
Describing Robert Burns' conversational gifts, Mr. Carlyle wrote: "They were the theme of all that ever heard him. All kinds of gifts, from the gracefullest allusions of courtesy to the highest fire of passionate speech, loud floods of mirth, soft wailings of affection, laconic emphasis, clear piercing insight, all were in him."
He awoke the poor and the despised to the dignity of man as man, irrespective of the accidents of poverty or wealth.
[44] Thus helping to deliver men from the debasing worship of sordid gold, and of such rank as kings can confer on even the most worthless.
He opened the eyes of the Scottish people, at home and abroad, to the glory of their nation's history, and glowing with the hope of a day—
He also opened men's eyes to the hatefulness of all shams and hypocrisies; of meanness, selfishness and pride; of all narrowness and greed and cruelty thus—
And again: He opened men's eyes to the cruelty and injustice of harsh judgment, seen oftenest perhaps in people judging, or misjudging others, who have yielded to temptations, or sunk under debasing influences, to which they themselves have never been exposed. Where has Christian charity and kindly consideration for others been more nobly taught than in these lines:
[45] He opened many eyes when he wrote the following:
We all, according as our business prospers or fails, are elated or cast down.
I'll give money to any well deserving friend, but in the matter of business, I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.
Sentiment is not now recognized in business affairs.
Keep to Your Calling—Bishop Grostest, of Lincoln, told his brother, who asked him to make him a great man: "Brother," said he, "if your plough is broken, I'll pay the mending of it; or if an ox is dead, I'll pay for another; but a ploughman I found you, and a ploughman I'll leave you."
[46]
The would-be buyer, alas! so often depreciates.
The road to "bye and bye" leads to the town of never.
Among the ancient warriors it was a custom, when any one did a meritorious action, to say: "That will be a feather in his cap."
[47]
Whom the cap fits, let him wear it.
Capacity without education is deplorable.
As to cards and dice, I think the safest and best way is never to learn to play them, and so be incapacitated for those dangerous temptations and encroaching wasters of time.
To carry care to bed is to sleep with a pack on your back.
Put off thy cares with thy clothes; so shall thy rest strengthen thy labour; and so shall thy labour sweeten thy rest.
To win a cat, and lose a cow. (Consequences of litigation).
Deliberate well on what you can do but once.
A life of caution is overpaid by the avoidance of one serious misfortune.
[48]
Say not always what you know, but always know what you say.
Never sign a paper you have not read, nor drink water you have not examined.
No two persons are ever more confidential and cordial than when they are censuring a third.
There are ceremonious bows that repel one like a cudgel.
Excess of ceremony shows want of breeding—that civility is best which excludes all superfluous formality.
The only sure things are those that have already happened.
Dr. Chalmers of Scotland, arrived in London, on the 13th of May, 1817, and on the following day preached in Surrey Chapel, the anniversary sermon for the London Missionary Society. Although the service did not commence till eleven o'clock, at seven in the morning the chapel was crowded to excess, and many thousands went off for want of room. He rose and gave out his text from 1 Cor. xiv, 22-25. He had not proceeded many minutes till his voice gradually expanded in strength and compass, reaching every part of the house and commanding universal [49]attention. His sermon occupied about an hour and a half in the delivery. A gentleman wrote to a friend: "I have just heard and witnessed the most astonishing display of human talent that perhaps ever commanded hearing; all my expectations were overwhelmed in the triumph of it."
At an afternoon service he preached in the Scotch Church, in Swallow Street. On approaching the church, Dr. Chalmers and a friend found so dense a mass within, and before the building, as to give no hope of effecting an entrance by the mere force of ordinary pressure. Lifting his cane and gently tapping the heads of those who were in advance, Dr. Chalmers' friend exclaimed, "Make way there, make way please, for Dr. Chalmers." The sturdy Londoners refused to move, believing it was a ruse. Forced to retire, Dr. Chalmers retreated from the outskirts of the crowd, crossed the street, stood for a few moments gazing on the growing tumult, and had almost resolved altogether to withdraw, as access by any of the ordinary entrances was impossible. At last a plank was projected from one of the windows very near the pulpit, till it rested on an iron palisade, and the Doctor and others gained entrance. The impression produced by the service which followed, when all had at last settled down into stillness, was deeper than that made by any of those which preceded it.
What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of Heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!
[50]
Times change, and we change with them.
When you seek to change your condition, be sure that you can better it.
In a village churchyard in England, there is the following epitaph. It is there applied to a husband; but, by altering a single word, it can be made to apply to brother, sister, or comrade; and the one who fulfils all that is implied in the praise, is surely a most admirable character:
The sun has some spots on his surface, and the best and brightest characters are not without their faults and frailties.
The crown jewel of character is sincerity.
An appearance of delicacy is inseparable from sweetness and gentleness of character.
[51]
As daylight can be seen through very small holes, so little things will illustrate a person's character.
Alexander Simpson, the elder brother of Sir James Simpson, watched over the boyhood of the latter with parental care. When the social usages of the town and the prevalent free mode of living presented strong temptations to the boy, Alexander would put his arm round his neck and tenderly warn him: "Others may do this, but it would break a' our hearts and blast a' your prospects were ye to do it." After one such warning, "Jamie was greatly troubled, and cried nearly a' the nicht (night) like to break his heart." He obeyed the warning, and became a celebrated physician in Edinburgh.
[52]
Small kindnesses, small courtesies, small considerations, habitually practiced in our social intercourse, give a greater charm to the character than the display of great talents and accomplishments.
Character—After I have named the man, I need say no more.
Oaths are not the cause why a man is believed, but the character of a man is the cause why the oath is believed.
There is no man suddenly either excellently good, or extremely evil.
He who aspires to public position, offers his character for a football.
No character is more glorious, none deserving of universal admiration and respect, than that of helping those who are in no condition of helping themselves.
Prosperity tries the human heart with the deepest probe, and brings forth the hidden character.
[53]
The history of a man is his character.
To be thoroughly good natured, and yet avoid being imposed upon, shows great strength of character.
The charitable give out at the door, and God puts in at the window.
When thy brother has lost all that he ever had, and lies languishing, and even gasping under the utmost extremities of poverty and distress, dost thou think to lick him whole again only with thy tongue?
[54]
Be not frightened at the hard words "imposition," "imposture;" give and ask no questions. "Cast thy bread upon the waters." Some have, unawares, entertained angels.
As charity covers a multitude of sins before God, so does politeness before men.
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Where there is plenty, charity is a duty, not a courtesy.
We step up, when we stoop down, to help the needy.
Did you ever see the horses taken to water? They rush into some beautiful stream, and drink of it to their heart's content; after which they turn their backs upon it, or stamp in it with their feet, until the water is polluted. This is the price they pay for their refreshing draught. But what, then does the noble river? It immediately floats away the mud, and continues after, as it was before, full and free of access for the same or other thirsty creatures. And so must you also do. If there be a fountain of genuine charity in your heart, it will constantly, and spontaneously overflow, whether those who drink of it are thankful or not. This life is the season for sowing and scattering; we shall reap hereafter.
[55]
Give freely to him that deserveth well, and asketh nothing.
[56]
It is charity not to excite a hope, when it must end in disappointment.
When you see a man in distress, acknowledge him at once your fellow man. Recollect that he is formed of the same materials, with the same feelings as yourself, and then relieve him as you yourself would wish to be relieved.
Leviticus, xxv, 35.—"And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him; yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee."
Mr. H——, an ingenious artist, being driven out of all employment, and reduced to great distress, had no resource to which to apply except that of an elder brother, who was in good circumstances. To him, therefore, he applied, and begged some little hovel to live in, and some small provision for his support. The brother melted into tears, and said, "You, my dear brother! You live in a hovel! You are a man; you are an honor to the family. I am nothing. You shall take this house and the estate, and I will be your guest, if you please." The brothers lived together without its being distinguishable who was proprietor of the estate, till the death of the elder put the artist in possession of it.
[59]
John Paul, of Siena, was always very liberal to the poor. On his deathbed he exclaimed, "What I have kept, that have I lost, and what I have given away, that I have yet, what I have refused I now regret."
Another is reported to have said: "I have lost everything except what I have given away."
When God made the earth, it shook to and fro till He put mountains on it to keep it firm. Then the angels asked, "O God, is there anything in Thy creation stronger than these mountains?" And God replied, "Iron is stronger than the mountains, for it breaks them." "And is there anything in Thy creation stronger than iron?" "Yes, fire is stronger than iron, for it melts it." "Is there anything stronger than fire?" "Yes, water, for it quenches fire." "Is there anything stronger than water?" "Yes, wind, for it puts water in motion." "O, our Sustainer, is there anything in Thy creation stronger than wind?" "Yes, a good man giving alms; if he gives it with his right hand, and conceals it from his left, he overcomes all things." Every good act is charity; your smiling in your brother's face, your putting a wanderer in the right road, your giving water to the thirsty is charity; exhortation to another to do right is charity. A man's true wealth hereafter is the good he has done in this world to his fellowmen. When he dies, people will ask: "What property has he left behind him?" But the angels will ask: "What good deeds has he sent before him?"
Charity—It is another's fault if he be ungrateful; but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige many that are not so.
[60]
He gives double who gives unasked.
He that cheats me aince (once) shame fa him; but he that cheats me twice shame fa me.
You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. Why not make earnest effort to confer that pleasure on others?
Cheerfulness smoothes the road of life.
Cheerfulness is full of significance: it suggests good health, a clear conscience, and a soul at peace with all human nature.
Chide a friend in private, and praise him in public.
[61]
A writer once told how a little child preached a sermon to him.
"Is your father at home?" I asked a small child at our village doctor's doorstep.
"No," she said, "he's away."
"Where do you think I could find him?"
"Well," she said, with a considering air, "you've got to look for some place where people are sick or hurt, or something like that. I don't know where he is, but he's helping somewhere."
How happy are thy days! How sweet thy repose! How calm thy rest! Thou slumberest upon the earth more soundly than many a miser and worldling upon his bed of down. And the reason is—that thou hast a gracious God and an easy conscience. A stranger to all care, thou awakest only to resume thy play, or ask for food to satisfy thy hunger.
A full-blown rose besprinkled with the purest dew, is not so beautiful as a child blushing beneath her parents' displeasure, and shedding tears of sorrow for her fault.
A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.
He who does not correct his own child, will later beat his own breast.
[62]
The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother.
A child's eyes! Those clear wells of undefiled thought! What on earth can be more beautiful! Full of hope, love, and curiosity, they meet your own. In prayer, how earnest! In joy, how sparkling! In sympathy, how tender!
Words of praise are almost as necessary to warm a child into a genial life as acts of kindness and affection. Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.
[63]
What the child says out of doors, he has learned indoors.
One day a little girl looking out of the window saw a number of poor men from a nearby jail, working in the hot sun of a July day. They looked tired and hot, and she knew they must be thirsty. She remembered Christ's words, "I was thirsty and ye gave Me drink, was in prison, and ye came unto Me," and the thought came to her, "I can do both." With her mother's permission she took a little bucket of cold water, with a dipper, and gave to each man in turn, refilling the bucket several times. As she went from one to another in her white frock, her sweet smile gave even better cheer than the water. The thanks of the prisoners were very hearty. One asked her, "Little lady, what made you do this?"
After a moment's pause, she replied, "That is what Christ said to do, and—I was sorry myself." He lowered his head and said, "God bless you, little Christ-child."
[65]
A man soon learns how little he knows, when a child begins to ask questions.
The child's restless observation, instead of being ignored or checked, should be diligently ministered to, and made as accurate as possible.
I Samuel ii, 18—"Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child; girded with a linen ephod."
The Rev. John Brown was born in 1722, in the county of Perth in Scotland. In a narrative of his experience, he remarks, "I reflect on it as a great mercy, that I was born in a family which took care of my Christian instruction, and in which I had the privilege of God's worship, morning and evening. About the eighth year of my age, I happened, in a crowd, to push into the church at Abernethy, on a Sacrament Sabbath. Before I was excluded, I heard a minister speak much in commendation of Christ; this, in a sweet and delightful manner, captivated my young affections, and has since made me think that children should never be kept out of church on such occasions."
To impose on a child to get by heart a long scroll of phrases without any ideas, is a practice fitter for a jackdaw than for anything that wears the shape of man.
[66]
The following is a true narrative of an experience in life:
It was nearing three o'clock of last Easter afternoon, when a woman, clad in deepest mourning, entered the gates of the beautiful "sleeping place" on Walnut Hill. Her attitude, as she sank upon a carefully tended mound, denoted deep dejection. She had not yet learned that the "tree of death is fruited with the love of God," neither the joy of the "afterward," but knew only the grope of a stricken soul.
In the distance, sat a child upon a grave, alone. Coming nearer, she recognized him as one who had never known a mother, and whose father had lately been taken, leaving him without kindred. The love between that father and child had been passing sweet.
The bereaved lady knew this, and that he had been thrown homeless upon the world. Yet, absorbed in her own grief, had given him little thought. Drawing near, she observed closely the rare beauty of the boy, scarcely five years of age, genius and nobility stamped on his brow, and exquisite tenderness on the mobile lips.
He looked up eagerly, asking fearlessly, "Is your name Mary? Are you the woman who talked with the angel when the stone was rolled away."
"Oh, no, dear," she replied. "Whom are you looking for?"
"For Jesus!" said the boy reverently.
"But he is not here. He is risen."
[67] "Yes, I know, that's it, but I've been waiting here all day for Him to come and raise my papa up. He's late, and I thought maybe He sent you to tell me to wait a little, just as He sent Mary to tell His disciples, you know," said the boy, wistfully.
"Yes, dear, but"—hesitating to shatter the boy's beautiful faith.
"I am tired" (pathetically), "but it is never too late for Jesus," he added bravely, while a tear rolled down the velvet cheek. "He is sure to come, 'cause it is the Rising Day" (exultingly). "Don't you 'member?"
The woman stooped to kiss the child, and began to sob violently, dropping on the grave beside him.
"What makes you cry, lady? Is your papa here to be raised up?"
"No, no, darling, but my sweet daughter is."
"Don't cry, then," stroking the lady's hand. "Jesus never goes by Rising Day. He'll surely come and give you your little girl and me my papa! He'll come to-night. I saw the two men who came from [256:A]Emmaus go by early this morning, and they will be walking back soon in the evening, and Jesus will meet them and turn and walk with them, and they will all be talking gently about the dying and the rising, and the men will not know Him, but I shall, and He will stop here when I call, and raise my papa up."
"How will you know Him, dear boy?"
"By His smile and the Transfiguration picture that papa showed me in his study. But I'll know Him bestest in here," putting his hand on his breast, "by the love!" raising his lustrous eyes to hers.
"Will you know your papa? Are you sure?"
"My papa!" with wondering ecstatic voice. "My own papa! I shall know him by the love, and you your little [68]girl. They will not look the same, 'cause Jesus didn't, but they knew Him by their love!"
"Yes?"
"And we'll know them by our love!" lingering fondly on the repetition with lustrous, far-seeing gaze.
The woman clasped the child to her breast with a passionate embrace, while rising to meet a supreme hour. (The child must not—shall not be disappointed and his beautiful faith shattered).
"Phillip!" she said, "listen. The angel sent me to tell you that Jesus had gone into heaven, and to take you to your papa. Come!"
Without a moment's hesitation he took his messenger's (?) hand and passed out of the gates, looking not backward by a glance. Expectation held him silent, while the woman's face was illumined by a great light. Entering the door of a pleasant house, she passed on through the hall into the dining-room, saying to the maid: "Bring some food for this dear child; he has fasted all day."
A pitcher of milk and a plate of bread and honey were set beside a plate of cold, broiled fish.
"Now I know this is the house," the boy exclaimed exultingly, "for they had the fish, the bread and the honey! It's all here, just the same, and he'll come to-night!"
Turning swiftly to the hall, the woman almost flew along the corridor to meet her husband's steps. Drawing him to one side, she told with rapture of her encounter and the sweet expectancy below.
"Now, Harold, Heaven has sent us a child, who shall be the angel to roll away the stone from our grave. His wonderful vision must not be darkened, neither his faith destroyed. Rise, my husband, to the most glorious hour of your life. 'I shall know him by the love,' he said. Let us see that he does."
[69] Returning for the child and extending her hand with a smile, he eagerly asked, "Will you wash and comb me to meet my papa? It isn't too late yet, is it?"
The voice was half a sob, but full of hope. The ineffable trust pierced her heart while reassuring him with swift, tender tones.
"Come, Phillip, we will go to him," she cried tremblingly.
As she opened the door upon a winning, noble-faced man with tears on his cheek, smiling with outstretched arms upon the boy, he hesitated a moment, took one step forward and then leaped into the open arms, threw his noble head back, and gazed with lustrous, questioning eyes.
"You don't look like my papa, quite."
"No?" (anxiously).
"'Cause you are changed. But I know you by the love, and you know me, don't you?"
"By the love, dear boy," with shining eyes, but marble lips.
The child nestled down upon the breast, his chest heaving, while the man stroked the soft curls, soothing him with every word known to love's alphabet, till finally, crooning a cradle song, the exhausted child fell asleep. He had found a father by the love. His faith was saved, and by it, she who had groped blindly among the tombs had found her Easter.
[256:A] St. Luke, xxiv, 13.
Say "Yes" and "No" to a child and stick to it. This is the beginning of discipline.
[70]
The way to spoil a child is to give it all it wants and require nothing in return. The way to make a child grow up sensible and unselfish is to give it little, and require of it much. For it is not what others do for us that benefits us, but what we do for ourselves and others.
Some one truly said, the best way for a man to train up a child in the way it should go, is to travel that way sometimes himself.
I Kings, i, 6—"His father had not displeased him at any time in saying, 'Why hast thou done so?'"
A young man, as he was going to the place of execution, desired to whisper something into his mother's ear; but when she came, instead of whispering, he bit off her ear, telling her, that it was because she did not chastise him for his faults when a boy, he was brought to such an unhappy end.
Could it be believed that a child should be forced to learn the rudiments of a language which he is never to use, and neglect the writing a good hand, and casting accounts?
Childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day.
Children, a bond of union than which the human heart feels none more endearing.
[71]
What children hear at home soon flies abroad.
I never hear parents exclaim impatiently, "Children, you must not make so much noise," that I do not think how soon the time may come when, beside the vacant chair, those parents would give all the world, could they hear once more the ringing laughter which once so disturbed them.
Children are certain cares, but uncertain comforts.
What is there in nature so dear to man as his own children?
The dutifulness of children is the foundation of all virtues.
Whatever parent gives his children good instruction, and sets them at the same time a bad example, may be considered as bringing them food in one hand, and poison in the other.
[72]
Children have neither past nor future; and what scarcely ever happens to us, they enjoy the present.
An honorable life is the best legacy a father can leave to his children.
Children should not be flattered, but they should be encouraged. They should not be so praised as to make them vain and proud, but they should be commended when they do well.
Children are excellent physiognomists, and soon discover their real friends.
Dr. Guthrie—He believed—to use his own words—that "where parents will never punish their children, those children will punish them."
Indulgence to children breeds ingratitude.
A man who gives his children habits of industry, provides for them better than by giving them a fortune.
Choose rather to leave your children well instructed than rich. For the hopes of the learned are better than the riches of the ignorant.
[73]
You would not be in a Japanese house long without noticing their extreme politeness, and that this politeness was especially shown by children toward their parents. The one thing that Japanese children must learn is perfect obedience; a child would as soon think of refusing to do a thing altogether, when told, as to ask why he must do it.
A little * * * girl, the child of a missionary, was playing in the street with some Japanese children.
"Mary," called her father from the house, "come in."
As she paid no attention, the others thought she had not heard, and began to say to her: "Your august father is calling you," "Your honorable parent is beckoning to you," and so on.
"I don't care," said Mary.
The children stopped playing and looked at her in astonishment. Her father called her again. This time she answered crossly, "I don't want to come in. What for?"
At this the children picked up their playthings and hurried home, talking excitedly all the way. "Rude little foreigner!" "Bad little girl!" they said, and it was a long time before Mary saw anything of her friends again.
Children—Living jewels, dropped unstained from Heaven.
Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time.
[74]
Children are like the to-morrow of society.
Children think not of what is past, nor what is to come, but enjoy the present time, which few of us do.
Children—I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.
Love of children is always the indication of a genial nature, a pure and unselfish heart.
Children need models rather than critics.
Spurgeon said: "With children we must mix gentleness with firmness; they must not always have their own way, but they must not always be thwarted. If we never have headaches through rebuking them, we shall have plenty of heartaches when they grow up. If you yield up your authority once, you will hardly ever get it again."
[75]
Parents deserve reproof when they refuse to benefit their children by proper discipline.
My dearest pastime is with children.
Children are poor men's riches.
Nothing has a better effect upon children than praise.
Their Little Needs—It is often asserted that both men and women would be selfish beings but for children. They call out, and refine, and soften the best feelings of the parental heart. Their little needs are so many, and their simple ignorance so affecting, and their very caprices so winning, that love and attention flow out to them almost instinctively.
That must be a hardened nature which can be unmoved by the soft touch, the playful childishness, and the hundred little pranks of a baby.
You can not expect better manners from your children than you teach them. They imitate instinctively.
Children should be taught early to sympathize with the deformed, the crippled, and otherwise unfortunate beings: A little dwarfed girl in one of our great cities committed [76]suicide a few years ago because she was so weary of being laughed at and ridiculed by her associates in the streets and at school.
An old street pedlar was set upon by school children and so annoyed and misused that he became insane.
A young preacher recently called upon an eminent Divine, and in the course of conversation asked him how many children he had. "Four, sir," was the reply. At the supper-table, the visitor perceived two beautiful children seated by the side of the mother. Turning to his host, he said, "I thought you had four children, sir: Where are the other two?" Lifting his eyes, the holy man of God pointed upwards, while a sweet smile broke over his countenance. "They are in Heaven," he repeated slowly and calmly; "yet my children still: not dead, but gone before."
Dr. Samuel Johnson once said, "Above all, accustom your children constantly to tell the truth; without varying in any circumstance." A lady who heard him said, "Nay, this is too much, for a little variation in narrative must happen a thousand times a day, if one is not perpetually watching." "Well, madam," said the Doctor, "you ought to be perpetually watching."
He knows not what love is, that has no children.
Children are travelers newly arrived in a strange country; we should therefore make conscience not to mislead them.
[77]
A lady had two children—both girls. The elder was a fair child; the younger a beauty, and the mother's pet. Her whole love centered in it. The elder was neglected, while "Sweet" (the pet name of the younger) received every attention that affection could bestow. One day, after a severe illness, the mother was sitting in the parlor, when she heard a childish footstep on the stairs, and her thoughts were instantly with the favorite.
"Is that you, Sweet?" she enquired.
"No, mamma," was the sad, touching reply, "it isn't Sweet: it's only me."
The mother's heart smote her; and from that hour "only me" was restored to an equal place in her affections.
Children are usually what their mothers were, or are.
Be careful to discountenance in children anything that looks like rage and furious anger.
Children will grow up substantially what they are by nature—and only that.
St. Luke, xxiv, 29—"Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent."
(Two of the disciples to our Lord on the way to Emmaus.)
[78]
The following description is alleged to be derived from an ancient manuscript sent by Publius Lentellus, President of Judea, to the Senate of Rome:
"There lives at this time in Judea, a man of singular character, whose name is Jesus Christ. The barbarians esteem Him as their prophet; but His followers adore Him as the immediate offspring of the immortal God. He is endowed with such unparalleled virtue as to call back the dead from their graves and to heal every kind of disease with a word or a touch. His person is tall and elegantly shaped; His aspect, amiable and reverend; His hair flows in those beauteous shades which no united colors can match, falling in graceful curls below His ears, agreeably couching on His shoulders, and parting on the crown of His head; His dress, that of the sect of Nazarites; His forehead is smooth and large; His cheeks without blemish, and of roseate hue; His nose and mouth are formed with exquisite symmetry; His beard is thick and suitable to the hair of His head, reaching a little below His chin, and parting in the middle below; His eyes are clear, bright, and serene.
"He rebukes with mildness, and invokes with the most tender and persuasive language—His whole address, whether in word or deed, being elegantly grave, and strictly characteristic of so exalted a being. No man has seen Him laugh, but the whole world beholds Him weep frequently, and so persuasive are His tears that the whole multitude can not withhold their tears from joining in sympathy with Him. He is moderate, temperate, and wise; in short, whatever the phenomenon may turn out in the end, He seems at present to be a man of excellent beauty and Divine perfection, every way surpassing man."
[79]
To turn one's back on the Memorial Supper is to disregard the most tender, and loving, and melting of all our Saviour's commandments. It is not needful to know just how obedience will help us. It is enough to know that it was His dying command that we keep it till He come.
No man ought to profess the name of Christ who is not willing to do the deeds of Christ.
Our Saviour is represented everywhere in Scripture as the special patron of the poor and afflicted.
Mark, vi, 3.
He that thinks he hath no need of Christ hath too high thoughts of himself. He that thinks Christ can not help him hath too low thoughts of Christ.
A Christian is the highest style of man.
[80]
He that is a good man, is three-quarters of his way towards the being a good Christian, wheresoever he lives, or whatsoever he is called.
As Henry Drummond, on board a government packet, was steaming away from that group of islands known as the New Hebrides, after having visited the missions there, he was asked by a fellow-passenger who had been visiting the islands for a very different purpose, what good the missionary had been to those people. "My dear young man," said Drummond, "only for the missionary, you and I, instead of being in this cabin, would probably by this time have been inside some of those savages, as you call them, who waved us such an affectionate farewell from their shores." Yes, Christianity is now recognized the world over, as foremost among the moral forces that are civilizing the dark corners of the earth. Even Matthew Arnold was forced to admit that there is no civilization without it. "Show me," he said, "ten square miles outside of Christianity where the life of man or woman is safe, and I'll throw over Christianity at once."
[81]
Christmas is truly merry only to those who think of others.
A visiting bishop, in Washington, was arguing with a senator on the desirability of attending church. At last he put the question squarely: "What is your personal reason for not attending?"
The senator smiled in a no-offense-intended way, as he replied: "The fact is, one finds so many hypocrites there."
Returning the smile, the bishop said:
"Don't let that keep you away, senator; there's always room for one more."
Some bring their clothes to church rather than themselves.
Bare communion with a good church can never alone make a good man.
It has seemed sometimes in recent years as if the deaths were more than the births. This has brought home to the Church the absolute need of the revival of religion if Christianity is not to perish from the world which it has re-made. The Church is not an establishment in the world, but an encampment. She has no natural increase. She lives only by capture, by winning over from the world the citizens that make her number. One must arm another with the Christian panoply, if the Church is to continue.
[82]
I was once preaching in Scotland, and when I got to the church it was so cold that I could see my breath three feet away, said Rev. D. L. Moody. I said to the "beadle," as they call him:
"Aren't you going to have any heat in this building?"
He said they had no stoves or any other provision for heat.
"Well, how do you expect people to get warm?"
"Oh!" he said, "we expect the pulpit to warm us up."
Note: In Dr. Guthrie's Autobiography, vol. I, page 125—Describing the first church he became pastor of, in Arbirlot, in 1830, he says: "As to stoves, they were never thought of—the pulpit had to keep the people warm."
A minister, observing that some of his people made a practice of coming in very late, and after a considerable part of the sermon was over, determined that they should feel the force of public reproof. One day, therefore, as they entered the place of worship at their usual late hour, the minister, addressing his congregation, said: "But, my hearers, it is time for us now to conclude, for here are our friends just come to fetch us home."
We may easily conjecture what the parties felt at this curious but pointed address.
A country minister in Scotland, who was much annoyed by two members of his congregation, Macpherson and [83]Macintosh, sleeping during the sermon, hit upon a way to put an end to this state of matters. Calling on Macintosh, he said: "By the way, Mr. Macintosh, have you ever noticed Mr. Macpherson sleeping during the sermon?" "Many a time," replied Macintosh, virtuously. "Well, next Sunday you might sit beside Macpherson and try and keep him awake." "I'll do that sir," said Macintosh. Then the minister went to Macpherson and went through the same programme concerning Macintosh.
Next Sunday it was highly amusing to those in the secret to see Macintosh and Macpherson sitting next to each other, both perfectly wide awake.
When once thy foot enters the church, beware, God is more there than thou; for thou art there only by His permission. Then beware and make thyself all reverence and fear.
Take the child to church, whether he likes it or not. What he likes has nothing to do with it; what is best for him is the only question.
There are two classes of people in the church; the one is made up of those who do the hard work of the church, and the other of those who sit at home and—criticise.
Men are dependent on circumstances, and not circumstances on men.
[84]
A great merchant was asked by what means he contrived to realize so large a fortune as he possessed. His reply was: "Friend, by one article alone, in which thou may'st deal too if thou pleasest—civility."
Civility is a desire to receive civility, and to be accounted well-bred.
The clergyman who lives in the city may have piety, but he must have taste.
[85]
I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life.
A clergyman should never come tired before his people, but rather like an engine when it leaves the round-house, oiled, equipped with fuel and water, and with all its strength waiting to be put forth.
In his last annual report, President Eliot states that the average age of students entering Harvard is eighteen years of age and ten months. He then intimates that if students could be induced to enter college earlier, as they did in Emerson's time, there would be fewer failures.
"Aye gang (always go) wi' them that's better than yerself."
If this was done generally, there would be a levelling up, instead of a levelling down.
Pleasant company shortens the miles.
Every one must see daily instances of people who complain, from a mere habit of complaining.
A compliment is usually accompanied with a bow, as if to beg pardon for paying it.
Illuminate me with a ray of your intelligence!
Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.
Legitimate Sport—Those who fish for compliments deserve to get a bite.
[87]
To attempt to advise conceited people is like whistling against the wind.
Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with.
I've never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them.
Conceit may puff a man up, but never prop him up.
Many persons are obliged to their imagination for more than three-fourths of their importance.
Discuss your plans with many, decide on them with few, or by yourself.
Between right and wrong never waver a moment.
Confidence always gives pleasure to the man in whom it is placed.
No one so sure but he may miss.
Don't cry hurrah till you are over the bridge.
[88]
Confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom.
He who knows the road, can ride at full trot.
Never put much confidence in those who put no confidence in others.
A good conscience is sometimes sold for money, but never bought with it.
Money dishonestly acquired is never worth its cost, while a good conscience never costs as much as it is worth.
A clear conscience is a good pillow.
A quiet conscience makes one so serene!
Conscience is the chamber of justice.
Conscience may be said to be the voice of God within us.
Conscience, that sound of God in the human heart, whose "still small voice" the loudest revelry can not drown.
[89]
Consistency—Thou art a jewel!
Do even as you will, that this dispute live not between us as a consuming fire forever!
"I never complained of my condition but once," said an old man, "when my feet were bare and I had no money to buy shoes; but I met a man without feet, and became contented."
It is right to be contented with what we have, but never with what we are.
A favorite saying of the beloved Dr. John A. Broaddus was: "It is better to like what you have, than to have what you like."
If you live according to nature, you never will be poor; if according to the world's caprice, you never will be rich.
[90]
Since we have loaves, let us look not for cakes.
To be content with little is difficult; to be content with much—impossible.
If thou hast but little, make it not less by murmuring.
Contentment will make a cabbage look as fair as a palace.
May we never murmur without a cause, nor have cause to murmur.
He that is rich need not live sparingly, and he that can live sparingly need not be rich.
[91]
Is it possible to find perfect contentment? Some one once said:—"The secret of perfect contentment is, that there isn't any."
"It is a great blessing to possess what one wishes," said one to an ancient philosopher, who replied, "It is a greater blessing still, not to desire what one does not possess."
Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires, makes a wise and happy purchase.
He that deserves nothing should be content with anything.
He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
When the well is dry, then we all know the worth of water.
[92]
Conversation.—To please others we should talk on subjects they like and that interest them; avoid disputes, seldom ask questions, and never let them see that we pretend to be better informed than they are.
The first ingredient in conversation is truth, the next good sense, the third good humor, and the fourth wit.
Conversation is the music of the mind; an intellectual orchestra, where all the instruments should bear a part, but where none should play together.
Never argue in society; if any person differs from you, bow, and turn the conversation.
One of the best rules in conversation is, never say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.
Conversation.—As it is the mark of great minds to say many things in a few words, so it is that of little minds to use many words to say nothing.
"So much they talked, so very little said."
[93]
To say nothing charmingly is a great gift.
Conversation.—In general those who nothing have to say contrive to spend the longest time in doing it.
With thee conversing, I forget all time.
It is better to turn back than to go astray.
He who converses with no one, learns nothing.
As rust corrupts iron, so envy corrupts man.
Corporations have no souls:—Lord Chancellor Thurlow said, "that corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned; they therefore do as they like."
[94]
The thatched cottage where one is merry, is preferable to a palace where one weeps.
Good counsel never comes too late.
From a safe port 'tis easy to give counsel.
He that winna be counselled canna be helped.
In many counsellors there is safety.
The countenance is frequently more expressive than the tongue.
A pleasing countenance is no slight advantage.
A smiling countenance indicates courtesy, joy, good humor and happiness.
The character of a man's native country is as strongly impressed on his mind as its accent is on his tongue.
[95]
The fact that the following verses are heard to-day proves their "convenience," to say the least, for they were written by William Livingston in 1747:——
The wise men of Greece were asked which was the best governed country. Clemenese replied, "the people who have more respect for the laws than the orators."
He who loves not his country, can love nothing.
A great deal of talent is lost to the world for the want of courage.
Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.
The courtesy with which I receive a stranger, and the civility I show him, form the background on which he paints my portrait.
Courtesy on one side, never lasts long.
Men dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake.
[97]
Courtship and Marriage.—"Their courtship was carried on in poetry." Alas! many a pair have courted in poetry, and after marriage lived in prose.
Courtship may be said to consist of a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood.
Covetousness.—A young man once picked up a sovereign lying in the road. Ever afterward, in walking along, he kept his eye fixed steadily upon the ground in hopes to find another. And in the course of a long life he did pick up, at different times, a goodly number of coins, gold and silver. But all these years, while he was looking for them, he saw not that the heavens were bright above him, and nature beautiful around. He never once allowed his eye to look up from the mud and filth in which he sought his treasure; and when he died—a rich old man—he only knew this fair earth as a dirty road to pick up money as you walk along. Thus you see the desire of having is the sin of covetousness.
The coward only threatens when he is secure.
The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.
Credit, like a looking-glass, broken once, is gone, alas!
[98]
He who doesn't take care of his credit will soon have none to take care of.
There are two directly opposite reasons why some men cannot get credit—one is because he is not known—the other because he is.
Some one has said that finding fault is done on a smaller capital than any other business, and it is a very fascinating business, too, for people of—small calibre.
[99]
The culture of a man is like the changing of raw material into the manufactured article. The uncultured man is comparatively helpless and worthless.
Daughter.—To a father waxing old nothing is dearer than a daughter; sons have spirits of higher pitch, but less inclined to sweet endearing fondness.
He mourns the dead who lives as they desire.
One of the Fathers said: "That there is but this difference between the death of old and young men,—that old men go to death, and death comes to young men."
[101]
There was a certain nobleman who kept a fool, to whom he one day gave a staff, with a charge to keep it till he should meet with one who was a greater fool than himself. Not many years after, the nobleman fell sick, even unto death. The fool came to see him: his lord said to him—"I must shortly leave you." "And whither are you going?" said the fool. "Into another world," replied his lordship. "And when will you come again? Within a month?" "No." "Within a year?" "No." "When then?" "Never." "Never!" said the fool, "and what provision hast thou made for thy entertainment there, whither thou goest?" "None at all." "No!" said the fool, "none at all! Here then, take my staff; for with all my folly, I am not guilty of any such folly as this."
The divinity who rules within us, forbids us to leave this world without his command.
When a man dies, they who survive him, ask what property he has left behind. The angel who bends over the dying man, asks what good deeds he has sent before him.
Happy is, or ought to be, the man who owes nothing.
If you would avoid paying debts, avoid incurring them.
[102]
Let him that hath done the good office conceal it; let him that hath received it disclose it.
"He wishes well" is worthless, unless the deed go with it.
Deformed.—Mock not at those who are misshapen by nature. He that despiseth them despiseth God that made them.
Away with delay! it always injures those that are prepared.
Do not delay: the golden moments fly!
True delicacy, that most beautiful heart-leaf of humanity, exhibits itself most significantly in little things.
Nothing prevents our being natural so much as the desire to appear so.
Remember that your dependents have seldom a full power of replying to you; and let the recollection of that make you especially considerate in your dealings with them.
[104]
Honorable descent is in all nations greatly esteemed; besides, it is to be expected that the children of men of worth will be like their fathers.
The desires of man increase with his acquisitions.
[105]
Not till after the death of a member of Parliament, a prominent county magistrate, the owner of large estates, and an active, public-spirited man in all local and national matters, was it known by those who had not seen him, that it was but the misshapen block of a man that had lived this active, manly life.
He was born with neither legs nor arms. After his death his story was told: how he resolved, when but a boy, to act and live as did other boys, without regard to his horrible misfortune; how he persisted in studying every book, in learning every game, in joining in every amusement possible to him, with his companions. How, to the last year of his life, he held himself to be as responsible as other men, and bravely paid every tithe of duty to God and to his fellows.
Even in lesser matters in life he pressed to the front. He was the most genial, witty guest at social dinner tables. Strapped to his horse, he hunted foxes in Yorkshire, or tigers in India, and with his brothers made long journeys in other parts of the world. Everywhere his cheerfulness and gaiety gave new life to duller souls.
Is there no lesson for us all in the life of this gallant gentleman?
Dr. Roux, the celebrated French physician, said: "The greater part of preparation for the digestion of food takes place in the mouth."
[106]
We have all met with a great many disappointments, and if we live much longer, shall likely meet with many more.
Discontent is a man's, and a woman's, worst enemy.
Be discreet in all things, and so render it unnecessary to be mysterious about anything.
[107]
Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend's friend has a friend;—be discreet.
Woe unto him that increaseth that which is not his!
No man's disposition will alter, say what we may.
Shut not thy purse-strings always against distress.
It is better occasionally to be deceived in people than for one to be always distrustful.
Did you never observe that dogs have not the power of comparing? A dog will take a small bit of meat as readily, when both are before him.
[108]
Food remains for three days in the stomach of the dog, because God knew that his food would be scanty.
If you are in doubt whether to write a letter or not—don't! The advice applies to doubts in life besides that of letter writing.
[109]
Dreams.—Children of night, of indigestion bred.
Those who think that in order to dress well, it is necessary to dress extravagantly or grandly, make a great mistake. Nothing so well becomes true feminine beauty as simplicity.
Numbers vi, 3.—"He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink."
[110] A heathen king, who had been for years confirmed in the sin of drunkenness by the evil practices of white men on the Sandwich Islands, had been led to forsake the dreadful habit. He said lately to a missionary, "suppose you put four thousand dollars in one hand, and a glass of rum in the other; you say, you drink this rum, I give you four thousand dollars, I no drink it; you say you kill me, I no drink it."
In an address to a temperance society, Admiral Capps told a story which is printed in the New York Tribune.—A man who had ruined his health with alcohol sat looking sadly at his wife, to whom he had made many promises of reform.
"Jenny," he said, "you are a clever woman, a courageous, good woman. You should have married a better man than I am."
She looked at him, thin-limbed and stoop-shouldered, prematurely old, and answered, quietly, "I did, James."
Genesis ix, 21—"Noah drank of the wine, and was drunken."
A person in Maryland, who was addicted to drunkenness, hearing a considerable uproar in his kitchen one night, felt the curiosity to step without noise to the door, to know what was the matter; when he found his servants indulging in the most unbounded roars of laughter at a couple of negro boys, who were mimicking himself in his drunken fits!—as how he reeled and staggered—how he looked and nodded—and hiccupped and tumbled. The pictures which these children of nature drew of him, and which had filled the rest with such inexhaustible merriment, struck him with [111]so salutary a disgust, that from that night he became a perfectly sober man, to the great joy of his wife and children.
Pray tell me whence you derive the origin of the word dun? The true origin of this expression owes its birth to one Joe Dunn, a famous bailiff of the town of Lincoln, England, so extremely active, and so dexterous at the management of his rough business, that it became a proverb, when a man refused to pay his debts, "Why don't you Dun him?" that is, why don't you send Dun to arrest him? Hence it grew a custom, and is now as old as since the days of Henry VII.
When a minister preaches his sermon, he should do so fearlessly, i. e. like a man who cuts up a big log,—let the chips fall where they may.
Do what you ought, come what may.
Duty:—I hate to see a thing done by halves; if it be right, do it boldly; if wrong, leave it undone.
[112]
Whosoever contents himself with doing the little duties of the day, great things will, by-and-by, present themselves to him for their fulfilment also.
We make time for duties we love.
One should choose a wife with the ears, rather than with the eyes.
What is told in the ear, is often heard a hundred miles off.
'Tis easy for any man who has his foot unentangled by sufferings, both to exhort and to admonish him that is in difficulties.
If you take things easy when you ought to be doing your best work, you will probably have to keep hard at work when you might be taking it easy.
Nothing is easy to the unwilling.
[113]
He that eats longest lives longest.
Half of what we eat is sufficient to enable us to live, and the other half that we eat enables the doctors to live.
Economy is the easy chair of old age.
He that will not economize may some day have to agonize.
Economy is no disgrace; it is better living on a little, than living beyond your means.
In abundance prepare for scarcity.
Lay up something for a rainy day; it may be needed some day.
Economy is something like a savings-bank, into which we drop pennies and get dollars in return.
Take care to be an economist in prosperity: there is no fear of your being one in adversity.
[114]
Economy is too late at the bottom of the purse.
Every man must educate himself. His books and teacher are but helps; the work is his.
Scottish Education. "A boy was compelled by the poverty of his parents to leave school and take temporary work as an assistant to Lady Abercombie's gardener. When his services were no longer required, the lady gave him a guinea and said, 'Well, Jack, how are you going to spend your guinea?' 'Oh my lady,' he replied, 'I've just made up my mind to tak' a quarter o' Greek, for I hadna got beyond Latin when I left school."
Nearly all things are difficult before they are easy.
There is as much eloquence in the tone of voice, in the eyes, and in the air of a speaker, as in his choice of words.
[115]
One would not imagine who has not given particular attention, that the body should be susceptible to such variety of attitudes and emotions, as readily to accompany every different emotion with a corresponding expression. Humility for example, is expressed naturally by hanging the head; arrogance, by its elevation; and languor or despondence, by reclining it to one side. The expressions of the hands are manifold by different attitudes and motions; they express desire, hope, fear; they assist us in promising, in inviting, in keeping one at a distance; they are made instruments of threatening, of supplication, of praise, and of horror; they are employed in approving, in refusing, in questioning; in showing our joy, our sorrow, our doubts, our regret, and our admiration.
The evil one does not tempt people whom he finds suitably employed.
To be employed is to be happy.
Do good to thy friend, that he may be more thy friend; and unto thy enemy, that he may become thy friend.
[116]
Boswell said of Dr. Johnson—"Though a stern true-born Englishman, and fully prejudiced against all other nations, he had discernment enough to see, and candour enough to censure, the cold reserve too common among Englishmen towards strangers. 'Sir,' said he, (Johnson) 'two men of any other nation who are shown into a room together, at a house where they are both visitors, will immediately find some conversation. But two Englishmen will probably go each to a different window, and remain in obstinate silence. Sir, we as yet do not enough understand the common rights of humanity.'"
Rochefoucauld said, "The truest mark of being born with great qualities is being born without envy."
If we did but know how little some enjoy the great things they possess, there would not be so much envy in the world.
All matches, friendships, and societies are dangerous and inconvenient, where the contractors are not equal.
Equivocation is first cousin to a lie.
What has been done amiss should be undone as quickly as possible.
Beware of errors of the mouth.
[117]
The man who never makes any blunders, seldom makes any good hits.
Etiquette.—Good taste rejects excessive nicety; it treats little things as little things, and is not hurt by them.
Certain signs precede certain events.
Sir Peter Lely made it a rule never to look at a bad picture, having found by experience that whenever he did so, his pencil took a tint from it. Bishop Home said of the above: "Apply this to bad books and bad company."
I am endowed by God with power to conquer all evil.
How quickly and quietly the eye opens and closes, revealing and concealing a world!
[118]
The silent upbraiding of the eye is the very poetry of reproach; it speaks at once to the imagination.
Eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears.
Old men's eyes are like old men's memories; they are strongest for things a long way off.
The eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us. If all but myself were blind, I should never want a fine house nor fine furniture.
The eyes are the windows of the soul.
We always weaken whatever we exaggerate.
He who has seen much of the world, is very prone to exaggeration.
Every man is bound to tolerate the act of which he has himself given the example.
Noble examples excite us to noble deeds.
[119]
He who makes excuses, himself accuses.
A man must often exercise, or fast, or take physic, or be sick.
I am no longer the fool I was, I have learned by experience.
All is but lip-wisdom, which wants experience.
Among all classes of society we see extravagance keeping pace with prosperity, and indeed outstripping it, realizing Archbishop Whately's paradox: "The larger the income, the harder it is to live within it."
Nature has written a letter of credit on some men's faces which is honored wherever it is presented.
The surest way not to fail, is to determine to succeed.
In Ross-shire, Scotland, there is an immense mountain gorge. The rocks have been rent in twain, and set apart twenty feet, forming two perpendicular walls two hundred feet in height. On either side of these natural walls, in crevices where earth has collected, grow wild flowers of rare quality and beauty. A company of tourists visiting that part of the country were desirous to possess themselves of specimens of these beautiful mountain flowers; but how to obtain them they knew not. At length they thought they might be gathered by suspending a person over the cliff by a rope. They offered a Highland boy, who was near by, a handsome sum of money to undertake the difficult and dangerous task. The boy looked down into the awful abyss that yawned below, and shrunk from the undertaking; but the money was tempting. Could he confide in the strangers? Could he venture his life in their hands? He felt that he could not; but he thought of his father, and, looking once more at the cliff, and then at the proffered reward, his eyes brightened, and he exclaimed: "I'll go if my father holds the rope." Beautiful illustration of the nature of faith.
[121]
Faith builds a bridge from this world to the next.
To be trusted is perhaps a greater compliment than to be loved.
He who believes in nobody knows that he himself is not to be trusted.
Trust not him that hath once broken faith.
It goes a great way toward making a man faithful, to let him understand that you think him so.
All that a man gets by being untruthful is, that he is not believed when he speaks the truth.
Telling an untruth is like leaving the highway and going into a tangled forest. You know not how long it will take you to get back, or how much you will suffer from the thorns and briers in the wild woods.
There is no greater mistake in social life than indulging in over-familiarity. Intercourse, even between intimate friends, should have some dignity about it.
[122]
A family is a little world within doors; the miniature resemblance of the great world without.
Where can one be happier than in the bosom of his family?
It is a common complaint that the farm and farm life are not appreciated by our people. We long for the more elegant pursuits, or the ways and fashions, of the town. But the farmer has the most sane and natural occupation, and ought to find it sweeter, if less highly seasoned, than any other. He alone, strictly speaking, has a home. How many ties, how many resources, he has!—his friendship with his cattle, his team, his dog, his trees; the satisfaction in his growing crops, in his improved fields; his intimacy with nature, with bird and beast, and with the quickening elemental forces; his co-operations with the cloud, the sun, the seasons, heat, wind, rain, frost. It humbles him, teaches him patience and reverence. Cling to the farm, make much of it, put yourself into it, bestow your heart and brain upon it.
[124]
How beautiful is the following picture by Caroline Anne Bowles, only child of Captain Charles Bowles, of Blackland, England. Born 1787:
Love for a Father.—In the year 1773, a gentleman in England, whose health was rapidly declining, was advised by his physicians to go to Spa for the recovery of his health. His [125]daughters feared that those who had only motives entirely mercenary would not pay him that attention which he might expect from those who, from duty and affection united, would feel the greatest pleasure in ministering to his ease and comfort; they, therefore, resolved to accompany him. They proved that it was not a spirit of dissipation and gaiety that led them to the springs, for they were not to be seen in any of the gay and fashionable circles; they were never out of their father's company, and never stirred from home, except to attend him, either to take the air or drink the waters; in a word, they lived a most recluse life in the midst of a town then the resort of the most illustrious and fashionable personages of Europe. This exemplary attention to their father procured these three amiable sisters the admiration of all the visitors at Spa, and was the cause of their elevation to that rank in life to which their merits gave them so just a title. They were all married to noblemen: one to the Earl of Beverly, another to the Duke of Hamilton, and a third to the Duke of Northumberland. And it is justice to them to say that they reflected honor on their rank, rather than derived any from it.
[126]
Not to repent of a fault, is to justify it.
Faults.—Every man has a bag hanging before him, in which he puts his neighbors' faults, and another behind him in which he stows his own.
Lord Bolingbroke was one evening at a large party. Political subjects were talked of, and the conversation finally turned on the famous Duke of Marlborough. Every one had something to say against him, many blaming his avarice. Bolingbroke was silent. One of the company inquired, "How is it that you say nothing? You knew him better than all of us, and could tell us a good deal about him." Bolingbroke replied, "He was a great man, and I have forgotten all his faults."
[127]
The greatest of faults, is to be conscious of none.
Wink at wee (little) faults; Your ain are muckle.
He who asks timidly courts a refusal.
There is pleasure in meeting the eyes of one on whom you are going to confer a favor.
We like better to see those on whom we confer benefits, than those, alas! from whom we receive them.
[128]
It is not the quantity of the meat but the cheerfulness of the guests, which makes the feast.
Feast to-day with many makes fast to-morrow.
Every young man has a fine season in his life when he will accept no office, and every young woman has the same in hers, when she will accept no husband; by and by they both change, and often take one another into the bargain.
[129]
Did we not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others could never hurt us.
Boswell: "No quality will get a man more friends than a disposition to admire the qualities of others. I do not mean flattery, but a sincere admiration." Johnson: "Nay, Sir, flattery pleases very generally. In the first place, the flatterer may think what he says to be true; but in the second place, whether he thinks so or not, he certainly thinks those whom he flatters of consequence enough to be flattered."
Flowers.—These children of the meadows, born of sunshine and of showers!
Flowers.—Pretty daughters of the Earth and Sun.
[130]
What a desolate place would be a world without a flower! It would be a face without a smile—a feast without a welcome Are not flowers the stars of the earth? and are not the stars we see at night the flowers of heaven?
Flowers are the pledges of fruit.
He who gives advice to a fool, beats the air with a stick.
None is a fool always, everyone sometimes.
Infallible Test.—A theological student, supposed to be deficient in judgment, was asked by a professor, in the [131]course of a class examination, "Pray, how would you discover a fool?" "By the questions he would ask," was the rather stunning reply.
One never needs one's wits so much as when one has to do with a fool.
Nothing is so silly as to insist on being the only person who is right.
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester.
If all fools wore white caps, the majority of us would look like a flock of geese.
Young folks tell what they do, old ones what they have done, and the others (fools) what they intend to do.
Where force prevails, right perishes.
If there is a harvest ahead, even a distant one, it is poor thrift to be stingy of your seed-corn!
A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.
A gentleman went to a friend, in great anger at a real injury he had received, which he intended to resent. After relating the particulars, he enquired if it would not be manly to resent it? His friend replied, "Yes; it would doubtless be manly to resent it, but it would be godlike to forgive it."
[133]
We forgive just as long as we love.
He that cannot forgive others, breaks down the bridge over which he must pass himself, for every one has need to be forgiven.
[134]
The world never forgives; it is only God and our mothers that can do that.
Forgiveness that covers only part of the wrong, is like two fingers given in a handshake.
The story is told of a British soldier who had broken every rule of the army and on whom every form of punishment had been inflicted without avail. He sinned again. His commanding officer was in despair as to what should be done. A fellow officer said, "Suppose you try forgiveness." The guilty soldier was summoned. On being asked what he had to say in palliation of his offense, he hung his head and replied: "Nothing, except I'm very sorry." "Well," said the officer, "We have decided to forgive you." The culprit looked dazed, burst into tears, saluted, and went out to become one of the best soldiers in the army.
Individuals sometimes forgive, but bodies and societies never do.
Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune.
The continuance of good fortune forms no ground of ultimate security.
[135]
Fortune gives too much to many, but to none enough.
Good-fortune comes to some people while they are asleep, i. e., without their seeking it.
Good fortune that comes seldom, comes more welcome.
How often it is, in the twinkling of an eye one vicissitude of fortune follows another.
That which we acquire with most difficulty, we retain the longest; as those who have earned a fortune are usually more careful of it than those who have inherited one.
Fortune knocks once at least at every one's door.
If fortune favors you, do not be too elated; if she frowns, do not despond too much.
Manners often make fortunes.
[136]
The Result of Fortune:—The generality of men sink in virtue as they rise in fortune.
Don't live in hope with your arms folded. Fortune smiles on those who roll up their sleeves and put their shoulders to the wheel.
Collins, the freethinker, met a plain countryman going to church. He asked him where he was going. "To church sir." "What to do there?" "To worship God." "Pray, whether is your God a great or little God?" "He is both, sir." "How can He be both?" "He is so great that the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, and so little that He can dwell in my heart." Collins declared that this simple answer had an effect upon his mind such as all the volumes which learned men had written against him had not.
The bird once out of hand is hard to recover.
He who attacks an absent friend, or who does not defend him when spoken ill of by another—that man is a dark character; beware of him.
Be my friend, and teach me to be thine!
If you want enemies, excel others; if you want friends, let others excel you.
A man may have a thousand intimate acquaintances and not a friend among them all. If you have one friend, think yourself happy.
Go slowly to the entertainment of your friends, but quickly to their misfortunes.
Leave a friend! So base I am not. I followed him in his prosperity, when the skies were clear and shining, and will not leave him when storms begin to rise; as gold is tried by the furnace, and the baser metal is shown, so the hollow-hearted friend is known by adversity.
Do not lose sight of old attachments for the sake of making new friendships.
A man who is fond of disputing, will, in time, have few friends to dispute with.
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It is more dishonorable to distrust a friend than to be deceived by him.
No life is so strong and complete, But it sometimes yearns for the smile of a friend.
He was never a friend who ceased to be so—for a slight cause.
A friend cannot be known in prosperity; and an enemy cannot be hidden in adversity.
[140]
When a friend asks, there should be no tomorrow.
The best mirror is an old friend.
I am not of that feather to shake off my friend when he must need me. I do know him, a gentleman that well deserves a help, which he shall have: I'll pay the debt and free him.
A cut or slight from a foe or stranger, may be scarred over, but a stab from a friend you love hardly ever heals.
He that telleth thee that thou art always wrong, may be deceived; but he that saith that thou art always right, is surely not telling the truth.
No man can be happy without a friend, nor be sure of his friend till he is unfortunate.
He that ceases to be a friend never was a good one.
If you wink at your friend's vices you make them your own.
Without a friend the world is but a wilderness.
Absolute friends are very rare.
Friends, but few on earth, and therefore dear.
It is to chance we owe our relatives, to choice our friends.
Equals make the best friends.
False friends are like our shadows, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade.
There are plenty acquaintances in the world, but very few real friends.
By my skill I have got many acquaintances, my manners very many friends.
[142]
Friends are lost by calling often, and calling seldom.
We ought always to make choice of persons of such worth and honor for our friends, that, if they should even cease to be so, they will not abuse our confidence, nor give us cause to fear them as enemies.
Let us make the best of our friends while we have them, for how long we shall keep them is uncertain.
Friends are sometimes like titled husbands, easy to get, if you have enough money.
My treasures are my friends.
Without friends, no one would choose to live, even if he had all other good things.
[143]
Old friends and old ways ought not to be disdained.
Friends, but few on earth, and therefore dear.
The poor man's assets are his friends.
Purchase not friends by gifts; when thou ceasest to give such will cease to love.
Baxter said:—"I must confess, as the experience of my own soul, that the expectation of loving my friends in heaven principally kindles my love to them while on earth. If I thought I should never know, and consequently never love them after this life, I should number them with temporal things, and love them as such; but I now delightfully converse with my pious friends, in a firm persuasion that I shall converse with them forever; and I take comfort in those that are dead or absent, believing that I shall shortly meet them in heaven, and love them with a heavenly love."
A gift kept back where it was hoped, often separateth chief friends.
Strange to say,—I am the only one of my friends I can rely upon.
[144]
There is no living without friends.
True friends anticipate each other's wants.
Friends are sometimes like mushrooms, they spring up in out-of-the-way places.
At the gate of abundance there are many brothers and friends; at the gate of misfortune there is neither brother nor friend.
It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell a man of his faults. So to love a man that you cannot bear to see the stain of sin upon him, and to go to him alone and speak painful truths in touching, tender words,—that is friendship, and a friendship as rare as it is precious.
Henceforth there shall be no other contention betwixt you and me, than which shall outdo the other in point of friendship.
Cultivate your neighbor's friendship; he needs you and you need him.
[145]
Renewed friendships require more care than those that have never been broken.
Need for making Acquaintance.—If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man should keep his friendship in constant repair.
Suspicion kills friendship.
There is truly nothing purer and warmer than our first friendship, our first love.
The permanency of most friendships depends upon the continuity of good fortune.
Quickly made friendships, are often eagerly and quickly ended.
[146]
Rare is true love: true friendship is still rarer.
Real friendship is like a sheltering tree.
He is my friend that helps me, and not he that pities me.
Love Him, and keep Him for thy Friend, who, when all go away, will not forsake thee, nor suffer thee to perish at the last.
True friendship is one of the greatest blessings upon earth; it makes the cares and anxieties of life sit easy; provides us with a partner in every affliction to alleviate the burthen, and is a sure resort against every accident and difficulty that can happen.
[147]
True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
Those who speak always and those who never speak, are equally unfit for friendship.
He who never gives advice, and he who never takes it are alike unworthy of friendship.
He who is worthy of friendship at all will remember in his prosperity those who were his friends in his adversity.
Value the friendship of him who stands by you in a storm; swarms of insects will surround you in the sunshine.
No matter how poor and mean a man is, his friendship is worth more than his hate.
Good fruit never comes from a bad tree.
There is nothing like fun, is there? I haven't any myself, but I do like it in others.
[148]
Groping for the Door.—O door, so close, yet so far off!
If you would have your name chime melodiously in the ears of future days, cultivate faith, and not doubt, giving unto every man credit for the good he does, and never attribute base motives to beautiful acts.
Future:—The future does not come from before to meet us, but comes streaming up from behind over our heads.
Future—to be met without Fear:—Look not mournfully into the past,—it comes not back again; wisely improve the present,—it is thine; go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear, and with a manly heart.
One thing obtained with difficulty is far better than a hundred things procured with ease.
Gain, has oft, with treacherous hopes led men to ruin.
[149]
Gain has a pleasant odor.
Prefer loss before unjust gain; for that brings grief but once; this forever.
Gain at the expense of reputation should be called loss.
No pains, no gains.
It is impossible to be just, if one is not generous.
Justice should precede generosity.
Generosity should never exceed ability.
Show me the man who can quit the brilliant society of the young and listen to the kindly voice of age, who can hold cheerful converse with one whom years have deprived of charms. Show me the man of generous impulses, who is always ready to help the poor and needy; who treats unprotected maidenhood as he would the heiress surrounded by the protection of rank, riches and family; who never forgets for an instant the delicacy, the respect, that is due a woman in any condition or class. Show me such a man and you show me a gentleman—nay, more, you show me a true Christian.
[150]
It's not the gay coat makes the gentleman.
The man who is kind and obliging and is ready to do you a favor without
hope of reward, who speaks the truth—is a gentleman,
In any garb,
And wherever he may be found.
Propriety of manners and consideration for others are the two main characteristics of a gentleman.
A friend of mine, not long ago, coming over from Ireland, heard a man asking, in reference to another, who he was. "I don't know," was the reply; "but he's quite a gentleman. He always wears a tall hat." Indeed, there are those who seem to be incapable of valuing their fellow-men by anything except their clothes. A story is told of a Persian prince, which well illustrates such worldliness. Dressed as a poor man, this prince went to a feast. He was pushed here and there, could not get to the table, and had soon to withdraw. On going home, he dressed himself in his best, placing jewelled slippers on his feet, and putting on a cloth-of-gold cloak. Then he returned to the feast, where matters were immediately altered. The guests made room, and the host, rushing up, cried, "Welcome, my lord! What will your lordship please to eat?" The prince's answer was very expressive. Stretching out his foot, so that his slipper sparkled and glittered, he took his golden robe in his hand, [151]and said with bitter irony, "Welcome, my lord coat! welcome, most excellent robe! What will your lordship please to eat? For," said he, turning to his surprised host, "I ought to ask my coat what it will eat, since the welcome was solely to it."
We never teach men to be gentlemen, but we teach them everything else; and they never pique themselves so much on all the rest, as on knowing how to be gentlemen. They pique themselves only on knowing the one thing they have not learnt.
The true gentleman is he who does not plume himself on anything.
Let him speak who received; let the giver hold his peace.
Give freely to him that deserveth well and asketh nothing; and that is a way of giving to thyself.
Better a penny given with a smile than a pound given with a frown.
To give so as to bestow a favor and not create an obligation, is a delicate art.
He gives twice who gives quickly, according to the proverb; but a gift not only given quickly but unexpectedly, is the most welcome of all.
[152]
He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly answers, and ceases when he has no more to say, is in possession of some of the best mental gifts of mankind.
The Princess of Wales has decided views on the education of children. Her Royal Highness, it appears, strongly objects to "cramming" children with useless learning, which she declares is a mere waste of time.
The Princess considers it harmful to force a child in studies which are distasteful to it, and that the child should [154]be allowed to abandon that study, and take up one it likes better.
Similarly, she disapproves of advanced arithmetic for girls. She considers that all that most girls need ever know about arithmetic, is addition and subtraction, "enough to know how to do their housekeeping and pay their debts," she says.
No one can give what he has not.
Not every one that dances is glad.
Is an emblem of human life. Behold! how swiftly the sands run, and how rapidly our lives are drawing to a close! We cannot, without astonishment, behold the little particles which are contained in this machine; how they pass away almost imperceptibly! And yet, to our surprise, in the short space of an hour, they are all exhausted. Thus wastes man! To-day he puts forth the tender leaves of hope; to-morrow, blossoms, and bears his blushing honors thick upon him; the next day comes a frost, which nips the shoot; and when he thinks his greatness is still aspiring, he falls, like autumn leaves, to enrich our mother earth.
The Greatness of God.—Said Dr. Guthrie, "If philosophy is to be believed, our world is but an outlying corner of creation; bearing, perhaps, as small a proportion to the great universe, as a single grain bears to all the sands of the seashore, or one small quivering leaf to the foliage of a boundless [155]forest." Yet even within this earth's narrow limits, how vast the work of Providence! How soon is the mind lost in contemplating it! How great that Being whose hand paints every flower, and shapes every leaf; who forms every bud on every tree; who feeds each crawling worm with a parent's care, and watches like a mother over the insect that sleeps away the night in the bosom of a flower; who throws open the golden gates of day, and draws around a sleeping world the dusky curtains of the night; who measures out the drops of every shower, the whirling snowflakes, and the sands of man's eventful life; who determines alike the fall of a sparrow and the fate of a kingdom; and so overrules the tide of human fortunes, that whatever befall him, come joy or sorrow, the believer says—"It is the Lord; let Him do what seemeth Him good."
But as it is written, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."
Every little blade of grass declareth the presence of God.
The more a man denies himself, the more he shall obtain from God.
The following beautiful lines were composed in 1779, by a distinguished scholar—at the time partially insane.
[157]
Whoever devotes himself to the veneration of God, whatever road he may choose, will come to God, and that the means to this, is, to avoid hurting any living being.
A gold key is apt to open every door.
"As an illustration of the enthusiasm with which golf is pursued by its votaries," says Harper's Weekly, "the following anecdote is told of a well known Scotch author, and a young friend of his. The two had spent the whole day on the links, and had had some close and exciting matches; as they left for home the elder man remarked:
"'Do you think ye could play again to-morrow, laddie?'
"'Well,' answered the youth, 'I was going to be married to-morrow, but I can put it off.'"
All things come round to him who will but wait and work.
Every person is responsible for all the good within the scope of his abilities.
Doing good is the only certainly happy action of a man's life.
The pleasure of doing good is the only one that never wears out.
[159]
The good we have received from a man requires us to be tender of the evil he does us.
Seeking others' good, we find our own.
What is the difference between being good and bad? The good do not yield to temptations, and the bad do.
The definition was so simple and so wise, that Leonard was more struck with it than he might have been by an elaborate sermon.
[160]
The sign of goodness in the young is to love the old; and in the old to love the young.
[161]
The Cross is the guarantee of the Gospel; therefore it has been its standard.
Leviticus xix. 16.—"Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people."
At a small town in ——shire lives a decent honest woman, who has for more than forty years gained her livelihood by washing in gentlemen's families. She gives the highest satisfaction to all her employers, and has, in several instances, been the whole of that time in the employ of the same families. Indeed, those whom she has once served never wish to part with her. She has one distinguishing excellency, it is this: through all this course of years,—forty—she has never been known, by either mistress or servant, to repeat in one house what was said or done in another.
Tale-bearers, as I said before, are just as bad as the tale-makers.
[162]
The inquisitive are the funnels of conversation; they do not take in anything for their own use, but merely to pass it to others.
What future misery ought they to endure who talk of what is not good in others.
If families have no sons devoted to letters, whence are the governors of the people to come?
(Necessity for general education.)
He governs best who governs least.
The king of one of the Friendly Islands became a Christian, and once went on board of a British vessel, where he was invited to dine with the officers. Observing he did not taste his food, the Captain inquired the cause; when the simple native replied, that he was waiting for the blessing to be asked. All felt rebuked, and the king was desired to say grace, which he did with becoming solemnity.
[163]
God judges your gratitude more by your hands than by your hymns.
Many a thanksgiving sermon mistakes glorification of self for gratitude to God.
[164]
It is much better to make presents in articles than in money, because gratitude for the latter is spent as soon as that is.
Gratitude, we find in the dictionary, but not often in the heart of man.
When the tree is felled, its shadows disappear.
(Desertion of the great by their parasites.)
(From a letter addressed to the Countess of Essex on the loss of her only daughter.)
"I know no duty in religion more generally agreed on, nor more justly required by God Almighty, than a perfect submission to His will in all things; nor do I think any disposition of mind can either please Him more, or become us better, than that of being satisfied with all He gives, and contented with all He takes away. None, I am sure, can be of more honor to God, nor of more ease to ourselves. For, if we consider Him as our Maker, we cannot contend with Him; if as our Father, we ought not to distrust Him: so that we may be confident whatever He does is intended for good; and whatever happens that we interpret otherwise, yet we can get nothing by repining, nor save anything by resisting.
Submission is the only way of reasoning between a creature and its Maker; and contentment in His will is the greatest duty we can pretend to, and the best remedy we can apply to all our misfortunes."
[165]
From the German of Anton Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick, 1667. Translation of Catherine Winkworth, 1855.
[166]
He grieves more than is necessary who grieves before it is necessary.
"A great Latin poet said nearly two thousand years ago:
They truly mourn that mourn without a witness.
There is no grief that time will not soften.
He mourns indeed who mourns when he's alone.
"Maybe the remark of a child I once overheard helped me to learn to complain and grumble as little as possible," said Dr. Burt. "While I was studying at Wilbraham Academy I spent a few days with this child's father, a good man but a chronic growler. We were all sitting in the parlor one night, when the question of food arose. The child, a little girl, told cleverly what each member of the household liked best. Finally it came to the father's turn to be described as to his favorite dish.
'And what do I like, Lucy, my pet?' he said, laughingly.
'You,' said the little girl, slowly—'well, papa, dear, you like most anything we haven't got.'"
Guilt is always cowardly.
[167]
Dr. Guthrie tells an anecdote in which he humorously introduces a Brechin citizen, alive in his youthful days:—"An honest countryman came one day to Mr. Linton (head master of the grammar school) with a halflin[807:A], a long, empty chap, who had taken it into his head that he would have some little learning. Said the father, 'Mr. Linton, ye see, my laddie's fond o' lear'[807:B], and I'm thinking o' makin' a scholar o' him.' 'But,' said Mr. Linton, looking at the youth, and not seeing any sign that there was much in him, 'What are you to make of him?' 'You see, Mr. Linton,' rejoined the father—and it showed how sound the old Scotchman was—'if he gets grace, we'll make a minister o' him!' 'Oh, but,' says Mr. Linton, 'if he does not get grace, what will you make of him then?' 'Weel, in that case,' said the parent, 'if he disna get grace, we'll just mak' a dominie o' him! '"
[807:A] Half-grown.
[807:B] Learning.
Dr. Guthrie to his Son: "I saw an adage yesterday, in a medical magazine, which is well worth your remembering and acting on, it is this wise saying of the great Lord Bacon's:—'Who asks much learns much.' I remember the day when I did not like by asking, to confess my ignorance. I have long given up that, and now seize on every opportunity of adding to my stock of knowledge."
[168]
Ha, is an exclamation denoting surprise or joy; ah, an exclamation expressive of pity or grief.
How use doth breed a habit in a man!—
Penn was once advising a man to leave off his habit of drinking intoxicating liquors.
"Can you tell me how to do it?" said the slave of his appetite.
"Yes," answered Penn. "It is just as easy as to open thy hand, friend."
"Convince me of that and I will promise, upon my honor, to do as you tell me."
"Well, my friend," said the great Quaker, "when thou findest any vessel of intoxicating liquor in thy hand, open the hand that grasps it before it reaches thy mouth, and thou wilt never be drunk again."
The man was so pleased with the plain advice that he followed it.
You need not wrestle and strive with the old habit, only just be persistent in forming the good one, and the bad one will take care of itself.
[169]
Habit is like a cable; we weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it.
No man is free who is a slave to any kind of useless habit.
Habit, if not resisted soon, becomes necessity.
A painter, desiring to paint a picture of Innocence, found a beautiful boy playing at the side of a stream, who became his model. He painted him kneeling, with his hands clasped in prayer. The picture was prized as a very beautiful one. Years passed away, and the artist became an old man. He had often thought of painting a counterpart, the picture of guilt, as a companion to the other; and at last he executed it. He went to a neighboring prison, and there selected the most degraded and repulsive man he could find. His body and eye were wasted; vice was visible in his very face. But what was the artist's surprise when, on questioning the man as to his history, he found that it was he who, as a lovely boy, had kneeled for him as the model of Innocence! Evil habits had gradually changed him, not only in heart and mind, but in face and form.
[170]
Old habits are hard to break; new habits are hard to make.
Taste may change; our inclinations never change.
Habits are soon assumed—acquired—but when we strive to strip them off,—if of long standing—'tis being flayed alive!
The hands are, by the very instincts of humanity, raised in prayer; clasped in affection; wrung in despair; pressed on the forehead when the soul is "perplexed in the extreme;" drawn inward, to invite; thrust forth objectively, to repel; the fingers point to indicate, and are snapped in disdain; the palm is laid upon the heart, in invocation of subdued feeling, and on the brow of the compassioned in benediction. The expressive capacity of the hands was never more strikingly displayed than in the orisons (prayer) of the deaf and dumb. Their teacher stood with closed eyes, and addressing the Deity by those signs made with the fingers which constitute a language for the speechless. [171]Around him were grouped more than a hundred mutes, following with reverent glances every motion. It was a visible, but not an audible, worship.
A dispute arose among three ladies as to which had the most beautiful hands. One sat by a stream, and dipped her hand into the water and held it up; another plucked strawberries until the ends of her fingers were pink; and a third gathered violets until her hands were fragrant. An old, haggard woman, passing by, asked, "Who will give me a gift, for I am poor?" all three denied her; but another who sat near, unwashed in the stream, unstained with fruit, unadorned with flowers or perfume, gave her a little gift, and satisfied the poor woman. Then the woman asked them what was the subject of their dispute; and they told her, and lifted up before her their beautiful hands. "Beautiful indeed!" she exclaimed, as she saw them. But when they asked her which was the most beautiful, she said: "It is not the hand that is washed clean in the brook; it is not the hand that is coloured with crimson tints; it is not the hand that is perfumed with fragrant flowers; but the hand that gives to the poor, that is the most beautiful."
[172]
Happiness consists in being perfectly satisfied with what we have got, and with what we haven't got.
Happiness consists not in possessing much, but in being content with what we possess. He who wants little, always has enough.
A cottage will hold as much happiness as would stock a palace.
With "gentleness" his own character, "comfort" in his house, and "good temper" in his wife, the earthly felicity of man may be said to be complete.
We are happy in this world just in proportion as we make others happy.
I think you the happiest couple in the world; for you are not only happy in one another, but happy in yourselves, and by yourselves.
Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven; and every countenance bright with smiles, and glowing [173]with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever-shining benevolence.
To rejoice in the happiness of others is to make it our own; to produce it, is to make it more than our own. There is happiness in the very wish to make others happy.
Unmixed happiness is not to be found in this world.
Hatred always hurts the hater most of all.
It is the nature of the human disposition to hate him whom you have injured.
I am almost frozen by the distance you are from me.
If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.
Health is rightly appreciated only when we are sick.
A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.
[174]
It is better to have less wealth and more health.
Health is so necessary to all duties, as well as pleasures of life, that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly.
The only way for a rich man to be healthy is, by exercise and abstinence, to live as if he were poor.
An innocent heart suspects no guile.
Dr. Mitchell of Philadelphia, in lecturing to his pupils upon the diseases of the heart, narrated an anecdote to prove that the expression "broken heart" was not merely figurative. On one occasion, in the early period of his life, he accompanied, as surgeon, a packet that sailed from Liverpool to one of the American ports. The captain frequently conversed with him respecting a lady who had promised to [175]become his bride on his return from that voyage. Upon this subject he evinced great warmth of feeling, and showed Dr. Mitchell some costly jewels, ornaments, etc., which he intended to present as bridal presents. On reaching his destination, he was abruptly informed that the lady had married some one else. Instantly the captain was observed to clap his hand to his breast, and fall heavily to the ground. He was taken up, and conveyed to his cabin on board the vessel. Dr. Mitchell was immediately summoned; but, before he reached the poor captain, he was dead. A postmortem examination revealed the cause of his unfortunate disease. His heart was found literally torn in twain! The tremendous propulsion of blood, consequent upon such a violent nervous shock, forced the powerful muscle tissues asunder, and life was at an end. The heart was broken.
Every heart has its secret sorrow, which the world knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold when he is only sad.
Some men's hearts are as great as the world, and still have no room in them to hold the memory of a wrong.
How small is the human heart, and yet even there, God enters in.
[176]
The Bitterness of Estrangement.—To be estranged from one whom we have tenderly and constantly loved, is one of the bitterest trials the heart can ever know.
There is no place where weeds do not grow, and there is no heart where errors are not to be found.
[178]
We open the hearts of others when we open our own.
Earth hath nothing more tender than a woman's heart, when it is the abode of piety.
The All-Seeing Eye, whom the sun, moon and stars obey, and under whose watchful care even comets perform their stupendous revolutions—pervades the inmost recesses of the human heart, and will reward us according to our merits.
There's many a good bit o' work done with a sad heart.
The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters. It is not sufficient for a kite's (bird of the hawk kind) dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it.
[179]
Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings; indeed nine times in ten it is so.
[180]
Many a man who prides himself on doing a cash business, regards his debts to Heaven with indifference.
"Of the positive joys of heaven we can form no conception; but its negative delights form a sufficiently attractive picture,—no pain; no thirst; no hunger; no horror of the past; no fear of the future; no failure of mental capacity; no intellectual deficiency; no morbid imaginations; no follies; no stupidities; but above all, no insulted feelings; no wounded affections; no despised love or unrequited regard; no hate, envy, jealousy, or indignation of or at others; no falsehood, dishonesty, dissimulation, hypocrisy, grief or remorse. In a word," said Professor Wilson, "to end where I began, no sin and no suffering."
[181]
A beautiful reply is recorded of a peasant, whose master was displaying to him the grandeur of his estates. Farms, houses, and forests were pointed out in succession, on every hand, as the property of the rich proprietor, who summed up finally by saying, "In short, all that you can see, in every direction, belongs to me." The poor man looked thoughtful for a moment; then, pointing up to heaven, solemnly replied, "And is that, also, thine?"
[183]
It is not enough to help an erring brother out of the mire,—we must help to get him upon a rock.
History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
My precept to all who build is, that the owner should be an ornament to the house, and not the house to the owner.
Having offered a prize for the best definition of "Home," London Tit-Bits recently received more than five thousand answers. Among those which were adjudged the best were the definitions as follows:
A world of strife shut out, a world of love shut in.
Home is the blossom of which heaven is the fruit.
[184] The best place for a married man after business hours.
Home is the coziest, kindliest, sweetest place in all the world; the scene of our purest earthly joys, and deepest sorrows.
The place where the great are sometimes small, and the small often great.
The father's kingdom, the children's paradise, the mother's world.
The ornaments of a home are the friends who frequent it.
God hath often a great share in a little house, and but a little share in a great one.
Home is the grandest of all institutions.
There's little pleasure in the house when our gudeman's awa'.
[185]
How many fine, well furnished and pretentious houses we now see around us, occupied and owned by successful people, in which there is hardly a market-basket full of books! Evidently showing that the material is of more importance than the intellectual.
We neglect the things which are placed before our eyes, and regardless of what is within our reach, we pursue whatever is remote. This is frequently and properly applied to the rage for visiting foreign countries, in those who are absolutely unacquainted with their own.
A man without a home is like a bird without a nest.
Many a home is nothing but a furnished house.
Travel is instructive and pleasant, but after all there is nothing so enjoyable as the independence and the luxury of one's own home. Travel is pleasant, but home is delightful!
Without hearts, there is no home.
[186]
A man unconnected is at home everywhere; unless he may be said to be at home nowhere.
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
[187]
It is a great happiness, if after being absent from home for a time you find no troubles awaiting your return.
Filling a house with bargains is apt to keep a couple from owning the house in which they place them.
This is the true nature of home—it is the place of Peace; the shelter not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt and division. In so far as it is not this, it is not home; so far as the anxieties of the outer life penetrate into it * * * it ceases to be home; it is then only a part of that outer world which you have roofed over and lighted fire in.
Beware of those who are homeless by choice! You have no hold on a human being whose affections are without a tap-root!
When I was a young man, there lived in our neighborhood one who was universally reported to be a very liberal man, and uncommonly upright in his dealings. When he had any of the produce of his farm to dispose of, he made it an invariable rule to give good measure, over good, rather more than could be required of him. One of his friends, observing him frequently doing so, questioned him why he did it, told him he gave too much, and said it would not be to his own advantage. Now mark the answer of this man. "God Almighty has permitted me but one journey through the world; and when gone I cannot return to rectify mistakes."
To be honest and faithful is to belong to the only aristocracy in the world—and the smallest.
[191]
On one occasion the first Napoleon being informed that a certain army contractor had cheated the government by supplying the troops with very inferior and insufficient food, sent for him to inquire into the affair. "How is this?" said the Emperor: "I understand you have been violating your contract." "Sire," was the answer, "I must live." "No," replied the monarch, "I do not see the must. It is not necessary that you should live; but it is necessary that you should do right."
Too much assertion gives ground of suspicion; truth and honesty have no need of loud protestations.
Can any one who was present ever forget the broken voice and streaming tears with which he (Dean Stanley) told the story of two little Scotch boys, Reuben and Sandy? The story was as follows: "On a cold winter day, a gentleman in Edinburgh had, out of pity, bought a box of matches from a poor, little, shivering boy, and, as he had no pence, had given him a shilling, of which the change was to be brought to his hotel. Hours passed by, and the boy did not return. Very late in the evening a mere child came to the hotel. 'Are you the gentleman that bought the matches frae Sandy?' 'Yes.' 'Well, then, here's fourpence out o' yer' shillin'; Sandy canna come. He's verra ill. A cart ran over him and knocked him doon, and he lost his bonnet and his matches and yer sevenpence, and baith his legs are broken, and the doctor says he'll dee; and that's a'.' And then, putting down the fourpence on the table, the [192]poor child burst into great sobs. 'So I fed the little man,' said the narrator; 'and I went with him to see Sandy. The two little things were living almost alone; their father and mother were dead. Poor Sandy was lying on a bundle of shavings. He knew me as soon as I came in, and said, 'I got the change, sir, and was coming back, and then the cart knocked me down, and both my legs were broken; and oh, Reuby, little Reuby, I am sure I am dying, and who will take care of you when I am gone? What will ye do?' 'I took his hand, and said I would always take care of Reuby. He understood me, and had just strength enough to look up as if to thank me; the light went out of his blue eyes. In a moment,
Honesty.—If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.
He, the Duke of Devonshire, was not a man of superior abilities, but was a man strictly faithful to his word. If, for instance, he had promised you an acorn, and none had grown that year in his woods, he would not have contented himself with that excuse: he would have sent to Denmark for it, so unconditional was he in keeping his word—so high as to the point of honor.
[193]
Honor is like the eye which cannot suffer the least injury without damage; it is a precious stone, the price of which is lessened by the least flaw.
A poor man claimed a house which a rich man had seized. The former produced his deeds and instruments to prove his right, but the latter had provided a number of witnesses; and, to support their evidence the more effectually, he secretly presented the cadi with a bag containing five hundred ducats, which the cadi received. When it came to a hearing, the poor man told his story and produced his writings, but lacked witnesses. The other, provided with witnesses, laid his whole stress on them and on his adversary's defective law, who could produce none; he, therefore, urged the cadi to give sentence in his favor. After the most pressing solicitations, the judge calmly drew from beneath his sofa the bag of five hundred ducats, which the rich man had given him as a bribe, saying to him very gravely, "You have been much mistaken in the suit; for if the poor man could produce no witnesses in confirmation of his right, I, myself, can furnish him with at least five hundred." He threw him the bag with reproach and indignation and decreed the house to the poor plaintiff.
What greater ornament is there to a son than a father's glory; or what to a father than a son's honorable conduct?
[194]
By Hook or Crook.—This saying is probably derived from a forest custom. Persons entitled to fuel wood in the king's forest were only authorized to take it of the dead wood or branches of trees in the forest, "with a cart, a hook, and a crook."
In all things it is better to hope than to despair.
He that lives upon hopes will die fasting.
Hoping is the finest sort of courage and you can never have enough of it.
Were it no for hope the heart wad break.
Our hopes often end in—hopes.
[195]
The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. The brightness of our life is gone.
Hope is sometimes a delusion; no hand can grasp a wave or a shadow.
Hope.—"Hast thou hope?" they asked of John Knox, when he lay a-dying. He spoke nothing, but "raised his finger and pointed upward," and so died.
All our sweetest hours fly fastest.
Though we should be grateful for good homes, there is no house like God's out-of-doors.
Boswell: "I happened to start a question, whether, when a man knows that some of his intimate friends are invited to the house of another friend with whom they are all equally intimate, he may join them without an invitation." Johnson: "No, sir, he is not to go when he is not invited. They may be invited on purpose to abuse him"—smiling.
[197]
Houses are built to live in more than to look on; therefore let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had.
It's an unhappy household where all the smiles are dispensed in society and all the frowns at home.
He has no religion who has no humanity.
Our humanity were a poor thing, but for the Divinity that stirs within us.
With the humble there is perpetual peace.
When you see an ear of corn holding itself very high (or a human head) you may be sure there is nothing in it. The full ear is the lowliest; the full head the most humble.
Humility is the root, mother, nurse, foundation, and bond of all virtue.
Hunger is the mother of impatience and anger.
They must hunger in frost who spring-time have lost.
[198]
The full stomach cannot comprehend the hungry one.
Wait is a hard word to the hungry.
Between husband and wife there should be no question as to material interests. All things should be in common between them without any distinction or means of distinguishing.
A Scottish youth learned, with a pious mother, to sing the old psalms that were then as household words to them in the kirk (church) and by the fireside. When he had grown up he wandered away from his native country, was taken captive by the Turks, and made a slave in one of the Barbary States. But he never forgot the songs of Zion, although he sang them in a strange land and to heathen ears.
[199] One night he was solacing himself in this manner when the attention of some sailors on board of a British man-of-war was directed to the familiar tune of "Old Hundred" as it came floating over the moonlit waves.
At once they surmised the truth that one of their countrymen was languishing away his life as a captive. Quickly arming themselves, they manned a boat and lost no time in effecting his release. What joy to him after eighteen long years passed in slavery! Is it strange that he ever afterwards cherished the glorious tune of "Old Hundred?"
The I is worthy of aversion when it is principally confined to the person who uses it.
[200]
Ideas are like beards; men do not have them until they grow up.
A young man idle, an old man needy.
Labor is the divine law of our existence; repose is desertion and suicide.
If any man wish to escape idleness let him fall in love.
Better lose your labor than your time in idleness.
Idleness must thank itself if it go barefoot.
[201]
Never remain ignorant for the want of asking questions.
Ignorance is often a voluntary misfortune.
Man's ills are in the main of his own seeking.
Those who imitate us we like much better than those who endeavor to equal us. Imitation is a sign of esteem, competition of envy.
[202]
Impertinence.—That man is guilty of impertinence who considers not the circumstances of time, or engrosses the conversation, or makes himself the subject of his discourse, or pays no regard to the company he is in.
Airs of importance are often the credentials of insignificance.
Live within your income. Always have something saved at the end of the year. Let your imports be more than your exports, and you'll never go far wrong.
All men are not susceptible to improvement.
It is better to have nothing to do than to be doing nothing.
Men of all ages have the same inclinations, over which reason exercises no control. Thus, wherever men are found, there are the same follies.
What madness to carry all one's income on one's back.
Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip.
[203]
Fickleness.—Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro, as this Mr. —— ——?
Mankind is made up of inconsistencies.
If any man can do without the world, it is certain the world can do quite as well without him.
Living to-day on tomorrow's salary is a sure sign of financial indigestion.
[204]
Seek not every quality in one individual.
That is the best gown that goes most up and down the house.
The smiles of infants are said to be the first-fruits of human reason.
A hound, who in the days of his youth and strength had never yielded to any beast of the forest, encountered in his old age a boar in the chase. He seized him boldly by the ear, but could not retain his hold because of the decay of his teeth, so that the boar escaped. His master, quickly coming up, fiercely abused the dog. The hound looked up and said: "It was not my fault, master; my spirit was as good as ever, but I could not help mine infirmities. I rather deserve to be praised for what I have been, than to be blamed for what I am."
[206]
"On a cold winter evening," said Dr. T. L. Cuyler recently, "I made my first call on a rich merchant in New York. As I left the door and the piercing gale swept in, I said:
"What an awful night for the poor?
"He said come back for a moment; and in a very few minutes brought me a roll of bank bills, and said:
"Please hand these for me to the poorest people you know.
"After a few days I wrote him the grateful thanks of the poor whom his bounty had relieved, and added:
"How is it that a man so kind to his fellow creatures has always been so unkind to his Saviour as to refuse him his heart?
"That sentence touched him to the core.
"He sent for me to come and talk to him, and speedily gave himself to Christ. He has been a most useful Christian ever since. But he told me I was the first person who had talked to him about his soul in twenty years. One hour of work did more for that man than the pulpit effort of a life-time."
It is reported that a young man being examined preparatory to joining the church was asked—"Under whose preaching?" The prompt reply—"I was converted under my mother's practising." Did any preacher ever utter so powerful a sermon as the young man embodied in those few words?
It is a common thing for men to hate the authors of their preferment, as the witnesses of their mean original.
[207]
At the first entrance into thy estate keep a low sail; thou mayest rise with honor; thou canst not decline without shame; he that begins as his father ended, will be apt to end as his father began.
One is keen to suspect a quarter from which one has once received a hurt. "A burnt child dreads the fire."
The noblest remedy for injuries is oblivion.
A man hurts himself by injuring me: what, then shall I therefore hurt myself by injuring him?
[208]
Ink—Described:—The colored slave that waits upon thought; a drop may make a million think.
The innocent are gay.
There is no real courage in innocence.
What narrow innocence it is for one to be good only according to the law.
It is only the vulgar who are always fancying themselves insulted. If a man treads on another's toe in good society, do you think it is taken as an insult?
I once met a man who had forgiven an injury. I hope some day to meet the man who has forgiven an insult.
The borough of Hull, in the reign of Charles II, chose Andrew Marvell, a young gentleman of little or no fortune, and maintained him in London for the service of the [209]public. With a view to bribe him, his old school-fellow, the Lord Treasurer Danby, went to him in his garret. At parting, the Lord Treasurer slipped into his hands an order upon the treasury for £1000, and then went into his chariot. Marvell looking at the paper, called after the treasurer—"My lord, I request another moment." They went up again to the garret, and the servant boy was called—"What had I for dinner yesterday?" "Don't you remember, sir, you had the little shoulder of mutton that you ordered me to bring from a woman in the market?" "Very right. What have I for dinner today?" "Don't you know, sir, that you made me lay up the blade-bone to broil?" "'Tis so; very right. Go away." "My lord, do you hear that? Andrew Marvell's dinner is provided; there's your piece of paper, I want it not. I knew the sort of kindness you intended. I live here to serve my constituents. The ministry may seek men for their purpose; I am not one."
Integrity is to be preferred to eloquence.
The integrity of men is to be measured by their conduct, not by their professions.
One of dull intellect cannot come in, nor go away, nor sit, nor rise, nor stand, like a man of sense.
God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.
[210]
Irresolution.—Don't stand shivering upon the bank; plunge in at once and have it over.
The wife of a distinguished man when asked where her jewels were, replied, "my jewels are my children, my husband, and his triumphs."
A lady who was very rich, and fond of pomp and show, after having displayed, in a visit she made, her diamonds, pearls, and richest jewels, earnestly desired Cornelia, the illustrious, to let her see her jewels also. Cornelia dexterously turned the conversation to another subject, to wait the return of her sons, who were gone to the public schools. When they returned and entered their mother's apartment, she said to the rich lady, pointing to them with her hand, "These are my jewels, and the only ornaments I admire."
[211]
When you first saw the light of this world you were crying, and your friends were full of joy;—Live, so, that when you die, your friends will cry and you will be full of joy.
Johnson: "It is commonly a weak man who marries for love." We then talked of marrying women of fortune; and I (Boswell) mentioned a common remark, that a man may be, upon the whole, richer by marrying a woman with a very small portion, because a woman of fortune will be proportionally expensive; whereas a woman who brings none will be very moderate in expenses. Johnson: "Depend upon it, Sir, this is not true. A woman of fortune, being used to the handling of money, spends it judiciously; but a woman who gets the command of money for the first time upon her marriage, has such a gust in spending it, that she throws it away with great profusion."
[212]
Never risk a joke, even the least offensive in its nature and the most common, with a person who is not well-bred, or possessed of sense to comprehend it.
Sir Matthew Hale was very exact and impartial in his administration of justice. One of the first peers of England went once to his chamber and told him—"That having a suit in law to be tried before him, he was there to acquaint him with it, that he might the better understand it when he should come to be heard in court." Upon which Sir Matthew interrupted him, and said—"He did not deal fairly to come to his chamber about such affairs, for he never received any information of causes but in open court, where both parties were to be heard alike," so he would not suffer him to go on. Whereupon his grace (for he was a Duke) went away not a little dissatisfied, and complained of it to the king, as a rudeness that was not to be endured. But his majesty bade him content himself that he was no worse used, and said—"He verily believed he would have used himself no better, if he had gone to solicit him in any of his own causes."
When we are too young our judgment is at fault; so also when we are too old.
Give every one the benefit of a doubt. You might be sadly in need of it yourself some day!
[213]
Gently to hear, kindly to judge.
We shall be judged, not by what we might have been, but what we have been.
He hears but half, that hears one party only.
Any time is the proper time for saying what is just.
Justice and truth may sleep but will never die.
Habits of justice are a valuable possession.
Justice means that standard or boundary of right which enables us to render to every man his just due without distinction.
"I expect" said one, "to pass thro' this world but once. If therefore there be any kindness I can do, or show, to my fellow-men, let me do it now, as I shall not pass this way again."
[214]
Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.
Kindness has converted more sinners than either zeal, eloquence, or learning.
A long delay in kindness takes the kindness all away.
To remind a man of a kindness conferred is little less than a reproach.
In the Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1797, published in London, there appears a letter which shows Benjamin Franklin, the philosopher, in the character of a creditor. The letter, which was written in Paris, is as follows:—
April 22, 1784.
I send you herewith a bill for ten louis d'ors. I do not pretend to give such a sum. I only lend it to you. When you shall return to your country you cannot fail of getting into some business that will in time enable you to pay all your debts. In that case, when you meet with another honest man in similar distress you must pay me by lending this sum to him, enjoining him to discharge the debt by a like operation when he shall be able, and shall meet with such another opportunity. I hope it may thus go through many hands before it meets with a knave to stop its progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money. I am not rich enough to afford much in good works, and so am obliged to be cunning and make the most of a little.
[215]
A Scotch Highlander was taken prisoner by a tribe of Indians; his life was about to be sacrificed, when the chief adopted him as his son. They carried him into the interior; he learnt their language, assumed their habits, and became skillful in the use of their arms. After a season the same tribe began their route to join the French army, at that time opposed to the British. It was necessary to pass near to the British lines during the night. Very early in the morning, and it was spring, the old chief roused the young Highlander from his repose: he took him to an eminence, and pointed out to him the tents of his countrymen. The old man appeared to be dreadfully agitated, and there was a keen restlessness in his eye. After a pause—"I lost," said he, "my only son in a battle with your nation; are you the only son of your father? And do you think that your father is yet alive?" The young man replied, "I am the only son of my father, and I hope that my father is yet alive." They stood close to a beautiful magnolia in full blossom. The prospect was grand and enchanting, and all its charms were crowned by the sun, which had fully emerged from the horizon. The old chief, looking steadfastly at his companion, exclaimed: "Let thy heart rejoice at the beauty of the scene! To me it is as the desert; but you are free; return to your countrymen, revisit your father that he may again rejoice when he sees the sun rise in the morning, and the trees blossom in the spring!"
[216]
Little acts of kindness are stowed away in the heart, like bags of lavender in a drawer, to sweeten every object around them.
A good man that has done a kindness never proclaims it, but does another as soon as he can; much like the vine which is satisfied by being fruitful in its kind, and bears a bunch of grapes without expecting thanks for it.
Returned Kindness.—When the country near Albany was newly settled, an Indian came to the inn at Lichfield, and asked for a night's shelter, at the same time confessing that from failure in hunting he had nothing to pay. The hostess drove him away with reproachful epithets, and as the Indian was retiring sorrowfully,—there being no other inn for many a weary mile,—a man who was sitting by directed the hostess to supply his wants, and promised to pay her. As soon as his supper was ended, the Indian thanked his benefactor, and said he would some day repay him. Several years thereafter the settler was taken a prisoner by a hostile tribe, and carried off to Canada. However, his life [217]was spared, though he himself was detained in slavery. But one day an Indian came to him, and giving him a musket, bade the captive follow him. The Indian never told where they were going, nor what was his object; but day after day the captive followed his mysterious guide, till one afternoon they came suddenly on a beautiful expanse of cultivated fields, with many houses rising amongst them. "Do you know that place?" asked the Indian. "Ah, yes—it is Lichfield!" and whilst the astonished exile had not recovered his surprise and amazement, the Indian exclaimed—"And I am the starving Indian on whom at this very place you took pity. And now that I have paid for my supper, I pray you go home!"
Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness, is a valuable part of the business of life.
A more glorious victory cannot be gained over another man than this: that when the injury began on his part, the kindness shall begin on ours.
[218]
Whoever knows how to return a kindness he has received must be a friend above all price.
Write injuries in the dust and kindness in marble.
The seal that stamps many a future.
A woman's most effective argument.
Woman's passport to her husband's purse.
A wireless message from the lips to the heart.
A kiss of the lips does not always touch the heart.
[1051:A] Won.
Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in an advanced age; and if we do not plant it while young, it will give us no shade when we grow old.
Ask the young people: they know everything!
A Persian philosopher being asked by what method he had acquired so much knowledge, replied, "By not being prevented by shame from asking questions respecting things of which I was ignorant."
Knowledge is not gained on a bed of roses.
If you have knowledge let others light their candles at it.
Men may acquire knowledge, but not wisdom. Some of the greatest fools the world has known have been learned men.
[220]
I have never yet found a man who did not know something of which I was ignorant.
If we do not plant it (knowledge) when young, it will give us no shade when we are old.
Knowledge without practice is like a glass eye, all for show, and nothing for use.
Johnson:—I remember very well when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me,—"Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task."
The beauty and blessedness of labor are finely presented by John Greenleaf Whittier:—
Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.
The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of all pleasures.
I have also seen the world, and after long experience have discovered that ennui is our greatest enemy, and remunerative labor our most lasting friend.
Some relaxation is necessary to people of every degree; the head that thinks, and the hand that labors, must have some little time to recruit their diminished powers.
None so little enjoy life, and are such burdens to themselves, as those who have nothing to do. The active only have the true relish of life. He who knows not what it is to labor, knows not what it is to enjoy. It is exertion that renders rest delightful, and sleep sweet, and undisturbed.
[222]
Two old farmers were walking up a road near Dunfermline, when one of the pair, shading his eyes from the sun, pointed to a distant field and said:
"I wonder if that figure over there is a scarecrow."
He paused and considered the matter for a while, and then, in a satisfied tone, concluded:
"Yes, it must be a scarecrow; it's not moving."
But the other Scot had a sharper pair of eyes, and perhaps a better understanding of human nature.
"No," he said, dryly, "it's not a scarecrow; it's only a man working by the day."
The Rev. Mr. Berridge being once visited by a loquacious young lady, who, forgetting the modesty of her sex, and the superior gravity of an aged divine, engrossed all the conversation of the interview with small talk concerning herself. When she rose to retire, he said, "Madam, before you withdraw, I have one piece of advice to give you; and that is, when you go into company again, after you have talked half an hour without intermission, I recommend it to you to stop awhile, and see if any other of the company has anything to say."
Many hardships endured by students attending university or college in Scotland have been brought to light from time to time. A student of Anderson's Medical College some years ago fulfilled the duties of lamplighter during his spare [223]hours in a neighboring burgh. He had no other income than the few shillings he received weekly for lighting, extinguishing and cleaning the burgh lamps, and from this he paid his college fees and kept himself fairly respectable. On one occasion he applied for an increase of wages, and was called before the committee. One of the bailies remarked that an able-bodied healthy-looking young man like the applicant, might find some other employment instead of wasting his time as he was doing. The application for an increase was refused. One may conceive the bailie's surprise at a subsequent meeting when the town clerk read a letter from the lamplighter, tendering his resignation, as he had passed his final examination as a fully qualified doctor.
Ah! how sweet it is to remember—the long, long ago.
Talking of the origin of language,—Johnson: "It must have come by inspiration. A thousand, nay, a million of children could not invent a language. While the organs are pliable, there is not understanding enough to form a language; by the time that there is understanding enough, the organs are become stiff. We know that after a certain age we cannot learn to pronounce a new language. No foreigner who comes to England when advanced in life, ever pronounces English tolerably well; at least such instances are very rare. When I maintain that language must have come by inspiration, I do not mean that inspiration is required for rhetoric, and all the beauties of language; for when once man has language, we can conceive that he may gradually form modifications of it. I mean only that inspiration seems to me to be necessary to give man the faculty of [224]speech; to inform him that he may have speech; which I think he could no more find out without inspiration than cows or hogs would think of such a faculty."
Laughter.—To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to men before the fortieth day from his birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of precocity.
A good laugh is sunshine in a house.
John Dryden said,—"It is a good thing to laugh, and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness, and of health."
He who laughs overmuch may have an aching heart.
The vulgar laugh and seldom smile; whereas well-bred people often smile and seldom laugh.
Laughing is not always a proof that the mind is at ease, or in composure.
Agree if possible, for the law is costly.
[225]
The law's delay, the insolence of office.
Law is sometimes like a mouse-trap; easy to enter, but not easy to get out of.
To go to law is for two persons to kindle a fire at their own cost to warm others, and singe themselves to cinders; and because they cannot agree as to what is truth and equity, they will both agree to unplume themselves, that others may be decorated with their feathers.
He that goes to law for a sheep will be apt to lose a cow.
In a lawsuit nothing is certain but the expense.
The Talmud says that when a man once asked Shamai to teach him the law in one lesson, Shamai drove him away in anger. He then went to Hillel with the same request. Hillel said, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. This is the whole law; the rest merely commentaries upon it."
Two go to law; a third, generally, bears off the spoil.
A man from the country applied lately to a respectable solicitor in this town for legal advice. After detailing the circumstances of the case, he was asked if he had stated the facts exactly as they occurred. "Ou, ay, sir," rejoined the applicant, "I thought it best to tell you the plain truth; ye can put the lees till't yoursel'."
Lawyers' gowns are lined with the wilfulness of their clients.
Some lawyers have the knack of converting poor advice into good coin.
Laziness grows on people; it begins in cobwebs and ends in iron chains.
No man is so learned, but he may be taught; neither is anyone so illiterate, but he may teach.
The chief art of learning is to attempt but little at a time.
[228]
One pound of learning requires ten of common sense to apply it.
Who swallows quick, can chew but little. (Applied to learning.)
After the Civil War many offers of places of honor and fame came to General Robert E. Lee. He refused them all, says Thomas Nelson Page, in his biography of the soldier. The only position which he finally did accept, was the presidency of Washington College,—now Washington and Lee University, at Lexington, Virginia, with a small salary.
On one of these occasions, Lee was approached with the tender of the presidency of an insurance company, at a salary of fifty thousand dollars a year. He declined it, saying that it was work with which he was not familiar.
[229] "But, general," said the representative of the insurance company, "you will not be expected to do any work. What we wish, is the use of your name."
"Do you not think," said General Lee, "that if my name is worth fifty thousand dollars a year, I ought to be very careful about taking care of it?"
Colonel Chesney, of the British Army, said of R. E. Lee: "The day will come when the evil passions of the great civil war will sleep in oblivion, and the North and South do justice to each other's motives, and forget each other's wrongs. Then history will speak with clear voice of the deeds done on either side, and the citizens of the whole Union do justice to the memories of the dead, and place above all others the name of the great Southern chief. In strategy, mighty; in battle, terrible; in adversity, as in prosperity, a hero indeed; with the simple devotion to duty and the rare purity of the ideal Christian Knight,—he joined all the kingly qualities of a leader of men. It is a wondrous future indeed that lies before America; but in her annals of the years to come, as in those of the past, there will be found few names that can rival in unsullied lustre that of the heroic defender of his native Virginia,—Robert Edward Lee."
He that visits the sick, in the hope of a legacy, I look upon him in this to be no better than a raven, that watches a weak sheep only to peck out the eyes of it.
[230]
Leisure is sweet to those who have earned it, but burdensome to those who get it for nothing.
Letters which are sometimes warmly sealed, are often but coldly opened.
The office of liberality consisteth in giving with judgment.
[231]
Libraries are the wardrobes of literature.
A lie has no legs and cannot stand; but it has wings, and can fly far and wide.
Equivocation is first cousin to a lie.
One lie must be thatched with another, or it will soon rain through.
Life is a journey, and they only who have traveled a considerable way in it, are fit to direct those who are setting out.
I have found by experience that many who have spent all their lives in cities, contract not only an effeminacy of habit but of thinking.
[232]
At twenty years of age, the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.
I find one of the great things in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.
The husband and the wife must, like two wheels, support the chariot of domestic life, otherwise it must stop.
The following well-merited rebuke by a slave to his master, shows that persons occupying mean positions in this life are sometimes superior to those above them.
A gentleman in the enjoyment of wealth, and of high social standing, and wholly given up to the pleasures of this world, knowing that one of his slaves was religious, and happening to see him in the garden near the porch of his house, called him up rather to amuse himself than for any serious purpose. When the slave came to him, cap in hand, he said, "Tom, what do you think of me; do you believe I will be one of the elect when I die?"
With a low obeisance, the slave replied: "Master, I never knew any one to be elected who was not a candidate."
[233] The master, struck with the gentle but just rebuke of the man's answer, turned and entered his mansion, and from that hour became a candidate, living thereafter a good life.
Every period of life has its peculiar prejudices: whoever saw old age, that did not applaud the past, and condemn the present times?
In life, as in chess, forethought wins.
Yes and No are, for good or evil, the giants of life.
An old gentleman, accounting recently for his age and his happiness, said: "It is quite simple. Lead a natural life, eat what you want,—but of course prudence must be exercised—and walk on the sunny side of the street."
It is to live twice, when we can enjoy the recollections of our former life.
Are we to have a continuous performance by "I did" and "I didn't"?
Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain.
[235]
No one sees what is before his feet; we all gaze at the stars.
How small a portion of our life it is, that we really enjoy. In youth, we are looking forward to things that are to come; in old age, we are looking backwards to things that are gone past; in manhood, although we appear indeed to be more occupied in things that are present, yet even that is too often absorbed in vague determinations to be vastly happy on some future day, when we have time.
[237]
The acts of this life are the destiny of the next.
Life is too short to be spent in nursing animosities, or in registering wrongs.
[238]
We find life exactly what we put in it.
As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.
Be ready at all times to listen to others.
A man with an empty stomach is a poor listener.
The only thing certain about litigation is it's uncertainty.
What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?
[239]
Where you are not appreciated, you cannot be loved.
When people fall in love at first sight, they often live to regret that they didn't take another look.
Where there is love, all things interest; where there is indifference, minute details are tedious, disbelief is cherished, and trifles are apt to be thought contemptible.
If he loves me, the merit is not mine; my fault will be if he ceases.
[240]
To a man, the disappointment of love may occasion some bitter pangs: it wounds some feelings of tenderness—it blasts some prospects of felicity; but he is an active being; he may dissipate his thoughts in the whirl of varied occupation, or may plunge into the tide of pleasure; or, if the scene of disappointment be too full of painful associations, he can shift his abode at will, and taking, as it were, the wings of the morning, can "fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, and be at rest."
But woman's is comparatively a fixed, a secluded and a meditative life. She is more the companion of her own thoughts and feelings; and if they are turned to ministers of sorrow, where shall she look for consolation? Her lot is to be wooed and won; and if unhappy in her love, her heart is her world—is like some fortress that has been captured, and sacked, and abandoned, and left desolate.
Shall I confess it?—I believe in broken hearts, and the possibility of dying of disappointed love! I do not, however, consider it a malady often fatal to my own sex; but I firmly believe that it withers down many a lovely woman into an early grave. So is it the nature of woman to hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection.
To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.
Dr. Doddridge one day asked his little daughter how it was that everybody loved her: "I know not," said she, "unless it be that I love everybody."
He who is loved by man is loved by God.
Love is the only passion that justifies a perpetual hyperbole, i. e., poetic exaggeration.
There is an atmosphere in the letters of those we love which we alone—we who love—can feel.
Love is like the moon; when it does not increase, it decreases.
[243]
We are easily duped by those whom we love.
"Martha, does thee love me?" asked a quaker youth of one at whose shrine his heart's fondest feelings had been offered up.
"Why, Seth," answered she, "we are commanded to love one another, are we not?"
"Aye, Martha; but does thee regard me with that feeling that the world calls love?"
"I hardly know what to tell thee, Seth; I have greatly feared that my heart was an erring one. I have tried to bestow my love on all; but I have sometimes thought, perhaps, that thee was getting rather more than thy share."
[244]
No disguise can long conceal love where it is, nor feign it where it is not.
The moment one is in love one becomes so amiable.
The secret of being loved is in being lovely, and the secret of being lovely, is in being unselfish.
[245]
A lover never sees the faults of the one he loves till the enchantment is over.
[246]
Is it possible a man can be so changed by love that one would not know him for the same person?
Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to be.
[247]
Love is loveliest when embalm'd in tears.
Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections, as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.
"My dear Veit," said Luther, "I have said it often and I repeat it again, whoever would know God aright and speculate concerning Him without danger, must look into the manger, and learn first of all to know the Son of the Virgin Mary, born at Bethlehem, lying in His mother's bosom or hanging upon the cross; then will he understand who God is. This will not only then be not terrible, but on the contrary most attractive and comforting. Guard yourself, my dear Veit, from the proud thought of climbing into heaven without this ladder, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ in His humanity. As the Word simple describes Him, stick to this, and do not permit reason to divert you from it; then will you apprehend God aright! I wish to know of no other God than the God who hung upon the cross, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and of the Virgin Mary."
Luther was remarkable for his contempt of riches, though few men had a greater opportunity of obtaining them. The Elector of Saxony offered him the produce of a mine at Sneberg, but he nobly refused it, lest it should prove an injury to him.
[248]
Dr. Johnson:—"A man gives half a guinea for a dish of green peas. How much gardening does this occasion? How many laborers must the competition, to have such things early in the market, keep in employment? You will hear it said very gravely, 'Why was not the half-guinea, thus spent in luxury, given to the poor? To how many might it have afforded a good meal? Alas! has it not gone to the industrious poor, whom it is better to support, than the idle poor? You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity."
He who is too much afraid of being duped has lost the power of being magnanimous.
A truly great man never puts away the simplicity of the child.
He who does not advance, goes backward; recedes.
A man who is amiable will make almost as many friends as he does acquaintances.
An angry man is often angry with himself when he returns to reason.
[250]
An old man answering to the name of Joseph Wilmot, was brought before the police court. His clothes looked as if they had been bought second hand in his youthful prime.
"What business?"
"None; I'm a traveler."
"A vagabond, perhaps?"
"You are not far wrong: the difference between the two, is, that the latter travel without money, and the former without brains."
"Where have you traveled?"
"All over the continent."
"For what purpose?"
"Observation."
"What have you observed?"
"A little to commend, much to censure, and very much to laugh at."
"Humph! What do you commend?"
"A handsome women that will stay at home, an eloquent divine that will preach short sermons, a good writer that will not write too much, and a fool that has seen enough to hold his tongue."
"What do you censure?"
"A man who marries a girl for fine clothing, a youth who studies law while he has the use of his hands, and the people who elect a drunkard to office."
"What do you laugh at?"
"At a man who expects his position to command the respect which his personal qualities and qualifications do not merit."
He was dismissed.
Every man is a volume, if you know how to read him.
[251]
As no man is born without faults, the best is he who has the fewest.
Burns, the poet, when in Edinburgh one day, recognized an old farmer friend, and courteously saluted him, and crossed the street to have a chat; some of his new Edinburgh friends gave him a gentle rebuke, to which he replied:—"It was not the old great-coat, the scone bonnet, that I spoke to, but the man that was in them."
Man has been thrown naked into the world, feeble, incapable of flying like the bird, running like the stag, or creeping like the serpent; without means of defense, in the midst of terrible enemies armed with claws and stings; without means to brave the inclemency of the seasons, in the midst of animals protected by fleece, by scales, by furs; without shelter, when all others have their den, their hole, their shell; without arms, when all about him are armed against him. And yet he has demanded of the lion his cave for a lodging and the lion retires before his eyes; he has despoiled the bear of his skin, and of it made his first clothing; he has plucked the horn from the bull, and this is his first drinking-cup; then he has dug even into the bowels of the earth, to seek there the instruments of his future strength; from a rib, a sinew, and a reed, he has made arms; and the eagle, who, seeing him at first in his weakness and nakedness, prepares to seize him as his prey, struck in mid-air, falls dead at his feet, only to furnish a feather to adorn his head. Among animals, is there one, who under such conditions could have preserved life? Let us for a moment separate the workman from his work, God from [252]nature. Nature has done all for this insect,—of which they had been discoursing,—nothing for man. It is that man should be the product of intelligence rather than of matter; and God, in granting him this celestial gift, this ray of light from the divine fire, created him feeble and unprotected, that he might make use of it, that he might be constrained to find in himself the elements of his greatness.
Wherever a man goes to dwell his character goes with him.
Our acts make or mar us,—we are the children of our own deeds.
[253]
Direct not him, whose way himself will choose.
He that can please nobody, is not so much to be pitied as he that nobody can please.
To quarrel with a drunken man is harming the absent.
Goethe said that there is no man so commonplace that a wise man may not learn something from him. Sir Walter Scott could not travel in a coach without gleaning some information or discovering some new trait of character in his companions.
He who stands high is seen from afar.
[254]
I confess that increasing years bring with them an increasing respect for men who do not succeed in life, as those words are commonly used.
Beauty is good for women, firmness for men.
A man who is always forgetting his best intentions may be said to be a thoroughfare of good resolutions.
It is a matter of the simplest demonstration, that no man can be really appreciated, but by his equal or superior.
It takes a great man to make a good listener.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising every time we fall. A gem is not polished without rubbing, nor is a man perfected without trials.
Be content with the day as it is; look for the good in everything.
An honest man is believed without an oath, for his reputation swears for him.
[255]
A thread will tie an honest man better than a rope will do a rogue.
If there is any person to whom you unfortunately feel a dislike that is the person of whom you ought never to speak.
He is not yet born who can please everybody.
Fenimore Cooper asserts, in one of his books, that there is "an instinctive tendency in men to look at any man who has become distinguished." Said Carlyle: "True, surely, and moreover, an instinctive desire in men to become distinguished and be looked at, too!"
It is not what he has, nor even what he does, which directly expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.
Man is not allowed to know what will happen—tomorrow.
[256]
A horse is not known by his furniture, but by his qualities; so men should be esteemed for virtue, not wealth.
The best club for a married man is an armchair in front of a big fire-place at home.
Men take each other's measure when they meet for the first time.
Does one see wolves taking to the road in order to plunder other wolves, as does inhuman man?
No man can end with being superior, who will not begin with being inferior.
No man is always wise.
An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him.
[257]
They that stand high have many blasts to shake them.
Men possessed with an idea cannot be reasoned with.
The life of an old man is like a lighted candle in a draft.
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor the man perfected without trials.
Some men remain poor because they haven't enough friends, and some because they have too many.
A poor man, though living in the crowded mart, no one will notice; a rich man, though dwelling amid the remote hills, his distant relative will visit.
Art may make a suit of clothes, but nature must produce the man.
[258]
The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never for himself.
It is not good that man should be alone.
Silent men, like still waters, are sometimes deep and dangerous.
Man is a social creature, and we are made to be helpful to each other; we are like the wheels of a watch, that none of them can do their work alone, without the concurrence of the rest.
Strive not too anxiously for thy support, thy Maker will provide. No sooner is a man born, than milk for his support streams from the breast.
He that swells in prosperity will be sure to shrink in adversity.
The difference, he, Johnson, observed between a well-bred and an ill-bred man is this: One immediately attracts your liking, the other your aversion. You love the one till you find reason to dislike him; you dislike the other till you find reason to love him.
[259]
He is a general disturber of other's peace and serenity. Everybody with whom he has to do is thrown from time to time into a state of fever; he is systematically late; regular only in his irregularity.
No is a surly, honest fellow, speaks his mind rough and round at once.
A true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star.
He had nothing and was content. He became rich and is discontented.
Thou canst mould him into any shape like soft clay.
None but the well-bred man knows how to confess a fault, or acknowledge himself in error.
A well-bred man is always sociable and complaisant.
[260]
The question is asked concerning the property of every rich man who dies; and it was answered very happily by Cloots, who was executor upon the estate of the late Mr. Snodgrass. His neighbor, Mr. Nailroad, was an exceedingly inquisitive man. The day after the funeral, Nailroad visited Cloots, and, with an inspecting face, began to question him. "Mr. Cloots," says he, "if it is not improper, will you inform me how much my particular friend Snodgrass left?" "Certainly," said Cloots:—"He left every cent he was worth in the world, and didn't take a copper with him."
If you would know a man truly, know him off duty, when the duties of the day are over and he has left his post.
Men who want to do everything their own way must make a world to suit them, for it can not be done in this.
The man whom I call deserving the name, is one whose thoughts and exertions are for others, rather than himself.
If a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the wilderness, the world will make a beaten path to his door.
[261]
He who doth not speak an unkind word to his fellow-creatures is master of the whole world.
Those who think must govern those who toil.
The wise man shapes himself according to his environments, as water to the shape of the vessel into which it is poured.
At the working-man's house hunger may look in, but dare not enter.
I am almost frozen by the distance you are from me.
Manners carry the world for the moment; character, for all time.
Behavior is a mirror in which every one displays his image.
The distinguishing trait of people accustomed to good society is a calm, imperturbable quiet, which pervades all their actions and habits, from the greatest to the least. They eat in quiet, move in quiet, live in quiet, and lose their wife, or even their money in quiet; while others cannot take up either a spoon, or an affront, without making such an amazing noise about it.
[262]
Manners are the shadows of virtue.
Vulgar people can't be still.
In society want of sense is not so unpardonable as want of manners.
The wealthy and the noble when they expend large sums in decorating their houses with the rare and costly efforts of genius, with busts, and with cartoons from the pencil of a Raphael, are to be commended, if they do not stand still here, but go on to bestow some pains and cost, that the master himself be not inferior to the mansion, and that the owner be not the only thing that is little, amidst everything else that is great. The house may draw visitors, but it is the possessor alone that can detain them.
Marriage is the bloom or blight of all men's happiness.
There is no one thing more lovely in this life, more full of the divine courage, than when a young maiden, from her past life, from her happy childhood, when she rambled over every field and moor around her home; when a mother anticipated her wants and soothed her little cares, when her brothers and sisters grew from merry playmates, to loving, trustful friends; from Christmas gatherings and romps, [263]the summer festivals in bower or garden; from the secure backgrounds of her childhood, and girlhood, and maidenhood, looks out into the dark and unilluminated future away from all that, and yet unterrified, undaunted, leans her fair cheek upon her lover's breast, and whispers—"Dear heart! I cannot see, but I believe. The past was beautiful, but the future I can trust—with thee!"
Advice on Marriage.—An Athenian who was hesitating whether to give his daughter in marriage to a man of worth with a small fortune, or to a rich man who had no other recommendation, went to consult Themistocles on the subject. "I would bestow my daughter," said Themistocles, "upon a man without money, rather than upon money without a man."
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.
[264]
A man of experience, declares that men, like plants, adapt themselves to conditions. To illustrate his theory, he told of two men, one of whom said to the other, at a pleasantly critical period:
"Do you think two can live as cheaply as one?"
"Before my marriage I thought they could," was the guarded reply.
"And afterward?" anxiously.
"Afterward I found they had to."
Boswell: "Pray, sir, do you not suppose that there are fifty women in the world, with any one of whom a man may be as happy, as with any one woman in particular?" Johnson: "Ay, sir, fifty thousand." Boswell: "Then, sir, you are not of opinion with some who imagine that certain men and certain women are made for each other, and that they cannot be happy if they miss their counterparts." Johnson: "To be sure not, sir. I believe marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration of the characters and circumstances, without the parties having any choice in the matter."
[265]
When a man and woman are married their romance ceases and their history commences.
Marriage somewhat resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated, often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.
Marry in your own Rank. Wise was the man, ay, wise indeed, who first weighed well this maxim, and with his tongue published it abroad, that to marry in one's own class is best by far, and that a peasant should woo the hand neither of any that have waxed wanton by riches, nor of such as pride themselves in high-traced lineage.
Whom first we love, you know one seldom weds.
A pious elder once said to his son in view of marriage,—"My boy, piety is essential for the life to come, but good temper is the great requisite for happiness in this world."
The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.
If God had designed woman as man's master, He would have taken her from his head; if as his slave, He would have taken her from his feet; but as He designed her for his companion and equal, He took her from his side.
The following was written on a card by an old friend of a young lady's when he sent her some flowers on the eve of [267]her wedding day:—"I have sent you a few flowers to adorn the dying moments of your single life."
Let him who weds, wed character, not money.
A girl should look happy because she is not married; a wife because she is.
A Gentleman, but a Fool.—Chief Justice Marshall once found himself suddenly brought to a halt by a small tree which intervened between the front wheel and the body of his buggy. Seeing a servant at a short distance, he asked him to bring an axe and cut down the tree. The servant—a colored man—told the judge that there was no occasion for cutting down the tree, but just to back the buggy. Pleased at the good sense of the fellow, Judge Marshall told him that he would leave him something at the inn hard by, where he intended to stop, having then no small change. In due time the man applied, and a dollar was handed him. Being asked if he knew who it was that gave him the dollar, he replied: "No, sir: I concluded he was a gentleman by his leaving the money, but I think he is the biggest fool I ever saw."
If thou art a master, be sometimes blind, and sometimes deaf.
[269]
Let no man be the servant of another who can be his own master.
Our master is our—enemy.
Applicable to those who have formed a useless habit.
Matrimony.—He hath tied a knot with his tongue that he cannot untie with all his teeth.
Numbers, xxxvi. 6,—"Let them marry to whom they think best; only to the family of the tribe of their fathers shall they marry."
Mr. John Martin used to give two advices, both to his children and others, in reference to marriages. One was, "Keep within the bounds of your profession." The other was, "Look at suitableness in age, quality, education, temper, etc." He used to observe, from Genesis, ii, 18, "I will make him a help-meet for him;" that there is not meetness, there will not be much help. He commonly said to his children, with reference to their choice in marriage, "Please God, and please yourselves, and you shall never displease me;" and greatly blamed those parents who conclude matches for their children without their consent. He sometimes mentioned the saying of a pious gentlewoman, who had many daughters.—"The care of most people is how to get good husbands for their daughters; but my care is to fit my daughters to be good wives, and then let God provide for them."
[270]
Epigram: Read alternate lines,—1,3; 2,4; 5,7; 6,8.
The following admirable lines were inscribed upon a golden crown having five sides, which was found in the tomb of Noosherwan.
First Side.—"Consider the end before you begin, and before you advance, provide a retreat.
Give not unnecessary pain to any man, but study the happiness of all.
[271] Ground not your dignity upon your power to hurt others."
Second Side.—"Take counsel before you commence any measure, and never trust its execution to the inexperienced.
Sacrifice your property for your life, and your life for your religion.
Spend your time in establishing a good name, and if you desire fortune, learn contentment."
Third Side.—"Grieve not for that which is broken, stolen, burnt or lost.
Never give order in another man's house; accustom yourself to eat your bread at your own table."
Fourth Side.—"Take not a wife from a bad family, and seat not thyself with those who have no shame.
Keep thyself at a distance from those who are incorrigible in bad habits, and hold no intercourse with that man who is insensible to kindness.
Convert not the goods of others.
Be sensible of your own value, estimate justly the worth of others: and war not with those who are far above thee in fortune."
Fifth Side.—"Be envious of no man, and avoid being out of temper, or thy life will pass in misery.
Respect and protect the females of thy family."
The meals which are eaten in company are always better digested than those which are taken in solitude.
The poor man must walk to get meat for his stomach, the rich man to get a stomach for his meat.
[272]
Johnson said melancholy people were apt to fly to intemperance for relief, but that it sunk them much deeper in misery. He observed, that laboring men who work hard and live sparingly, are seldom or never troubled with low spirits.
Everyone complains of his memory, and no one complains of his judgment.
By attention ideas are registered on the memory.
An old deacon was accustomed to offer this prayer: "Help us to forget what we ought not to remember, and to remember what we ought not to forget."
So many we find to be well fed but ill taught.
The Greatest Men Arose from the People.—The greatest scholars, poets, orators, philosophers, warriors, statesmen, inventors, and improvers of the arts, arose from the people. If we had waited till courtiers had invented the arts of printing, clockmaking, navigation, and a thousand others, we should probably have continued in darkness till this hour.
[273]
When Washington Irving visited Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott introduced him to many of his friends and favorites, not only among the neighboring farmers, but the laboring peasantry. "I wish to show you," said Scott, "some of our really excellent plain Scotch people. The character of a nation is not to be learnt from its fine folks, its fine gentlemen and ladies; such you meet everywhere, and they are everywhere the same."
Never have anything to do with an unlucky man. I never act with them. Their advice sounds very well, but they cannot get on themselves; and if they cannot do good to themselves, how can they do good to me?
He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men, will know how things are.
Wise men care not for what they cannot have.
Young people are very apt to overrate both men and things, from not being enough acquainted with them.
[274]
The trouble with most young men is that they do not learn anything thoroughly, and are apt to do the work committed to them in a careless manner. The business world is full of such young men, content in simply putting in their time somehow and drawing their salaries, making no effort whatever to increase their efficiency and thereby enhance their own as well as their employers' interests.
The Clemency of a Queen.—It is related that during the first few days of the reign of Queen Victoria, then a girl between nineteen and twenty years of age, some sentences of a court-martial were presented for her signature. One was death for desertion. She read it, paused, and looked up to the officer who laid it before her, and said:—"Have you nothing to say in behalf of this man?" "Nothing; he has deserted three times," answered the officer. "Think again, Your Grace," was the reply. "And," said the gallant veteran, as he related the circumstance to his friends—(for he was none other than the Duke of Wellington)—"seeing her majesty so earnest about it, I said—'He is certainly a bad soldier, but there was somebody who spoke as to his good character, and he may be a good man for aught I know to the contrary.'" "Oh, I thank you a thousand times!" exclaimed the youthful queen, and hastily writing 'Pardoned' in large letters on the fatal page, she sent it across the table with a hand trembling with eagerness and beautiful emotion.
Mercy's door should open to those who knock.
[275]
When there is doubt, lean to the side of mercy.
[276]
He that showeth mercy when it may be best spared will receive mercy when it shall be most needed.
It is beautifully said that the veil of futurity is woven by the hand of mercy.
We pray for mercy, Let that same prayer teach us to render The deeds of mercy.
Merit does not always meet its due reward.
Merit and good-breeding will make their way everywhere.
All are not merry that dance lightly.
[277]
Method will teach you to win time.
Perhaps one of the most noteworthy characteristics of Methodists is the spirit of clannishness which runs through the whole body. Is any sick, the rest are eager to pray; is any merry, the rest are delighted to sing psalms; and they will not only pray and sing in sympathy, which is comparatively easy, but they are ready to spend, and to be spent, for the brethren to almost any extent. Men may know that they are Methodists from the love they have one to another.
Where might is right, right is not upright.
It is indicative of a weak mind to be much depressed by adversity or elated by prosperity.
[278]
A well-governed mind learns in time, to find pleasure in nothing but the true and the just.
Overtasking the mind is an unwise act; when nature is unwilling, the labour is vain.
When the mind is in a state of uncertainty, the smallest impulse directs it to either side.
It cannot be too deeply impressed on the mind, that application is the price to be paid for mental acquisitions, and that it is as absurd to expect them without it, as to hope for a harvest where we have not sown the seed.
Narrowness of mind is often the cause of obstinacy: we do not easily believe beyond what we see.
[279]
All who know their mind do not know their heart.
Life will always be, to a large extent, what we ourselves make it. Each mind makes its own little world. The cheerful mind makes it pleasant, and the discontented mind makes it miserable. "My mind to me a kingdom is" applies alike to the peasant as to the monarch.
The face is the index of the mind.
It is not position, but mind, that I want, said a lady to her father, when rejecting a suitor.
[280]
Those who visit foreign countries, but who associate only with their own countrymen, change their climate, but not their customs; they see new meridians, but the same men, and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home, with travelled bodies, but untravelled minds.
Youthful minds, like the pliant wax, are susceptible of the most lasting impressions, and the good or evil bias they then receive is seldom if ever eradicated.
Little minds are hurt by little things; great minds rise above them.
Noblest minds are easiest bent.
My friends, the chief duty of the ministers of God, is, that they should help their brethren to the best of their fallible knowledge and feeble power. When there is a spirit of repentance; when men truly seek the means of grace; when they have ceased to be insolent and defiant in sin; when they do intend—were it but ever so faintly—to lead a new life—then
[281]
One ounce of mirth is worth more than ten thousand weight of gloominess.
Man is no match for woman where mischief reigns.
Most just it is that he who breweth mischief should have the first draught of it himself.
Constantine the Great, born 274 A. D., in order to reclaim a miser, took a lance and marked out a space of ground the size of a human body and said to him: "Add heap to heap, accumulate riches upon riches, extend the bounds of your possessions, conquer the whole world, and in a few days, such a spot as this, will be all that you will have."
A miser grows rich by seeming poor; an extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.
Misers.—If I knew a miser, who gave up every kind of comfortable living, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of his fellow citizens, for the sake of accumulating wealth; "Poor Man," I would say, "you pay too much for your whistle."
No thoroughly occupied man was ever miserable.
[282]
'Tis time enough to bear a misfortune when it comes without anticipating it.
Learn never to repine at your own misfortunes, or to envy the happiness of others.
Any man may make a mistake; none but a fool will stick to it.
Better a mistake avoided, than two corrected.
There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
No lessons are so impressive as those our mistakes teach us.
People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.
[283]
The abundance of money ruins youth.
I almost grow to believe there is a sort of curse on money which is not earned, even when it is bestowed by father on son or daughter. It cripples individual development, and I think only when it is earned is it blest.
A' complain o' want o' siller (money): nane o' want o' sense.
[284]
The love of money is the root of much devotion.
A man's money is either his master or his slave.
Money doesn't make happiness. There is many a heart-ache behind plenty of money!
He who finds no money in his own purse, is still less likely to find it in that of others.
Agassiz said, "I have no time to waste in making money. Life is not sufficiently long to enable a man to get rich and do his duty to his fellow man at the same time."
No bees, no honey; no work, no money.
[285]
Mention money and the world is silent.
[286]
With morning cool reflection comes.
The morning hour has gold in its mouth.
The Princess of Wales has trained her children so carefully in habits of obedience and veracity that they are most trustworthy little persons. Before her royal highness started on her trip round the world with her husband, she drew up a list of rules to be observed in the nursery, and added a series of light tasks to be fullfilled by each one of the youngsters before the date set for her return.
The rules were to be enforced by the nurses. The performance of the tasks was left to the honor of the children, and in addition there was a list of things they must not do.
There were occasional lapses of memory as regards the forbidden things, and some carelessness in carrying out the tasks, for royal children, despite the severity of their training, are children still. But in the main they respected their mother's wishes and commands, and took no advantage of her absence. Upon one occasion, however, they were sorely tempted. This was when their loving and beloved grandmother, Queen Alexandria, brought them a big box of bonbons. But when the sweets were offered to them, one child after another reluctantly but firmly declined to take any.
"We like them, but mother has forbidden us to eat them," explained the eldest prince.
"You can have the sugar-plums if I say you may," said the indulgent queen. "I will tell mama all about it when she returns."
[287] Prince Eddie wavered momentarily, then reiterated his refusal.
"We'd like them," he sighed, "but that's what mother said."
The queen was slightly annoyed by this opposition.
"But if I say you may—" she said.
Prince Eddie stood his ground, a hero between two fires—the wishes of his adored mother, and those of his almost equally adored grandmother. His sister and his brothers followed his lead. When the queen went away she put the bonbons on the nursery table and there they stayed for months untouched, a handsome monument to the thoroughness of the princess' training and the respectful love and devotion of her children.
Better the child should cry than the mother sigh.
In Scotland a peasant woman had a child a few weeks old, which was seized by one of the golden eagles, the largest in the country, and borne away in its talons to its lofty eyrie on one of the most inaccessible cliffs of Scotland's bleak hills; the mother, perceiving her loss, hurried in alarm to its rescue, and the peasantry among whom the alarm spread, rushed out to her aid; they all came to the foot of the tremendous precipice; the peasants were anxious to risk their lives in order to recover the little infant; but how was the crag to be reached? One peasant tried to climb, but was obliged to return; another tried and came down injured; a third tried, and one after another failed, till a universal feeling of despair and deep sorrow fell upon the [288]crowd as they gazed upon the eyrie where the infant lay. At last a woman was seen, climbing first one part and then another, getting over one rock and then another, and while every heart trembled with alarm, to the amazement of all, they saw her reach the loftiest crag, and clasp the infant rejoicingly in her bosom. This heroic female began to descend the perilous steep with her child; moving from point to point; and while everyone thought that her next step would precipitate her and dash her to pieces, they saw her at length reach the ground with the child safe in her arms. Who was this female? Why did she succeed when others failed? It was The Mother of The Child.
The Rev. George Crabbe when describing the funeral of "The Mother," in his passing glance at the half-interested spectators, says:—
and in his description of the return to the house:—
[289]
Children, look in those eyes, listen to that dear voice, notice the feeling of even a single touch that is bestowed upon you by that gentle hand. Make much of it while yet you have that most precious of all good gifts, a loving mother. Read the unfathomable love of those eyes; the kind anxiety of that tone and look, however slight your pain.
In after-life you may have friends, fond, dear, kind friends; but never will you have again the inexpressible love and gentleness lavished upon you which none but a mother bestows. Often do I sigh in my struggles with hard, uncaring world, for the sweet, deep security I felt when, of an evening nestling in her bosom, I listened to some quiet tale, suitable to my age, read in her tender and untiring voice. Never can I forget her sweet glances cast upon me when I appeared asleep, never her kiss of peace at night. Years have passed away since we laid her beside my father in the old church yard; yet still her voice whispers from the grave, and her eye watches over me, as I visit spots long since hallowed to the memory of my mother.
The mother's heart is the child's school-room.
He who takes the child by the hand, takes the mother by the heart.
[290]
Each mother is a historian; she writes not the history of empires or of nations on paper, but she writes her own history on the imperishable mind of her child. That tablet and that history will remain indelible when time shall be no more. That history each mother shall meet again, and read, with eternal joy, or unutterable grief, in the coming ages of eternity.
That it is the mother who moulds the man is a sentiment beautifully illustrated by the following recorded observation of a shrewd writer:—
"When I lived among the Choctaw Indians, I held a consultation with one of their chiefs respecting the successive stages of their progress in the arts of civilized life; and among other things he informed me, that at their start they made a great mistake,—they only sent boys to school. These boys came home intelligent men; but they married uneducated and uncivilized wives, and the uniform result was, the children were all like their mothers. The father soon lost all his interest both in wife and children. 'And now,' said he 'if we would educate but one class of our children, we should choose the girls; for, when they become mothers, they educate their sons.'"
An ounce of mother is worth more than a pound of clergy.
It was a judicious resolution of a father, as well as a most pleasing compliment to his wife, when, on being asked by a friend what he intended to do with his girls, he replied: "I intend to apprentice them to their mother, that they may learn the art of improving time, and be fitted to become wives, mothers, heads of families, and useful members of [292]society." Equally just, but very different, was the remark of an unhappy husband—his wife was vain and thoughtless—"It is hard to say, but if my girls are to have a chance of growing up good for anything, they must be sent out of the way of their mother's example."
Pomponius Atticus, who pronounced a funeral oration on the death of his mother, protested that though he had resided with her sixty-seven years, he was never once reconciled to her; "because," said he, "there never happened the least discord between us, and consequently there was no need of reconciliation."
[293]
A True Estimate of a Mother.—To a child, there is no velvet so soft as a mother's lap, no rose so lovely as her smile, no path so flowery as that imprinted with her footsteps.
The following simple, beautiful lines contain an unadorned statement of a fact in the experience of a friend, who is fond of wandering in the Scotch highland glens:
[295]
Music loosens a heart that care has bound.
No music is so charming to my ear as the requests of my friends, and the supplications of those in want of my assistance.
For art may err, but nature cannot miss.
Our nature exists by motion; perfect rest is death.
[296]
Good-nature, like a bee, collects honey from every herb. Ill-nature, like a spider, sucks poison from the sweetest flower.
Good-nature is the beauty of the mind, and, like personal beauty, wins almost without anything else.
If you want to keep your good looks, keep your good nature.
Every one follows the inclinations of his own nature.
Where is there a sharper arrow than the sting of unmerited neglect?
Say not unto thy neighbor, Go, and come again, and to-morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee.
[298]
Very Few Live by Choice.—Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly co-operate; and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbor better than his own.
We ought to do at once and without delay whatever we owe to our neighbors; to make them wait for what is due to them, is the essence of injustice.
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
[299]
He knocks boldly at the door who brings good news.
The most ridiculous nicknames are often the most adhesive.
Coolness and counsel come in the night, and both are of God.
Learn to say No! and it will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin.
Duty.—A wise man who does not assist with his counsels, a rich man with his charity, and a poor man with his labor, are perfect nobodies in a commonwealth.
[300]
By doing nothing we learn to do ill.
The young are fond of novelty.
So easily are we impressed by numbers, that even a dozen wheelbarrows in succession seem quite imposing.
Lord Elibank, the Scotch peer, was told that Dr. Johnson, in his dictionary, had defined oats to be food for horses in England, and for men in Scotland. "Ay," said his lordship, "and where else can you find such horses and such men?"
[301]
Deuteronomy xxi, 20.—"This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice."
"I well remember," says a writer on Christian education, "being much impressed by a sermon about twenty years ago, in which the preacher said, were he to select one word as the most important in education, it should be the word, obey. My experience since has fully convinced me of the justice of the remark. Without filial obedience everything must go wrong. Is not a disobedient child guilty of a manifest breach of the Fifth Commandment? And is not a parent, who suffers this disobedience to continue, an habitual partaker in his child's offense against that commandment?"
Obedience.—Obedience, promptly, fully given, is one of the most beautiful things that walks the earth.
An extraordinary haste to discharge an obligation is a sort of ingratitude.
Most men remember obligations, but not often to be grateful for them. The proud are made sour by the remembrance, and the vain silent.
[302]
People newly emerged from obscurity, generally launch out into indiscriminate display.
Obstinacy is will asserting itself without being able to justify itself. It is persistence without a plausible motive. It is the tenacity of self-love substituted for the tenacity of reason or conscience.
Thrice happy they who have an occupation.
An oil-jar can be used again for nothing but oil.
(A man should follow what he was bred to.)
To call people peculiar is only a polite way of calling them disagreeable.
[303]
A dog's obeyed in office.
A bad man in office is a public calamity.
Omissions, no less than commissions, are oftentimes branches of injustice.
It has been shrewdly said, that, when men abuse us, we should suspect ourselves, and when they praise us, them.
No liberal man would impute a charge of unsteadiness to another for having changed his opinion.
Men often lose opportunities by want of self-confidence. Doubts and fears in the minds of some rise up over every event, and they fear to attempt what most probably would be successful through their timorousness; while a courageous, active man, will, perhaps with half the ability, carry an enterprise to a prosperous termination.
[304]
Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period or other, when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone; the future may never come to us.
To let slip a favorable opportunity is the greatest proof of imbecility.
He loses all who loses the right moment.
[305]
There is no man whom Fortune does not visit at least once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.
Didn't Know the Place.—A young man who left his native city to study medicine in Paris, and had been applying his time and the paternal remittances to very different purposes, received a visit from his father, who intended making a short stay in the capital to inspect its wonders. During an afternoon stroll together, the day after the elder's arrival, the father and son happened to pass in front of a large colonnaded building. "What is that?" said the senior, carelessly. "I don't know, but we'll inquire," answered the student. On the query being put to an official, he shortly replied: "That? It is the School of Medicine."
The opportunity is often lost by deliberating.
We must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.
[306]
To-day is the opportunity for enjoyment and work; knowest thou where thou wilt be to-morrow? Time flies swiftly away, and we with it.
There are sharks in the ocean, and wolves in the forest, and eagles in the air, and tyrants on thrones, and tormentors in cottages.
All orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth.
Ambitious parents sometimes try to make lawyers, doctors, preachers and statesmen out of boys nature meant for plowmen. How often do we find misfits! There is nothing more pitiable than to see a man whose mind and heart are completely wrapped up in one thing and yet condemned by circumstances to do another.
The cavalry captain Kurtzhagen was invited to dine with King Frederick II. "From what noble house are you descended?" asked the king. "From none whatever," replied Kurtzhagen. "My parents are only poor country people, but I would not exchange them for any other parents in the world." "Well said," replied the king. "Woe to him who is so mean as to be ashamed of his parents."
[307]
"Father," said a young man on his death-bed, "you have been very good to me. You have given me a fine education, and you have placed me in a fine social position; you have done everything for me in a worldly sense; but, dear father, you never told me much of a hereafter. Now I am dying."
If any one toil for a parent, it is not fitting to bear remembrance of the toil.
The good conduct of the father and mother is the blessing of the children.
A little Boston girl was encouraged by her parents to study so much that her brain gave way, and she is now an idiot. This is a sad result, but the parents must find some consolation in the thought that they have made their daughter like themselves.
Note: Applicable to one's parents.
[308]
Control your passion or it will control you.
Nothing overcomes passion sooner than silence.
Let by-gones be by-gones; let the past be forgotten.
Every one utters the word "past" with more emotion than "future."
The beaten path is the safe one.
A pearl is often hidden in an ugly shell.
The pen is the tongue of the mind.
An old peasant in a German village had to leave his children alone in the house for the day. "If a thief comes," he said to them, "do not cry 'Thief!' For everybody will be afraid and will say to himself: 'After all, it's not my property that's being taken.' No, my children; shout 'Fire!' The whole village will run to help you, for everybody will be afraid the fire will spread."
[310]
As the sun's shadow shifts, so there is no permanence on earth.
By persevering, mountains will often become only mole hills.
Scottish perseverance has itself become proverbial; we remember to have met with a story which is said to be connected with the foundation of an opulent mercantile house which has flourished for some generations. Saunders, the traveler, entered a shop in London and enquired for the head of the house; one of the clerks asked what he wanted; the answer of Saunders was, as usual, a question, "Want ye aught in my line, sir?" "No," was the prompt reply, accompanied by a look of contempt at the itinerant Scotch merchant. "Will ye no tak' a look o' the gudes, sir?" was Saunders' next query. "No, not at all; I have not time. Take them away—take them away!" "Ye'll aiblins (perhaps) find them worth your while, and I doubt na but ye'll buy," said Saunders; and he proceeded to untie and unstrap his burden. "Go away—go away!" was reiterated more than once by the clerk, but the persevering Scot still persisted. The master of the establishment overheard all that had taken place, and now he stepped forward, and, moved by some compunction for the treatment the traveler had received, and some admiration, too, for the patience and perseverance of the man, he consented to look over the [311]contents of the pack, found them to be exactly the goods he was in want of, purchased them all, and gave a very large order; and thus, says Chambers, who tells the story, assisted in the foundation of a large mercantile house.
But is not this the stuff of which also the Livingstones and the Macleods are made? Was not this the spirit which set the brave Sir Walter Scott to work, when sinking into his later years, to overtake his fearful loss of one hundred thousand pounds? Is it not a commentary upon that especial proverb which we have said so illustrates the Scottish character, "He that tholes (or endures) overcomes?"
Better ask twice than lose your way once.
Jenny Lind was frequently known to pass unobserved from her residence, as if to make a visit, and had been traced to the back lanes and cottages of the poor, whose wants she ascertained and relieved. Several times she had been remonstrated with, and warned by her intimate friends against being imposed upon. She always replied, "Never mind; if I relieve ten, and one is worthy, I am satisfied."
A philanthropist, when a candidate for the ministry, was traveling on one occasion from Strasbourg. It was in the [312]winter time. The ground was deeply covered with snow, and the roads were almost impassable. He had reached the middle of his journey and was among the mountains; and by that time was so exhausted that he could stand erect no longer. He was rapidly freezing to death, and sleep began to overpower him. He commended himself to God, and yielded to what he felt to be the sleep of death. He knew not how long he slept, but suddenly became conscious of some one rousing him. Before him stood a wagon-driver in his blue blouse, and the wagon not far away. His rescuer gave him a little wine and food, and the spirit of life returned. He then helped him upon the wagon, and brought him to the next village. Oberlin, the philanthropist, was profuse in his thanks, and offered money, which his benefactor refused. "It is only a duty to help one another," said the wagoner; "and it is the next thing to an insult to offer a reward for such a service." "Then," said Oberlin, "at least tell me your name, that I may have you in thankful remembrance before God." "I see," said the wagoner, "that you are a minister of the Gospel. Please tell me the name of the Good Samaritan." "That," said Oberlin, "I cannot do; for it was not put on record." "Then," replied the wagoner, "until you can tell me his name, permit me to withhold mine."
A Sensible Answer.—A story is told about Wendell Phillips—a story that must have made even the serious-minded Abolitionist laugh heartily: He was in a hotel in Charleston, had breakfast in his room, and was served by a slave. Mr. Phillips spoke to him as an Abolitionist, but the waiter seemed to be more concerned about the breakfast than about himself. Finally Mr. Phillips told him to go away, saying that he could not bear to be waited upon by a slave.
The other remonstrated: "Scuse me, massa, but I's obliged to stay yere, 'cause I's 'sponsible fo' de silverware."
[313]
Fretting is the doctor's best friend all over the whole world.
Temperance and toil are the two real physicians of mankind.
The purse of the patient frequently, alas! protracts his cure.
Physic, for the most part, is nothing else but the substitute of exercise and temperance.
To pity distress is but human; to relieve it is Godlike.
[314]
There is a certain dignity to be kept up in pleasures as well as in business.
The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.
To make pleasures pleasant, shorten them.
Pleasures make folks acquainted with each other, but it takes trials and griefs to make them know each other.
A man would have but little pleasure if he did not sometimes flatter himself.
The most delicate, the most sensible of all pleasures, consist in promoting the pleasures of others.
[315]
When the fire in your room goes out, drop your pen, or, if reading, your book, and go out too; If you remain, and continue your work, you may regret it. Many a student in the universities, anxious to get on with his studies, has worked in a cold room and paid the penalty with—Pneumonia, ending sometimes in death.
Modern poets mix much water with their ink.
Avoid all haste; calmness is an essential ingredient of politeness.
A small boy was at a table where his mother was not near to take care of him, and a lady next to him volunteered her services. "Let me cut your steak for you," she said; "if I can cut it the way you like it," she added, with some degree of doubt. "Thank you," the boy responded, accepting her courtesy; "I shall like it the way you cut it, even if you do not cut it the way I like it."
The following beautiful incident is related of the late Prince consort. On one occasion a humble but very worthy man who had befriended the Prince in early life called to see him, and was invited to come to the family table. He began to eat with his knife, as he had always been accustomed [316]to do, and this excited a little quiet merriment among the young people. Prince Albert looked round upon them, as if to say, "Stop that!" and at once began himself to eat with his knife, and continued to do so to the end of the meal. After dinner, one of the children asked him why he did so. The Prince replied: "It is well enough for us to observe the etiquette of the day; but it is far more important to avoid insulting people. I wanted my old friend to enjoy his dinner, which he could not have done had he seen you laughing at him. He is accustomed to use his knife, and it would doubtless be quite difficult for him to use the fork instead."—This was genuine politeness, and the world would be happier if the same feeling were always shown.
Politeness is as natural to delicate natures as perfume is to flowers; it smoothes wrinkles.
Ceremonies are different in every country; but true politeness is everywhere the same.
Dr. Johnson:—"Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage in politics, and their whole conduct proceeds upon it."
Few, save the poor, feel for the poor.
Poor folks' wisdom goes for little.
[317]
He that thinks he can afford to be negligent, is not far from being poor.
The poor, the humble, and your dependents, will often be afraid to ask their due from you: be the more mindful of it yourself.
The poor, who envies not the rich, who pities his companions in poverty, and can spare something for him that is still poorer, is, in the realms of humanity, a king of kings.
The man who says, "Let me wait a little, when I have something to spare, I will relieve the poor," will never relieve them.
[318]
The world caresses the rich, though vulgar and ill-bred, and avoids the poor man of merit in the threadbare coat.
A worthy old Ayrshire farmer had the portraits of himself and his wife painted. When that of her husband, in an elegant frame, was hung over the fireplace, the gudewife remarked in a sly manner: "I think, gudeman, noo that ye've gotten your picture hung up there, we should just put in below't, for a motto, like, 'Aye richt!'"
"Deed may ye, my woman," replied her husband in an equally pawkie tone; "and when ye get yours hung up over the sofa there, we'll just put up anither motto on't, and say, 'Never wrang.'"
Not every man who has an easy place has a soft pillow.
[320]
If rich, it is easy enough to conceal our wealth; but, if poor, it is not quite so easy to conceal our poverty. We shall find it less difficult to hide a thousand guineas, than one hole in our coat.
Poverty is the only burden which grows heavier when loved ones help to bear it.
Poverty is in want of much, but avarice of everything.
A poor man resembles a fiddler, whose music, though liked, is not much praised, because he lives by it; while a gentleman performer, though the most wretched scraper alive, throws the audience into raptures.
The love of power is an instinct of the human heart.
Power often goes before talent.
[321]
A partnership with men in power is never safe.
And (strange to tell) he practised what he preached.
Praise is the best diet for us after all.
Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.
Most persons are like Themistocles that never found himself so well contented, as when he heard himself praised.
Self-Praise.—It is a sign that your reputation is small and sinking, if your own tongue must praise you.
[322]
The sweetest of all sounds is,—praise!
No man ever praised two persons equally—and pleased them both.
A zealous divine, who had prayed earnestly that God would teach him the perfect way of truth, was directed in a dream to go to a certain place, where he would find an instructor; when he came to the place, he found a man in ordinary attire, to whom he wished a good morning.
"I never had a bad morning," replied the man. "That is very singular; I wish you may always be as fortunate." "I was never unfortunate," said he. "I hope you may always be as happy," said the divine. "I am never unhappy," said the other. "I wish," said the divine, "that you would explain yourself a little."
"That I will cheerfully do," said the other; "I said that I never had a bad morning, for every morning, even if I am pinched with hunger, I praise God. If it rains, or snows, or hails, whether the day is serene or tempestuous, I am still thankful to God, and therefore I never had a joyless morning. If I am miserable in outward circumstances, and despised, I still praise God; you wished that I might always be fortunate, but I cannot be unfortunate, because nothing befalls me but according to the will of God, and I believe that His will is always good, in whatever He does or permits to be done. You wished me always happy, but I cannot be unhappy, because my will is always resigned to the will of God."
The divine, astonished at the man's answers, asked him whence he came.
[323] "I came from God," he replied. "Where did you find Him?" "Where I left the world." "Where did you leave God?" "With the pure in heart." "What are you?" "I am a king." "Where is your kingdom?" "It is within my bosom. I have learned to rule my appetites and passions, and that is better than to rule any kingdom in the world."
"How were you brought into this happy condition?"
"By secret prayer, spiritual meditation and union with God; nothing below God could satisfy my desires; I have found Him, and in Him I have found Peace and Rest."
A laborer went to work for a wealthy farmer. It was regarded as something of a favor to be employed by him, as he was a prompt and liberal paymaster, and was look'd upon by his neighbors as a very superior farmer. The man remained with him only a few days.
"I'm told you've left farmer P," said a neighbor.
"Yes, I have," was the reply.
"Was the work too hard for you?"
"There was nothing to complain of on that score."
"What then? Were the wages too low?"
"No."
"Why did you leave?"
"There was no roof on the house!" And he went on [324]his way, leaving the questioner to ponder on the strange answer he had given.
The man's meaning may be found in the saying of an old writer, who affirms that a dwelling in which prayer is not offered up to God daily, is like a house without a roof, in which there cannot be either peace, safety, or comfort.
Prayer in the morning is the key that opens to us the treasures of God's mercies and blessings; in the evening it is the key that shuts us up under his protection and safeguard.
When thou prayest, rather let thy heart be without words, than thy words without heart.
[325]
Rev. Thomas Guthrie:—"As an ambassador for Christ, I regard a preacher of the Gospel as filling the most responsible office any mortal can occupy. His pulpit is, in my eyes, loftier than a throne; and of all professions, learned or unlearned, his, though usually in point of wealth the poorest, I esteem the most honorable. That office is one angels themselves might covet."
When the preacher seeks fame he is sure to find folly.
Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence.
He who never leaves his country is apt to be full of prejudices.
[326]
Many delight more in giving of presents than in paying their debts.
People who strive to appear to be what they are not, only succeed in being nothing.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Thou art proud; believest thou thyself to be one of the more exalted beings?
Proud people seldom have friends. In prosperity they know nobody; in adversity nobody knows them.
Never be too much elated.
How little do they know of human nature, who imagine, that pride is likely to be subdued by adversity.
Be unable at all times to forsake your principles.
Mrs. Campbell, a Scotch lady, was recommended as sub-governess to the Princess Charlotte, and the old King George III formed a high opinion of her. She felt reluctant [327]to accept the post, urging her deficiency in the necessary accomplishments. "Madame," said the king, "I hope we can afford to purchase accomplishments, but we cannot buy principles."
What may be dune at ony time, will be dune at nae time.
Professing, without practising, will never do us any good.
Honor and profit do not always lie in the same sack.
Lord Chatham: "I would have inscribed on the curtains of your bed, and the walls of your chamber, this:—If you do not rise early, you can make progress in nothing."
There is no piety in keeping an unjust promise.
When you have promised to do any good office, the right of the thing promised, hath passed over from you to another; consequently, you will esteem yourself obliged to stand to the performance of your word, though it may be to your own prejudice.
[328]
A man who means to keep his promises can't afford to make many.
He that gives away his property before death must prepare to suffer.
The minuteness and accuracy of God's program of the ages is often overlooked. There is a singular and striking instance of this in the triumphal entry of our Lord into Jerusalem. [1592:A]The command to go into the village nearby and bring the colt that would be found tied there, was in fulfillment of a prophesy made five hundred years before by Zachariah, 9th chapter, 9th verse:—"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion: shout O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass."—That same donkey colt was so essential to the transaction of that day, that the pageant could not have gone on without it.
[1592:A] Mark xi, 2v.
Let those who propose, be willing to perform.
Now that I have a sheep and a cow, everybody bids me good morrow.
[329]
Prosperity often creates selfishness.
Hard work is still, and always will be, the only road to prosperity.
If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone.
In ascending the hill of prosperity, may we never meet a friend.
Prosperity makes some friends, and what is too true, many enemies.
Prosperity in business is not always a sign or proof of the rectitude of one's principles.
It shows a weak mind not to bear prosperity as well as adversity, with moderation.
We are pleased with one who instantly assents to our opinions; but we love a proselyte.
[330]
He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is humble. Teach him.
He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep. Wake him.
He who knows, and knows that he knows, is a wise man. Follow him.
Punctuality is one of the characteristics of politeness. He who does not keep his appointments promptly, is hardly fit for the society of gentlemen.
It is neither polite nor honest to be behind hand when one can just as easily be on time. An artist solicited and obtained permission to paint a portrait of Queen Victoria. The hour and place for the important undertaking were named. Promptly the queen was present; but the artist was not when the hour came. He arrived at length, but too late, for her majesty had departed, leaving a message that she would not return. The queen had kept her promise, but the artist had failed to keep his, and thus lost the rare chance to win both fame and fortune.
[331]
Lord Nelson used to say: "I have always been a quarter of an hour before my time, and it has made a man of me."
Horace Mann said:—Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time.
To be unpunctual is sometimes considered a mark of consequence by little great men, but the truly great have always thought differently.
Purposes, like eggs, unless they be hatched into action, will run into decay.
I can get no remedy against the consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, and I find the disease is incurable.
Who has an empty purse must have a sweet tongue.
Not to oversee workmen is to leave them your purse open.
[332]
Quakerwise.—"William, thee knows I never call any bad names; but, William, if the mayor of the city were to come to me and say, 'Joshua, I want thee to find me the biggest liar in the city,' I would come to thee and put my hand on thy shoulder, and say to thee, 'William, the mayor wants to see thee.'"
In Lanarkshire, there lived a sma' laird named Hamilton, who was noted for his eccentricity. On one occasion, a neighbor waited on him, and requested his name as an accommodation to a bill for twenty pounds at three months date, which led to the following characteristic and truly Scottish colloquy:
"Na, na, I canna do that."
"What for no', laird? Ye hae dune the same thing for ithers."
"Ay, ay, Tammas, but there's wheels within wheels ye ken naething aboot; I canna do 't."
"It's a sma' affair to refuse me, laird."
"Weel, ye see, Tammas, if I was to pit my name till't, ye wad get the siller frae the bank, and when the time came round, ye wadna be ready, and I wad hae to pay't; sae then you and me wad quarrel; sae we mae just as weel quarrel the noo, as lang's the siller's in ma pouch."
In all thy quarrels leave open the door of reconciliation.
[333]
To quarrel with one person to please another, is to meet what we merit,—the displeasure of both.
He that blows the coals in quarrels he has nothing to do with, has no right to complain if the sparks fly in his face.
If you wish a wise answer you must put a rational question.
My high birth suffocates me. If thou love me, mother, thou wilt not on all occasions quote my high rank; it is those only who have no peculiar good in their own nature who are constantly speaking of their noble birth.
[334]
A man who attempts to read all the new publications must do as the fly does—skip.
When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one good reason for letting it alone.
"Live and let live" was his rule: no more I'll say.
There is one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life, that word is reciprocity;
The bow cannot possibly stand always bent, nor can human nature subsist without recreation.
Regret.—It is folly to shiver over last year's snow.
Relaxation above produces remissness below. (In authority.)
[335]
A religion that costs nothing, does nothing.
They who doubt the blessings of religion because they find no Christian who is perfect, might as well deny the existence of the sun because it is not always noonday.
Religion is good for nothing one day in the week, unless it is also good for all the seven days.
Religion is the knowledge of the most excellent truths; the contemplation of the most glorious objects, and the hope of the most ravishing pleasures, and the practice of such duties as are most servicable to our happiness, our peace, our health, our honor, our prosperity, and our eternal welfare. Virtue needs no outward pomp; her very countenance is so full of majesty, that the proudest pay her respect, and the profanest are awed by her presence.
It is rare to see a rich man religious; for religion preaches restraint, and riches prompt to unlicensed freedom.
Religion lies more in the walk than in the talk.
[336]
Profanity Gently Reproved.—It is related that the excellent John Wesley, having to travel some distance in a stagecoach, was thereby brought into the company of an intelligent and gentlemanly officer of the British army. The officer was very social with his traveling companions; but the enjoyment, which his society would otherwise have afforded to those with him, was sadly lessened by the profane expressions he used.
[337] While stopping at a station, Mr. Wesley called the officer to one side, and, after expressing the satisfaction he had enjoyed in his company, told him he felt encouraged to ask of him a very great favor. "I shall take great pleasure in obliging you," replied the officer, "as I am certain you would not make an unreasonable request."—"Then," said Mr. Wesley, "as we are to travel together for some days, I beg that if I should so far forget myself as to use any profane language, you will kindly reprove me." The officer immediately perceived how faithfully and how delicately his own conduct stood reproved, and, smiling, said, "No one but Mr. Wesley could administer reproof in such manner."
After I have named the man, I need say no more.
It is reported of a person who, being ill, was asked whether she was willing to live or die; she answered—"Which God pleases." "But," said one, "if God should refer it to you, which would you choose?" "Truly," replied she, "I would at once refer it to Him again."
[338]
Rest is sweet to those who labor.
Take Rest.—A field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.
"If I rest too much, I rust,"—says the key.
Quick resolves are often unsafe.
Irresolute people often let their soup grow cold between the plate and the mouth.
[339]
Sleep over it and you will come to a resolution.
Those who act in a disinterested way seldom miss their reward.
One knows not for whom he gathers.
It is wealth to a man to be able to live contentedly upon a frugal store.
"I was fated the other day to come from Venice to Verona with a family—father and mother and two girls—it matters not what country they came from—presumably rich—girls fifteen and eighteen. I never before conceived the misery of people who had evidently spent all their lives in trying to gratify themselves. It was a little warm—warmer than was entirely luxurious—but nothing in the least harmful. They moaned and fidgeted and frowned and puffed and stretched and fanned, and ate lemons, and smelled bottles, and covered their faces, and tore the cover off again, and had not one thought or feeling during five hours of traveling in the most noble part of all the world except what four poor beasts would have had in their end of a menagerie, being dragged about on a hot day. Add to this misery every form of polite vulgarity, in methods of doing and saying the common things they said and did. I never yet saw humanity so degraded (allowing for external circumstances of every possible advantage) given wealth, attainable education and the inheritance of eighteen centuries of Christianity."
[340]
The generous should be rich, and the rich should be generous.
Very rich men seldom or never whistle; poor men always do.
Who is truly rich? He who is satisfied with what he possesses.
It is difficult to gather a heap in a long time, but it is easy to squander the whole in a day.
Sir Thomas Sutton, the founder of the Charter House, was one of the wealthiest merchants of his day. Fuller tells how he was overheard one day praying in his garden: "Lord, Thou hast given me a large and liberal estate; give me also a heart to make use of it."
The Influence of Riches.—A respectable widow lady, with a very small income, which she was obliged to eke out by the produce of her own industry and ingenuity, was remarkable for her generous liberality, especially in contributing to the cause of religion. When any work of pious benevolence [341]was going forward, she was always ready to offer a donation equal to those of persons in comparative affluence. In process of time this lady came into the possession of an ample fortune, greatly to the joy of all who knew her willing liberality. But she no longer came forward unsolicited towards the cause of Christ, and when applied to, she yielded her aid but coldly and grudgingly, and sometimes excused herself from giving at all. On one occasion she presented a shilling to the same cause to which she had formerly given a guinea when in a state of comparative poverty. Her minister felt it his duty to expostulate with her, and reminded her of her former generosity when her means were so circumscribed. "Ah! sir," she affectingly replied; "then I had the shilling means, but the guinea heart, now I have the guinea means, but only the shilling heart. Then I received day by day my daily bread, and I had enough and to spare; now, I have to look at my ample income, but I live in constant apprehension that I may come to want!"
Riches and care are as inseparable as sun and shadow.
As riches and favor forsake a man, we discover him to be below mediocrity, but nobody could find it out in his prosperity.
I remember when Mr. Locke first came over from Italy. Old Dr. Moore, who had a high opinion of him, was crying up his drawings, and asked me if I did not think he would make a great painter? I said, "No, never!" "Why not?" "Because he has six thousand a year."
[342]
Few men are both rich and generous; fewer are both rich and humble.
Riches serve a wise man but command a fool.
Riches:—We see how much a man has, and therefore we envy him; did we see how little he enjoys, we would rather pity him.
My riches consist not in the greatness of my possessions, but in the smallness of my wants.
Every one who rightly considers it, may know, that eminence and opulence in the world are not real divine blessings, notwithstanding man, from the pleasure he finds in them, calls them so; for they pass away, and also seduce many, and turn them away from heaven; but that eternal life, and its happiness, are real blessings, which are from the Divine: this the Lord also teaches in Luke: 12 ch., 33-34. "Make to yourselves a treasure that faileth not in the heavens, where the thief cometh not, nor the moth corrupteth; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
[343]
Without frugality none can become rich, and with it, few would become poor.
No man has a right to do as he pleases, except when he pleases to do right.
Late Rising.—He who rises late, must trot all day, and will scarcely overtake his business at night.
To wish for anything that is unattainable is worthless, and a poor road to travel.
One roof and two winds—i. e., persons of opposite tempers living together.
If a man could make a single rose, we should give him an empire; yet roses, and flowers no less beautiful, are scattered in profusion over the world, and no one regards them.
Royalty is but a feather in a man's cap; let children enjoy their rattle.
[344]
There cannot be a greater rudeness than to interrupt another in the current of his discourse.
No rumor wholly dies, once bruited wide.
He who ordained the Sabbath loved the poor.
Those persons who are in the habit of avoiding worldly cares on the Sabbath, are the most remarkable for the perfect performance of their duties during the week. The influence of a change of thought on the Sabbath upon the minds of such persons, resembles that of a change of food upon the body. It seems to give a fresh spring to the mental operations, as the latter does to the physical.
[345]
A well-spent Sabbath on earth, prepares us for the spending of a better one in heaven.
Better a little in safety, than an abundance, surrounded by danger.
More can be said in one minute than can be forgotten in a lifetime.
When Henry Drummond was traveling in tropical Africa, he found that salt was regarded by the natives as a rare luxury. Often he offered the native boys the choice between a pinch of salt and a lump of sugar, and they always chose the salt. Once he presented the head man of a village with a spoonful of salt. The chief twisted a leaf into a little bag, into which he poured the salt. Then he held out his hand to the children who crowded around, and each was allowed one lick of his empty palm.
[346] The above pretty lines are only superficially true. No man can live on earth without leaving, "footprints on the sands of time," which will influence those who come after him for good or evil.
More is learned in a public than in a private school from emulation: there is the collision of mind with mind, or the radiation of many minds pointing to one centre.
[347]
It has been remarked that some [1694:A]duxes at school and prizemen at the university have run too soon to seed, and in after-years been heard of no more; while on the contrary,—comforting fact for the parents of dull boys—not a few who have become distinguished men made no figure at all in their educational career.
[1694:A] Top of the class.
It is related of Dr. Adam, the celebrated rector of the High School of Edinburgh, that when at college he had to be content with a penny roll for his dinner. Similar, though more severe, were the early trials of Samuel Drew, also of Edinburgh. At the age of ten he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, a calling which he continued to follow long after he had become celebrated as an author. For days and days together in his early life he was too poor to spend even a penny for his dinner; and he was accustomed, when dinner-time came, to tie his apron-string tighter to lessen the pang of hunger, and go on with his work till evening. Through years of hardship and drudgery his courage never forsook him; amidst ceaseless labor he strove unremittingly to improve his mind, studying astronomy, history, and metaphysics; and finally, from the humblest circumstances, he rose to occupy a conspicuous place as an author, a philosopher, and a metaphysician.
The life of Balzac too, the French author, whose brilliant abilities won for him at last such wealth, fame and influence in France, is a type of many a literary career. At the age of twenty his wealthy parents wished to make him a notary. He announced his determination to become an author. "But" urged the father, "do you not know to what state [348]the occupation of a writer will lead you? In literature a man must be either king or a hodman." "Very well," replied Balzac, "I will be king!" The family left town; the youth was left to his fate in a garret, with the magnificent allowance of twenty-five francs a month. The first ten years he fought with poverty and all its evils; the second decade made him his own master. These ten years, says a writer in a British magazine, were years of glory, wealth, and luxury. He had won the literary crown, as in youth he predicted. His later residences were palaces, richly decorated, and full of rare pictures, statuary, and valuable curiosities.
Scotland:—With a rigorous climate and a small country, much of it wild and untillable mountain and moor, and with fewer people in the whole country than in the city of London, and to-day she wields an influence in the world out of all proportion to her population and resources. In fact, the Scotch are in many respects the greatest people of modern times.
Love the sea? I dote upon it—from the beach.
How sweet it is, mother, to see the sea from the land, when we are not sailing!
There is something grand, even to awfulness, in the thought of utter helplessness which you feel at sea. Sky [349]and water—with no living thing visible over the vast expanse—for days together just your own vessel with its human freight—and God! To a thoughtful mind there is no surer teaching both of humility and trust.
Old people see best in the distance.
A secret is seldom safe in more than one breast.
What is known to three is usually known to everybody.
Those who enquire much into the affairs of others are seldom capable of retaining the secret that they learn; Therefore,
To keep your own secrets is wisdom; but to expect others to keep them is folly.
Secrets make a dungeon of the heart, and a jailer of its owner.
[350]
Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off.
Be able at all times to yield your personal preference.
Be what your friends think you are; avoid being what your enemies say you are.
Wouldst thou be crowned monarch of a little world, command thyself.
"When I was younger than I am now," says a lawyer who is still somewhat this side of middle age, "I had a position in the office of a man who has a big reputation. Naturally, I felt my responsibility. It was plain to me that the head of the firm had outlived his usefulness, and I used to feel sorry to think what would happen to him if I ever left him. Sheer magnanimity made me overlook a lot of things.
"I wasn't treated in that office with all the deference due me, but I stood it till one day somebody went too far. Then I marched into the old gentleman's private office and laid down the law to him. I told him I wasn't going to endure such treatment another day. I was going to quit, that was what I was going to do, and I was going to quit right then and there. I unburdened my mind freely, and then I stopped to give him a chance to apologize and beg me not to ruin him by leaving. He didn't look up from his desk. He said to me in a polite kind of way, 'Please don't slam the door when you go out.'"
[351]
Teach self-denial and make its practice pleasurable, and you create for the world a destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer.
Give us something to admire in yourself, not in your belongings.—(To one who boasts of his ancestry.)
Do you want to know the man against whom you have most reason to guard yourself? Your looking glass will give you a very fair likeness of his face.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
[352]
The personal pronoun "I" should be the coat of arms of some individuals.
He that is warm is apt to think all are so.
The Lord doesn't look so much at what you've given, as to what you have left.
Remember that self-interest is more likely to warp your judgment than all other circumstances combined, therefore, look well to your duty when your interest is concerned.
The world is very much ruled by interest alone.
The least that one can say of himself is still too much.
He that falls in love with himself will have no rival.
[353]
No one can disgrace us but ourselves.
On their own merits modest men are dumb.
It is more easy to be wise for others, than for ourselves.
No man fights a harder battle than the man who overcomes himself.
To me, there is none like you but yourself.
One always knocks one's self on the sore place.
No object is more pleasing to the eye than the sight of a man whom you have obliged; nor any music so agreeable to the ear, as the voice of one that owns you for his benefactor.
Self-laudation abounds among the unpolished, but nothing can stamp a man more sharply as ill-bred.
[354]
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
Some persons have a prudent consideration for Number—one.
Some persons can neither stir hand nor foot without making it clear they are thinking of themselves, and laying little traps for approbation.
We hardly find any persons of good sense, save those who agree with us!
We find few sensible people, except those who are of our way of thinking.
Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
The question was asked, "Why can we see other people's failings sooner than our own? and why can we give advice to others easier than follow it ourselves?" A sensible man asked in reply, "Why can our eyes see everything else but themselves?"
[355]
Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.
Did it ever strike you that continual mourning was multiplied selfishness?
Take the selfishness out of the world and there would be more happiness than we should know what to do with.
"There is no harm in being respected in this world, as I have found out," said Thackeray, "and if you don't brag a little for yourself, depend on it there is no person of your acquaintance who will tell the world of your merits, and take the trouble off your hands."
Common sense among men born to fortune is rare.
He lacks sense who broods over the past.
2 Kings x, 16.—"Jehu said, Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord."
John Fox, the author of the "Book of Martyrs," was once met by a woman who showed him a book she was carrying, and said, "See you not that I am going to a sermon?" The good man replied, "If you will be ruled by me, go home, for you will do little good to-day at church." "When, then," asked she, "would you counsel me to go?" His reply was, "When you tell no one beforehand."
[356]
A clergyman thought his people were making rather an unconscionable objection to his using a manuscript in delivering a sermon.
They urged, "What gars ye tak' up your bit papers to the pu'pit?"
He replied "that it was best, for really he could not remember his sermons, and he must have the paper."
"Weel, weel, minister, then dinna expect that we can remember them."
A leading Welsh minister—and Welsh ministers are, I think, among the best preachers—was invited to preach an anniversary sermon before one of the great societies in London. Naturally anxious to disregard no propriety, he consulted the proper authority, the secretary. "Should I read my sermon?" "Oh, it is no matter, only bring some of your Welsh fire with you." "But you cannot, my dear sir, carry fire on paper." "No, that is true; but you may use the paper to kindle the fire."
The Rev. John Brown, of Haddington, rose from a poor shepherd boy to become a distinguished minister, and afterwards a celebrated professor, author of the "Self-Interpreting Bible," and many other works. Robert Turnbull said of him in one of his books:—"When a poor shepherd boy, he conceived the idea of learning Latin and Greek, and having procured a few old books, actually accomplished the task, [357]while tending his cattle on the hills. So successful was he that some of the old and superstitious people in the neighborhood concluded that he must have been assisted by 'the evil spirit.' On one occasion he went to Edinburgh, plaided and barefoot, walked into a bookseller's shop, and asked for a Greek Testament. 'What are you going to do with a Greek Testament?' said the bookseller. 'Read it,' was the prompt reply. 'Read it!' exclaimed the sceptical bookseller with a smile; 'ye may have it for nothing if ye'll read it.' Taking the book, he quietly read off a few verses, and gave the translation; on which he was permitted to carry off the Greek Testament in triumph."
If we would give ourselves only half an hour's reflection at the close of every day, we would preach to ourselves the best sermons that could be uttered every week.
Oh ponder well! be not severe!
What shadows we are! what shadows we pursue!
Sickness is every man's master.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Silence is the safest response for all the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy.
Silence is the best resolve for him who distrusts himself.
Silence is the consummate eloquence of sorrow.
Silence is often an answer.
[359]
There is a sure reward for faithful silence.
He knows much who knows how, and when, to be silent.
Most rare is now our old simplicity.
Commit a sin twice, it will seem a sin no longer.
Men's sins are before our eyes: our own, behind our backs.
Many a man will give another man a letter of recommendation, though he would hardly lend the applicant a dollar.
An excellent clergyman, possessing much knowledge of human nature, instructed his large family of daughters in the theory and practice of music. They were all observed to [360]be exceedingly amiable and happy. A friend inquired if there was any secret in his mode of education. He replied—"When anything disturbs their temper, I say to them sing, and if I hear them speaking against any person, I call them to sing to me; and so they have sung away all causes of discontent, and every disposition to scandal."
He who stands still in mud,—sinks.
A lady who had been in the habit of spreading slanderous reports once confessed her fault to St. Philip Neri, who lived several hundred years ago. She asked him how she could cure it. "Go," he said in reply, "to the nearest market-place, buy a chicken just killed, pluck its feathers all the way, and come back to me." She was greatly surprised, wondering in what way a dead chicken could help her overcome her evil habit; but she did as he bade her, and came back to him with the plucked chicken in her hand. "Now go back," he said, "and bring me all the feathers you have scattered." "But this is impossible," she replied: "I cast the feathers carelessly, and the wind carried them away; how can I recover them?" "That," he said, "is exactly like your words of slander. They have been carried about in every direction. You cannot recall them. Go and slander no more." It was a striking way of teaching a very important lesson.
He who slanders his neighbors makes a rod for himself.
[361]
He will always be a slave, who does not know how to live upon a little.
Sleep.—I never take a nap after dinner, but when I have had a bad night, and then the nap takes me.
We are all equals when we are asleep.
If you want the night to seem a moment to you, sleep all night.
[362]
Sleep.—Even sleep is characteristic. How charming are children in their lovely innocence! How angel-like their blooming hue! How painful and anxious is the sleep and expression in the countenance of the guilty.
When I go to sleep, I let fall the windows of mine eyes.
The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.
Heaven trims our lamps while we sleep.
Dean Ramsey relates that the Earl of Lauderdale was alarmingly ill, one distressing symptom being a total absence of sleep, without which the medical men declared he could not recover. His son, who was somewhat simple, was seated under the table, and cried out, "Sen' for that preaching man frae Livingstone, for fayther aye sleeps in the kirk." One of the doctors thought the hint worth attending to, and the experiment of "getting a minister till him" succeeded, for sleep came on and the earl recovered.
[363]
Sleep has often been mentioned as the image of death, so like it, that we should not trust it without prayer.
Whether seen playing upon the face of young innocence, or upon the furrowed visage of venerable age, smiles are [364]always attractive and blissful. He who wears a smiling face is a practical philanthropist. He dispels the clouds of gloom that overshadow the brows of care, and the hearts of sorrow he meets in his life-paths, as the sun dispels the misty clouds of morning from the face of nature.
A smile is ever more bright and beautiful with a tear upon it.
Put a smile on your face when you go out for a walk, and it will be surprising how many pleasant people you will meet.
Who can tell the value of a smile? It costs the giver nothing, but is beyond price to the erring and relenting, the sad and cheerless.
A new story of Adam Smith was told recently at a convention in Kirkaldy, Scotland, the birthplace of the economist. The professor fell in love and proposed. The offer was refused. Next day the lady met Smith in Princess street, Edinburgh, and reopened the question of the proposal, about which she had been thinking. "You remember what I said?" the lady inquired, and the philosopher replied that he did. "Well," added the lady, "I was only joking." "You remember what I asked?" said Smith. "Yes" replied the lady. "Well," said Smith, "I was only joking too."
[365]
It is said that Sir Walter Raleigh once made a wager with Queen Elizabeth that he could weigh the smoke from his tobacco pipe. He weighed the tobacco before smoking, and the ashes afterwards. When Elizabeth paid the wager, she said, "I have seen many a man turn his gold into smoke, but you are first who has turned his smoke into gold."
Society is built upon trust, and trust upon confidence of one another's integrity.
If you wish to appear agreeable in society, you must consent to be taught many things which you know already.
Society is ever ready to worship success, but rarely forgives failure.
Johnson:—"Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves. They would all have some people under them; why not then have some people above them?"
[366]
The true art of being agreeable is to appear well pleased with all the company, and rather to seem well entertained with them, than to bring entertainment to them.
Something.—To do something, however small, to make others happier and better, is the highest ambition, the most elevating hope, which can inspire a human being.
On his 21st Birthday, with a Silver Lamp, "Fiat Lux."
A clever man once said to his son: "John, when you chase the dollars, all right; but look out, my boy, when the dollars chase you."
[368]
Send your son into the world with good principles, a good education, and industrious habits, and he will find his way in the dark.
Some of the rarest gems and most beautiful flowers are often found in out-of-the-way places. Here is one.
At ten years of age a boy thinks his father knows a great deal;
At fifteen he knows as much as his father;
At twenty he knows twice as much;
At thirty he is willing to take his advice;
At forty he begins to think his father knows something, after all;
At fifty he begins to seek his advice;
And at sixty, after his father is dead, he thinks he was the smartest man that ever lived.
[369]
A son who loves his home is a joy to his parents.
A man who has got a good son-in-law, has gained a son; but he who has found a bad one, has lost a daughter.
Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopped, doth burn the heart to cinders.
Sorrow's best antidote is employment.
There are people who are always anticipating trouble, and in this way they manage to enjoy many sorrows that never really happen to them.
The love of the poor, to the poor, is often remarked: Privation and sorrow knit hearts as no bands of gold can.
When sorrow is asleep wake it not.
[370]
All sorrows are bearable if there is bread.
Let your thoughts dwell on your blessings, and you will forget your miseries.
The little that I have seen in the world, and known of the history of mankind, teaches me to look upon their errors in sorrow, not in anger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations it passed through, the brief pulsations of joy, the tears of regret, the feebleness of purpose, the scorn of the world that has little charity, the desolation of the soul's sanctuary, and threatening voices within, health gone, happiness gone,—I would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with Him from whose hands it came.
When you can say nothing good of a man, change the subject.
Loose thinking leads to inaccurate speech.
Everything that one says too much, is insipid and tedious.
It is unbecoming in inferiors to assume boldness of speech.
[372]
Obedience.—The man who has lost his purse will go wherever you wish.
Many years ago Dr. Valpy, a well known English scholar, wrote a little verse of four lines as the longing of his heart and the confession of his faith. This was the simple stanza:—
Some time afterwards he gave this verse to his friend Dr. Marsh, and it became a great blessing to him. Dr. Marsh read the lines to his friend Lord Roden, who was so impressed with them that he got the doctor to write them out, and then fastened the paper over the mantlepiece in his study, and there, yellow with age, they hung for many years.
Stars.—Those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air.
[373]
The stars govern men, but God governs the stars.
No man can be expected to be wise on an empty stomach.
The more violent the storm, the sooner it is over.
If a man be gracious unto strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins them.
Be willing to pity the misery of the stranger! Thou givest to-day thy bread to the poor; to-morrow the poor may give it to thee.
[374]
Men of age * * * content themselves with a mediocrity of success.
Experience shows that success is due less to ability than to zeal. The winner is he who gives himself to his work.
If you would go to the top, first go to the bottom.
[375]
The worst use that can be made of success is to boast of it.
Mediocrity succeeds best in the world.
At a gathering in Australia, not long since, four persons met, three of whom were shepherds on a sheep-farm. One of these had taken a degree at Oxford, another at Cambridge, the third at a German university. The fourth was their employer, a squatter, rich in flocks and herds, but scarcely able to read and write, much less to keep accounts.
A sense of the power and luxury in money, beyond all the wonder tales, has suddenly come to us.
In times like these, it is good to remember Agassiz, who refused to lecture at five hundred dollars a night because he was too busy to make money; Spurgeon, who refused to go to America to deliver fifty lectures at one thousand dollars a night, saying he could do better—he could stay in London and try to save fifty souls; and Emerson, who steadfastly declined to increase his income beyond one thousand two hundred dollars because he wanted his time to think.
[376]
Those who accomplish great things always begin with little things.
That success costs too dear, which is attained by any sacrifice of truth, honor, or justice.
He who waits to be absolutely sure of the success of an undertaking, will never undertake it.
The man who has a sufficiency, generally smiles at the artificial wants of others.
Sun.—The glorious lamp of heaven; with one eye vieweth all the world.
When the sun shines on you you see your friends.
[377]
A boy of twelve, said to his little companion: "Do you know why Sunday was instituted from the seventh to the first day of the week." "No, I don't," replied the little boy, "I wish you would tell me." "Well, I will, and I know it is true, for my father told me: It was instituted from Saturday to Sunday in remembrance of Christ's resurrection from the dead on the first day of the week."
The ways of superiors, are generally carried by inferiors, to excess.
It is easy to swim when another holds up your head.
Sympathy is the golden key that unlocks the hearts of others.
A respectable merchant of London having become embarrassed in his circumstances, and his misfortunes being one day the subject of conversation in the Royal Exchange, several persons expressed the great sympathy they felt for him; whereupon a foreigner who was present, said, "I feel five hundred pounds for him; what do you feel?"
[378]
The human heart sighs for sympathy and solace, in the dark hour of suffering and sorrow.
[379]
For him who does everything in its proper time, one day is worth three.
There is nothing like addressing men at the proper time.
The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms.
Talent is something, but tact is everything.
All talk at once, to none respect is shown.
Talking.—What a spendthrift is he of his tongue!
They always talk who never think.
[380]
He who talks much is sometimes right.
The talker sows, the listener reaps.
You can doubtless name a number of people who talk too much—including yourself!
A man of sense talks little, and listens much.
A Quiet Rebuke.—When Washington's secretary excused himself for the lateness of his attendance, and laid the blame on his watch, his master quietly said—"Then you must get another watch, or I another secretary."
The cost takes away the taste: I should really like the thing, but I dislike the expense.
To teach is to learn twice over.
Nothing dies sooner than a tear.
Do not make woman weep, for God counts her tears.
[381]
There are few things more beautiful than tears, whether they are shed for ourselves or others; they are the meek and silent effusions of sincere feeling.
Tears sometimes have the weight of words.
Tears are the diamonds of the eye.
Control your temper, for if it does not obey you, it will govern you.
Good temper is like a sunny day.
If you have a good temper, keep it; if you have a bad one, don't lose it.
When you're in the right you can afford to keep your temper, and when you're in the wrong you can't afford to lose it.
[382]
Some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations attack the idle.
Toil is a foil against temptation.
The chief reason why no Christian should attend the theatre is the character of a large majority of plays put on the stage.
Listen to what the play-writers and actors themselves say:
M. Dumas, a French writer of plays, wrote: "Never take your daughter to the theatre; it is not merely the work that is immoral, it is the place."
W. C. Macready, the great actor, said: "None of my children shall ever, with my consent, enter a theatre, or have any visiting connection with actors or actresses."
Edwin Booth, the great tragedian, wrote: "My knowledge of the modern theatre is so very meagre that I never permit my wife or daughter to witness a play without previously ascertaining its character. The theatre is permitted to be a mere shop for gain, open to every huckster of immoral adventures,—jimcracks."
Fanny Kemble, the actress, confessed that life on the stage was unhealthy to morals, and said: "I never presented myself before an audience without a shirking feeling of reluctance, or without thinking the excitement I had undergone unhealthy, and the personal exhibition odious."
An ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory.
[383]
Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.
Do little things now; so shall big things come to thee by and by asking to be done.
Don't despise a slight wound, or a poor relative.
Never despise small things, for we were all infants before we became men, and pupils, ere we became teachers.
Thought.—How often must we repeat it?—rules the world.
At a dinner when Daniel Webster was Secretary of State, after a period of silence which fell upon the company of some twenty gentlemen who were present, one of the guests said, "Mr. Webster, will you tell us what was the most important thought that ever occupied your mind?" Webster slowly passed his hand over his forehead, and in a low tone enquired of one near him, "Is there any one here who does not know me?" "No; all are your friends." "The most important thought that ever occupied my mind," said Webster, "was that of my individual responsibility to God." And after speaking on this subject in the most solemn strain for fully ten minutes, he silently rose from the table and retired to his room. This incident serves to illustrate the attitude of great minds towards eternal things. Great men are not scoffers. The men of flippant jeers and godless jests are invariably men of small calibre and shallow intellect.
[384]
First thoughts are not always the best.
In matters of conscience, first thoughts are best; in matters of prudence last thoughts are the best.
To be without evil thoughts is God's best gift.
It is said, the thumb is stronger than all the other fingers together.
Such was the spirit of a venerable [1913-A]patriarch—who shed on a very humble station the lustre of brilliant graces—that, when the storm sent others in haste to their homes, he was wont to leave his own, and to stand with upturned face, raised eye, and with his grey head uncovered, to watch the flash and listen to the music of the roaring thunder. How fine his reply to those who expressed their wonder at his aspect and attitude—"It's my Father's voice, and I like well to hear it!" What a sublime example of the perfect love that casteth out fear?
[1913-A] Jamie Stewart, Dr. Guthrie's first preceptor.
There is scarcely any one who may not, like a trout, be taken by tickling.
[385]
Time is a great master, he sets many things right.
With thee conversing I forget all time.
The happier the time, the quicker it passes.
Since time is not a person we can overtake when he is past, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.
How noiseless falls the foot of time.
An hour lost in the morning is never found all day.
Time passes like the wind.
Spare moments are the gold dust of time.
Time unveils truth.
"From time immemorial," said Judge Asher Carruth, of London, "Southern people have been lavish in bestowing [386]titles. I think there is something in the Southern temperament which explains this. I didn't start out on this, however, for a philosophical disquisition, but rather to tell how a certain Kentucky gentleman established valid title to the rank of Colonel. He went to Cincinnati once with a friend, who enjoyed many acquaintances there; and who introduced him to every one as Colonel Brown. Everything went along smoothly until finally one Cincinnatian asked of the introducer:
"I suppose your friend Colonel Brown was in the Confederate army?"
"No, sir; he was not."
"Well, then, he fought on the Union side?"
"You are wrong there, too."
"Oh, I see now; he got his title by serving in the State militia?"
"No, he never entered the militia."
"Then, how did he get to be a colonel?"
"He drew a sword, sir, at a church fair!"
Tobacco-takers.—Dr. Caldwell says that there are but three animals
that can abide tobacco, namely:—The African rock goat—the most
loathsome creature on earth,
The foul tobacco worm,
And the rational creature, man!
Better be preparing for tomorrow, than regretting yesterday.
[387]
To-morrow is, ah, whose?
What cannot be told, had better not be done.
Never hold any one by the button or the hand, in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.
Though we have two eyes, we are supplied with but one tongue. Draw your own moral.
If you will control the tongue, you will soon be able also to control the mind.
Tongue.—When we advance a little into life, we find that the tongue creates nearly all the mischief of the world.
The tongue is the instrument of the greatest good and the greatest evil that is done in the world.
Let mildness ever attend thy tongue.
It is more necessary to guard the mouth than the chest.
[388]
It is related that a peasant once came to a monk to be taught the Scriptures. The holy man began with the Psalm, 39 chapter, 1st verse: "I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue."
The peasant went his way to practice this and never returned. Lifelong was the lesson, and lifelong the endeavor to master it.
The tongue's not steel, yet it often cuts.
A sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.
There are tourists who so busy themselves in traveling that they see nothing.
A useful trade may be said to be like a mine of gold.
He who has a trade may travel through the world.
[389]
One of the remarks which an American is expected to make on returning from a foreign tour, especially his first return, is: "Well I'm a better American for having gone abroad," meaning that foreign travel has increased his love for his own country—in other words, has toned up his patriotism. * * * * * * * *
Foreign travel will make any intelligent American a better citizen, because an increase of knowledge is a betterment. One honored resident of Washington, a gentleman past middle life, recently returned from his first European tour, and on being asked if he could make the stereotyped report of having been "made a better American," replied: "Yes; I think I am a better American for having had a deal of conceit knocked out of me." That was a profitable experience.
He that would make his travels delightful, must first make himself delightful.
It will be observed, that when giving me (Boswell) advice as to my travels, Dr. Johnson did not dwell upon cities, and palaces, and pictures, and shows. He was of Lord Essex's opinion, who advises his kinsman, Roger, Earl of Rutland, "rather to go a hundred miles to speak with one wise man, than five miles to see a fair town."
Deuteronomy xxxiii, 19—"They shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of the treasures hid in the sand."
Among the hardships experienced by the first settlers in [390]North America, they were sometimes greatly distressed for food, which led the women and the children to the sea side to look for a ship which they expected with provisions, but no ship appeared for many weeks; they saw in the sand, however, vast quantities of shellfish, since called clams, a species of muscle. Hunger impelled them to taste, and at length they fed wholly upon them, and were as cheerful and well as they had been before in England, enjoying the best provision. It is added, that a good man, after they had all dined one day on clams, without bread, returned thanks to God for causing them to "suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand." This text, which they had never before observed particularly, was ever after endeared to them.
(This piece was written for Miss Mary Campbell, the poet's sister; it appeared first in the Morning Chronicle.
The tree, the subject of the lines still ornaments the grounds at Ardwell, in Scotland, the seat of James Murray McCulloch, Esq.)
Like a tree, am I sheltering others by my life?
The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skilful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.
Deuteronomy xxii, 4.—"Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or ass fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them; thou shalt surely help him lift them up again."
[392] Mr. George Herbert, the poet, when walking to Salisbury, saw a poor man, with a poorer horse, fallen under his load. Mr. Herbert perceiving this, put off his canonical coat, and helped the poor man to unload, and after to load his horse. The poor man blessed him for it, and he blessed the poor man, and gave him money to refresh both himself and his horse; and told him, "If he loved himself, he should be merciful to his beast." At his coming to his musical friends at Salisbury, they began to wonder that Mr. George Herbert, who used to be so clean, came in such a condition; but he told them the occasion; and when one of the company told him, "he had disparaged himself by so dirty an employment," his answer was, "That the thought of what he had done would prove music to him at midnight; and the omission of it would have upbraided and made discord in his conscience, whensoever he should pass by the place."
To tell our troubles, is often the way to lighten them.
During the Rabbi's absence from home, two of his sons died. Their mother hiding her grief, awaited the father's return, and then said to him. "My husband, some time since two jewels of inestimable value were placed with me for safe keeping. He who left them with me called [393]for them to-day, and I delivered them into His hands." "That is right," said the Rabbi approvingly. "We must always return cheerfully and faithfully all that is placed in our care." Shortly after this, the Rabbi asked for his sons, and the mother, taking him by the hand, led him gently to the chamber of death. Meir gazed upon his sons, and realizing the truth, wept bitterly. "Weep not, beloved husband," said his noble wife; "didst thou not say to me we must return cheerfully, when called for, all that has been placed under our care? God gave us these jewels; He left them with us for a time, and we gloried in their possession; but now that He calls for His own, we should not repine."
In Boswell's Life of Johnson, he says:—Next morning, while we were at breakfast, Johnson gave a very earnest recommendation of what he himself practised with the utmost conscientiousness: I mean a strict attention to truth, even in the most minute particulars. "Accustom your children," said he, "constantly to this: If a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end."
Dare to be true: Nothing can need a lie.
I once asked a deaf and dumb boy, "What is truth?" He replied by thrusting his finger forward in a straight line. I then asked him "What is falsehood?" when he made a zigzag with his finger. Try to remember this; let whoever [394]will, take a zigzag path,—go you on in your course as straight as an arrow to its mark, and shrink from falsehood, as you would from a viper.
Not to believe the truth, is of all ills the worst.
A woman stopped a divine in the streets of the metropolis with this salutation: "There is no truth in the land, sir! There is no truth in the land." "Then you do not speak the truth, good woman," replied the clergyman. "Oh, yes, I do," returned she, hastily. "Then there is truth in the land," rejoined he, as quickly.
Truth, like the sun, submits to be obscured; but, like the sun, only for a time.
[395]
To love truth for truth's sake, is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.
Truth, when not sought after, sometimes comes to light.
A thousand probabilities don't make one truth.
In an Eastern land a boy once set out from his mother's home for a distant city, where he was to begin life and earn his livelihood. Before parting with him, his mother gave him forty gold dinars, which, for safety, she sewed inside his waistcoat. Her last counsel to him was, to seek and to follow always the truth. On his way he had to cross part of a desert, infested by robbers. One of these saw him and came galloping up "Boy, what money have you got?" he sternly demanded. The boy looked up at him, and said, "I have forty gold dinars sewed up in my waistcoat." The robber burst into a fit of laughter; he thought the boy was joking. And, turning his horse, he galloped back to his troop. By-and-by, another horseman rode up to the boy as he trudged on, and made the same demand: "Boy, what have you got?" "Forty gold dinars, sewed up in my waistcoat," said the boy again. This robber, too, burst out laughing, and turned away, thinking the boy was making fun of him. They had some talk in their band about the boy's strange reply. Their leader turning it over in his mind, said he would like to see him, and, leaving the troop, soon overtook the young traveler. He put the same question [396]as the others, and again the boy gave the same answer. The captain leapt off his horse, and began to feel the boy's clothes, till he counted—one, two, three—the forty gold dinars just as he had been told. "What made you tell the truth, my boy?" he asked. "My God and my mother, sir," was the reply. "Wait for me here a little," said the captain, and galloped back to his troop. In a few minutes he returned, but so changed that the boy hardly knew him. By removing a false beard and other disguises, his appearance was quite altered. "Come with me, my lad," he said; and he pointed to the spires of a distant city. "I cannot go with you," said the boy; "you are a robber!" "I was," the man said, "but all that is over now! I have given it up forever. I have a large business in yonder city, and I wish you to come with me and share it." And so they went on together; and when they arrived at the city the boy entered his employment, and ultimately became very wealthy and influential.
My aim is not so much to say things that are new, as things that are true.
Better suffer for truth, than profit by falsehood.
[397]
Two weeks ago on board an English steamer, a little ragged boy, aged nine years, was discovered on the fourth day of the voyage out from Liverpool to New York, and carried before the first mate, whose duty it was to deal with such cases. When questioned as to his object of being stowed away, and who brought him on board, the boy, who had a beautiful sunny face, and eyes that looked like the very mirrors of truth, replied that his step-father did it, because he could not afford to keep him, nor pay his passage out to Halifax, where he had an aunt who was well off, and to whose house he was going. The mate did not believe the story, in spite of the winning face and truthful accents of the boy. He had seen too much of stow-aways to be easily deceived by them, he said; and it was his firm conviction that the boy had been brought on board and provided with food by the sailors. The little fellow was very roughly handled in consequence. Day by day he was questioned and re-questioned, but always with the same result. He did not know a sailor on board, and his father alone had secreted him and given him the food which he ate. At last the mate, wearied by the boy's persistence in the same story, and perhaps a little anxious to inculpate the sailors, seized him one day by the collar, and, dragging him to the fore, told him that unless he would tell the truth in ten minutes from that time, he would hang him from the yard-arm. He then made him sit down under it on the deck. All around him were the passengers and sailors of the midway watch, and in front of him stood the inexorable mate, with his chronometer in his hand, and the other officers of the ship by his side. It was the finest sight, said our informant, that he ever beheld—to see the pale, proud, sorrowful face of that noble boy, his head erect, his beautiful blue eyes bright through [398]the tears that suffused them. When eight minutes had fled, the mate told him he had but two minutes to live, and advised him to speak the truth and save his life; but he replied with the utmost simplicity and sincerity by asking the mate if he might pray. The mate said nothing, but nodded his head and turned deadly pale, and shook with trembling like a reed with the wind, and there, all eyes turned on him, the brave and noble little fellow, this poor waif, whom society owned not, and whose own step-father could not care for him—there he knelt, with clasped hands, and eyes turned to heaven, while he repeated audibly the Lord's prayer, and prayed the Lord Jesus to take him to heaven. Sobs broke from strong, hard hearts, as the mate sprang forward to the boy, and clasped him to his bosom, and kissed him and blessed him, and told him how sincerely he believed his story, and how glad he was that he had been brave enough to face death and be willing to sacrifice his life for the truth of his word.
He who does not fully speak the truth is a traitor to it.
When Aristotle, the Grecian philosopher, who was tutor to Alexander the Great, was asked what a man could gain by uttering falsehoods, he replied, "Not to be credited when he shall tell the truth." On the other hand, it is related that when Petrarch, the Italian poet, a man of strict integrity, was summoned as a witness, and offered in the usual manner to take an oath before a court of justice, the judge closed the book, saying, "As to you, Petrarch, your word is sufficient."
[399]
Nature hath appointed the twilight as a bridge to pass us out of night into day.
The unexpected often happens.
The unfinished is nothing.
There is a chill air surrounding those who are down in the world, and people are glad to get away from them, as from a cold room.
"Please buy my penny songs!" cried a feeble voice in one of the streets of a great city. The day was very cold, and little Katie had left her cheerless home to earn, if possible, a few pennies. Poor Katie! Her little voice was feeble because her heart was sad, for so many passed her by unnoticed; and she felt almost discouraged.
Soon she found herself in a music store, standing near a beautiful lady, who was sitting there selecting music. She again uttered her little cry, "Please buy a penny song!" but the lady, not hearing what she said, turned towards her, and, with the kindest, sweetest smile, said gently, "What is it, darling?" at the same time putting a piece of money [400]in her hand. Katie, not thinking what she did, laid her head in the lady's lap, and cried as though her heart would break. The lady tried to soothe her; and soon Katie said, "O lady! I cry, not because you gave money, but because you spoke so kindly to me."
He who serves the unfortunate, serves God.
Everybody and everything unknown are often magnified.
Things unreasonable are never durable.
[401]
I had rather be the first man in the village than the second man in Rome.
If you have performed an act of great and disinterested virtue, conceal it; if you publish it, you will neither be believed here nor rewarded hereafter.
If there's a virtue in the world at which we should always aim, it is cheerfulness.
Our virtues disappear, said Rochefoucauld, when put in competition with our interests, as rivers lose themselves in the ocean.
Virtue, not pedigree, should characterize nobility.
The tones of human voices are mightier than strings or brass to move the soul.
[402]
The Source of Wants.—It is not from nature, but from education and habits, that our wants are chiefly derived.
He cannot provide for the wants of others, whose own are numerous and craving.
When George Washington was a boy, a beautiful cherry tree was killed in his father's garden, by some violent hand stripping its bark. Mr. Washington said he would not have taken five guineas for the tree, and he would like to know [404]the offender. Shortly after, seeing George with an axe in his hand, he asked him if he knew who had killed the cherry tree. George hesitated for a moment, then said, "I cannot tell a lie, father, I cannot tell a lie. I cut it with the hatchet." "Come to my arms," said his father; "you have paid for it a thousand times." Such an act of heroism in telling the truth he valued more than a thousand cherry trees.
Hundreds would never have known want if they had not first known waste.
He who plays with dollars in his youth, will be apt to have to beg for farthings in his age.
When you take out, and do not put in, expect to reach the bottom.
About three-fourths of the weight of the human body consists of water; and as it is constantly being thrown off by the skin, lungs, etc., it requires to be continually renewed, and water is therefore an essential alimentary principle, and more necessary to our existence than even solid food.
I am glad to find your great wealth has not changed you. "Well," responded Mr. Preston, "it has changed me a trifle. I'm eccentric where I used to be impolite, and delightfully sarcastic where I used to be rude—so they tell me."
[405]
Extreme wealth brings excessive care; for the average man a moderate competence is best.
Golden roofs break men's rest.
Much on earth, little in heaven.
Ability is the poor man's wealth.
Many a lout is wealthy, and a clever man, hard put to.
It is some relief to weep; grief is satisfied and carried off by tears.
To say you are welcome, would be superfluous.
A warm welcome after all, is the best cheer.
Who comes seldom is welcome.
You're as welcome as the flowers in May.
[406]
Dig a well before you are thirsty. (Be prepared against contingencies.)
The following verses were sent to a graduate of Wheaton Seminary of the class of 1866 by John G. Whittier, on the receipt of two pairs of long stockings, which the young woman had knit. She was a frequent visitor in the Whittier home, and often assisted in the entertainment of guests of honor. Mr. Whittier regarded the verses as doggerel, and expressed his intention of writing something worth while for his youthful admirer. But the poem reveals a humorous side of his character, differing from what one finds in his published poetry, and it is probable that neither Mr. Whittier nor his young friend, who died in her early womanhood, would have objected to the publication of the verses.
Who sows thorns should not go barefoot.
[408]
Advice to a Wife.—O woman! thou knowest the hour when the goodman of the house will return, when the heat and burden of the day are past; do not let him at such time, find upon his coming to his habitation, that the foot which should hasten to meet him is wandering at a distance, that when he is weary with toil and jaded with discouragement, the soft hand which should wipe the sweat from his brow, is knocking at the door of other houses.
A stubborn wife is a mat rolled up—i. e., useless.
I have often had occasion to remark the fortitude with which women sustain the most overwhelming reverses of [410]fortune. Those disasters which break down the spirit of a man, and prostrate him in the dust, seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, and give such intrepidity and elevation to their character, that at times it approaches to sublimity. Nothing can be more touching, than to behold a soft and tender female, who had been all weakness and dependence, and alive to every trivial roughness, while threading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly rising in mental force to be the comforter and supporter of her husband under misfortune and abiding with unshrinking firmness, the bitterest blasts of adversity.
As the vine which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunder-bolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs; so it is beautifully ordered by Providence, that woman who is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with calamity; winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken heart.
I was once congratulating a friend, who had around him a blooming family, knit together in the strongest affection. "I can wish you no better lot," said he, with enthusiasm, "than to have a wife and children. If you are prosperous, there they are to share your prosperity; if otherwise, there they are to comfort you." And, indeed, I have observed that a married man, falling into misfortune, is more apt to retrieve his situation in the world than a single one; partly because he is more stimulated to exertion by the necessities of the helpless and beloved beings who depend upon him for subsistence; but chiefly because his spirits are soothed and relieved by domestic endearments, and his self-respect kept alive by finding, that though all abroad is darkness and humiliation, yet there is still a little world of love at home, [411]of which he is the monarch. Whereas, a single man is apt to run to waste and self-neglect; to fancy himself lonely and abandoned, and his heart to fall to ruin, like some deserted mansion, for want of an inhabitant.
These observations call to mind a little domestic story, of which I was once a witness. My intimate friend, Leslie, had married a beautiful and accomplished girl, who had been brought up in the midst of fashionable life. She had, it is true, no fortune, but that of my friend was ample; and he delighted in the anticipation of indulging her in elegant pursuit, and administering to those delicate tastes and fancies that spread a kind of witchery about the sex.—"Her life," said he, "shall be like a fairy tale."
The very difference in their characters produced a harmonious combination; he was of a romantic and somewhat serious cast; she was all life and gladness. I have often noticed the mute rapture with which he would gaze upon her in company, of which her sprightly powers made her the delight; and how, in the midst of applause, her eye would still turn to him, as if there alone she sought favor and acceptance. When leaning on his arm, her slender form contrasted finely with his tall, manly person. The fond confiding air with which she looked up to him seemed to call forth a flush of triumphant pride and cherishing tenderness, as if he doted on his lovely burden for its very helplessness. Never did a couple set forward on a flowery path of early and well-suited marriage with a fairer prospect of felicity.
It was the misfortune of my friend, however, to have embarked his property in large speculations; and he had not been married many months when, by a succession of sudden disasters, it was swept from him, and he found himself reduced to almost penury. For a time he kept his situation to himself, and went about with a haggard countenance and a breaking heart. His life was but a protracted agony; and what rendered it more insupportable was the necessity of [412]keeping up a smile in the presence of his wife; for he could not bring himself to overwhelm her with the news. She saw, however, with the quick eyes of affection, that all was not well with him. She marked his altered looks and stifled sighs, and was not to be deceived by his sickly and vapid attempts at cheerfulness. She tasked all her sprightly powers and tender blandishments to win him back to happiness; but she only drove the arrow deeper into his soul. The more he saw cause to love her, the more torturing was the thought that he was soon to make her wretched. A little while, thought he, and the smile will banish from that cheek—the song will die away from those lips—the lustre of those eyes will be quenched with sorrow—and the happy heart which now beats lightly in that bosom will be weighed down, like mine, by the cares and miseries of the world.
At length he came to me one day, and related his whole situation in a tone of the deepest despair. When I had heard him through, I inquired, "Does your wife know all this?" At the question he burst into an agony of tears. "For God's sake!" cried he, "if you have any pity on me, don't mention my wife; it is the thought of her that drives me almost to distraction!"
"And why not?" said I:—"She must know it sooner or later: you cannot keep it long from her, and the intelligence may break upon her in a more startling manner than if imparted by yourself; for the accents of those we love soften the harshest tidings. Besides, you are depriving yourself of the comforts of her sympathy; and not merely that, but also endangering the only bond that can keep hearts together—an unreserved community of thought and feeling. She will soon perceive that something is secretly preying upon your mind; and true love will not brook reserve: it feels undervalued and outraged, when even the sorrows of those it loves are concealed from it."
[413] "Oh, but my friend! to think what a blow I am to give to all her future prospects—how I am to strike her very soul to the earth, by telling her that her husband is a beggar!—that she is to forego all the elegancies of life—all the pleasures of society—to shrink with me into indigence and obscurity! To tell her that I have dragged her down from the sphere in which she might have continued to move in constant brightness—the light of every eye—the admiration of every heart!—How can she bear poverty? She has been brought up in all the refinements of opulence * * *"
I saw his grief was eloquent, and I let it have its flow; for sorrow relieves itself by words. When his paroxysm had subsided, and he had relapsed into moody silence, I resumed the subject gently, and urged him to break his situation at once to his wife. He shook his head mournfully, but positively.
"But how are you to keep it from her? It is necessary she should know it, that you may take the steps proper to the alteration of your circumstances. You must change your style of living—nay," observing a pang to pass across his countenance, "don't let that afflict you. I am sure you never placed your happiness in outward show—you have yet friends, warm friends, who will not think the worse of you for being less splendidly lodged; and surely it does not require a palace to be happy with Mary—" "I could be happy with her," cried he convulsively, "in a hovel! *"
"Believe me, my friend," said I, stepping up, and grasping him warmly by the hand, "she can be the same with you. Ay, more: it will be a source of pride and triumph to her—it will call forth all the latent energies and fervent sympathies of her nature; for she will rejoice to prove that she loves you for yourself. There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity." I finished [414]by persuading him to go home and unburden his sad heart to his wife.
I must confess, notwithstanding all I have said, I felt some little solicitude for the result. Who can calculate on the fortitude of one whose whole life has been a round of pleasures? Her gay spirits might revolt at the dark downward path of low humility, suddenly pointed out before her, and might cling to the sunny regions in which they had hitherto reveled.
In short, I could not meet Leslie next morning without trepidation. He had made the disclosure.
"And how did she bear it?"
"Like an Angel! It seemed rather to be a relief to her mind, for she threw her arms around my neck, and asked if this was all that had lately made me unhappy."
Some days afterwards, he called upon me in the evening. He had disposed of his dwelling-house, and taken a small cottage in the country, a few miles from town. He had been busy all day in sending out furniture. The new establishment required few articles, and those of the simplest kind. All the splendid furniture of his late residence had been sold, excepting his wife's harp. That, he said was too closely associated with the idea of herself; it belonged to the little story of their loves; for some of the sweetest moments of their courtship were those when he had leaned over that instrument, and listened to the melting tones of her voice. I could not but smile at this instance of romantic gallantry in a doting husband.
He was now going out to the cottage, where his wife had been all day superintending its arrangement. My feelings had become strongly interested in the progress of this family story, and as it was a fine evening, I offered to accompany him.
He was wearied with the fatigues of the day, and as we walked out, fell into a fit of gloomy musing.
[415] "Poor Mary!" at length broke, with a heavy sigh, from his lips.
"And what of her," asked I, "has anything happened to her?"
"What," said he, darting an impatient glance, "is it nothing to be reduced to this paltry situation—to be caged in a miserable cottage—to be obliged to toil almost in the menial concerns of her wretched habitation?"
"Has she then repined at the change?"
"Repined! she has been nothing but sweetness and good humor. Indeed, she seems in better spirits than I have ever known her; she has been to me all love and tenderness and comfort!"
"Admirable girl!" exclaimed I, "You call yourself poor, my friend; you never were so rich—you never knew the boundless treasures of excellence you possessed in that woman."
"Oh! but, my friend, if this first meeting at the cottage were over, I think I could then be comfortable. But this is her first day of real experience: she has been introduced into an humble dwelling—she has been employed all day, in arranging its miserable equipments—she has for the first time known the fatigues of domestic employment—she has for the first time looked around her on a home destitute of everything elegant—almost of everything convenient; and may now be sitting down, exhausted and spiritless, brooding over a prospect of future poverty."
There was a degree of probability in this picture that I could not gainsay, so we walked on in silence.
After turning from the main road, up a narrow lane, so thickly shaded by forest trees as to give it a complete air of seclusion, we came in sight of the cottage. It was humble enough in its appearance for the most pastoral poet; and yet it had a most pleasing rural look. * * * * * Just as we approached we heard the sound of music—Leslie [416]grasped my arm; we paused and listened. It was Mary's voice singing, in a style of the most touching simplicity, a little Scotch air of which her husband was peculiarly fond.
I felt Leslie's hand tremble on my arm. He stepped forward to hear more distinctly. His step made a noise on the gravel walk. A bright beautiful face glanced out at the window and vanished—a light footstep was heard—and Mary came tripping forth to meet us. She was in a pretty rural dress of white; a few wild flowers were twisted in her fine hair; a fresh bloom was on her cheek; her whole countenance beamed with smiles—I had never seen her look so lovely.
"My dear George," cried she, "I am so glad you are come; I have been watching and watching for you; and running down the lane and looking out for you. I've set out a table under a beautiful tree behind the cottage; and I've been gathering some of the most delicious strawberries, for I know you are so fond of them—and we have such excellent cream—and everything is so sweet and still here.—Oh!" said she, putting her arm within his, and looking up brightly in his face, "Oh, we shall be so happy!"
Poor Leslie was overcome. He caught her to his bosom—he folded his arms around her—he kissed her again and again—he could not speak for the tears gushed into his eyes.
He has often assured me that though the world has since gone prosperously with him, and his life has indeed been a happy one, yet never has he experienced a moment of more exquisite felicity than the time when I accompanied him to the little cottage in the country.
Better a fortune in a wife, than with a wife.
[417]
The good wife is none of our dainty dames, who love to appear in a variety of suits every day, new; as if a gown like a stratagem in war, were to be used but once. But our good wife sets up a sail according to the keel of her husband's estate; and if of high parentage, she doth not so remember what she was by birth, that she forgets what she is by—match.
When Sir Albert Morton died, his wife's grief was such that she shortly followed him, and was laid by his side. [418]Wotton's two lines on the event have been celebrated as containing a volume in seventeen words:
Certainly there are few higher tributes in the world to a good husband than this.
The wife is the key of the house.
A man's best fortune—or his worst—is a wife.
[419]
When a man has secured a good wife he can rest on his laurels; the world has no greater prize to offer him.
When the will is ready, the feet are light.
When the will is prompt, the legs are nimble.
Where there is a will, there is a way.
What you leave at your death, let it be without controversy, else the lawyers will be your heirs.
God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.
Winter finds out what Summer lays up.
[420]
It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies—seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.
To know how to grow old, is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
Youth is not the era of wisdom; let us therefore have due consideration.
Wishing, of all employments, is the worst.
An eye witness outweighs others.
[421]
By telling our woes we often assuage them.
A fashionable woman is always in love—with herself.
Manners, not jewels, are a woman's ornament.
The woman who really wishes to refuse an aspirant to her hand contents herself with saying, No. She who explains, wants to be convinced.
[423]
In Dr. Johnson's opinion, "a woman was well dressed, when, after seeing her, one could not remember what she had on."
A beautiful woman without fixed principles, may be likened to those fair but rootless flowers which float in streams, driven by every breeze.
A woman possessing nothing but outward advantages, is like a flower without fragrance, a tree without fruit.
The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.
Learn above all, how to manage women: their thousand Ahs! and Ohs! so thousand-fold, can be cured, but how,—I cannot tell.
[424]
Pretty women without religion are like flowers without perfume.
How many a day has been damped and darkened by an angry word!
It is as easy to draw back a stone thrown with force from the hand, as to recall a word once spoken.
[425]
The unspoken word never does harm.
For want of a word, lives often drift, and remain apart.
An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions: he is neither hot nor timid.
Words are but wind, but writing may rise up in judgment.
Stay longer—are two charming words in a friend's vocabulary.
Fair words gladden many a heart.
To a good listener few words will do.
[426]
Hard words break no bones, but they sometimes break hearts.
Kind words are the music of the world.
Kind words are a bright oasis in life's great desert.
Words are but pictures of our thoughts.
There are words which cut like steel.
If you think twice before you speak once, you will speak twice the better for it.
[427]
A word and a stone let go, cannot be recalled.
Like a beautiful flower, full of colour, but without perfume, are the fine, but fruitless words, of him who does not act accordingly.
It would perhaps be well for many of us to have in sight the following little sentiment when writing letters:—
An ill-tempered letter, once sent, will sometimes embitter a life-time. We once saw an old gentleman, with a wise, fine head, calm face, and a most benevolent look, beg of a postmaster to return him a letter which he had dropped into the box. To do so, as everybody knows, is illegal; but won over by the old gentleman's importunity, the postmaster complied, upon full proof, in comparing the writing etc. being given. Then, with a beaming face, the old gentleman tore the letter into fragments, and, scattering them to the winds, exclaimed—"Ah! I've preserved my friend." The fact is, he had written a letter in a state of irritation, which was probably unjust and hurtful, but which he had wisely recalled. "Written words remain," [428]is not only a proverb, but a very grave caution; and hence the advice—never write in anger, or, at any rate, keep your letter till next morning, when you probably will be cool and in a better frame of mind.
A good beginning is half the work.
He who is willing to work finds it hard to wait.
Never be ashamed of honest work. It is far better to be a good blacksmith than a bad lawyer.
Youth is the seed-time, old age the harvest. If we lay nothing up for old age it will be as related in the fable; namely: A cricket came to the ant, and said, "Give me something to eat?" The ant asked, "What did you in the summer?" "I whistled," said the cricket. "Then," said the ant, "if you whistled in summer while I was working, you may dance in the winter," and gave her nothing.
We are best known by what we do.
[429]
One's work is the best company.
I am often tired in, but never of, my work.
We often hear of people breaking down from over-work, but nine cases out of ten they are really suffering from worry or anxiety.
Unless a man works, he cannot find out what he is able to do.
I cannot abide to see men throw away their tools the minute the clock begins to strike, as if they took no pleasure in their work, and was afraid o' doing a stroke too much. The very grindstone 'll go on turning a bit after you loose it.
[430]
The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in the closet.
Shall I tell you what a princess wrote—the Princess Amelia, who was an aunt of our good Queen Victoria, and who after a long and painful sickness and trial died at an early age?—
A man's quarrel with the world, is only a quarrel with himself.
All my theology is reduced to this narrow compass—Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners.
[431]
The world does not seem to care for honorable lives as much as it does for a good bank-account.
He who would enjoy many friends, and live happy in the world, must often be deaf, dumb, and blind, to its vices and follies.
Said the Rev. W. J. Dawson: "I know in my own heart how soon the spirit of devoutness fades when from any cause I am deprived of public worship for any length of time. And when I see a youth to whom religious worship has been the atmosphere of his childhood, gradually withdrawing himself from the means of grace, I tremble for him, because I have seen what that means. I can think of men whom I loved, and who now lead wretched and degraded lives, and all their misery began when they forsook the tabernacles of their God."
A soft answer turneth away wrath.
Call not that man wretched, who, whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.
A good life keeps off wrinkles.
[432]
It is a remarkable fact, that no man can ever get rid of the style of handwriting peculiar to his country. If he be English, he always writes in English style; if French, in French style; if German, Italian, or Spanish, in the style peculiar to his nation. Professor B—— states:—"I am acquainted with a Frenchman, who has passed all his life in England, who speaks English like one of our own countrymen, and writes it with ten times the correctness of ninety-nine in a hundred of us; but yet who cannot, for the life of him, imitate our mode of writing. I knew a Scotch youth, who was educated entirely in France, and resided eighteen years in that country, mixing exclusively with French people, but who, although he had a French writing-master, and, perhaps, never saw anything but French writing in his life, or rarely, yet wrote exactly in the Scotch style."
The word that is heard, passes away; the letter that is written,—remains.
The remedy for wrongs is to forget them.
My ear is pained, my soul is sick with every day's report of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.
[433]
Yankee.—The word Yankee is believed to have been derived from the manner in which the Indians endeavored to pronounce the word English, which they rendered Yenghees, whence the word Yankee.
Why doth one man's yawning make another yawn?
How often it is like autumn leaves, many hopes and ambitions that yesterday were bright and strong, are now, alas, dead!
An easy youth, generally means a hard old age.
As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth.
In youth we feel richer for every new illusion; in maturer years, for every one we lose.
[435]
You youngsters nowadays think you're to begin with living well, and working easy: you've no notion of running afoot before you get on horseback.
Heavy work in youth is sweet repose in old age.
Excessive Zeal.—An Indian, having heard from a white man some strictures on zeal, replied—"I don't know about having too much zeal; but I think it is better the pot should boil over than not boil at all."
[436]
[i]
| Abilities | No man's, are so remarkably | 1 |
| Absence | Pains of, wiped away | 2 |
| Abuse | Weapon of vulgar | 3 |
| Acorns | It is told of Admiral Collingwood | 4 |
| Acquaintance | Easier to make, than to shake | 5 |
| Softens | 6 | |
| Sometimes lowers opinion of one | 7 | |
| Act | Speaks out in, etc. | 8 |
| What is done by one, all may do | 9 | |
| Which makes a friend and enemy, what | 10 | |
| Acting | World practices | 11 |
| Action | Do what you can, etc. | 12 |
| Good, receives recompense | 13 | |
| Judged by motive for | 14 | |
| Our, are our own | 15 | |
| Speak not of, before doing | 16 | |
| Thought, compared with | 17 | |
| What I must do, is all that concerns me | 18 | |
| Actor | Compared with preacher | 19 |
| Adieu | Sweet, bids return | 20 |
| Adversity | Contrasted with prosperity | 21 |
| Does not take away true friends | 22 | |
| Effect of | 23 | |
| He who never was acquainted with | 24 | |
| Proud man in, nobody knows him | 25 | |
| The finest friendships have been | 26 | |
| Advice | Ask not for, when assistance wanted | 27 |
| Before giving, we must have secured its | 28 | |
| Difficult to make agreeable | 29 | |
| Friends required | 30 | |
| Give not to self-conceited man | 31 | |
| Pouring water on a duck's | 32 | |
| Who comes for, wants not to be corrected | 33 | |
| Affectation | Clerical abhorred | 34 |
| Cure of | 35 | |
| Lights candle to our defects | 36 | |
| Vain and ridiculous | 37 | |
| Affections | Sad to see them changed | 38 |
| Afflictions | "Be still, sad heart," etc. | 39 |
| For every sort of | 40 | |
| Sons of, brothers | 41 | |
| Affronts | Young men soon give | 42 |
| Age | A joy, if youth well spent | 43 |
| Approaching, signs of | 44 | |
| [ii]Matter of feeling, not of years | 45 | |
| Of men and women, what | 46 | |
| Old, be happy in | 47 | |
| Old, and faded flowers | 48 | |
| Reverence for | 49 | |
| Should make one indulgent, etc. | 50 | |
| Slave to custom | 51 | |
| Speak gently to aged | 52 | |
| Thinks the past the best | 53 | |
| These are the effects | 54 | |
| Alcides | No equal but himself | 55 |
| Alms | Rich often slowest to give | 56 |
| Side means used to raise | 57 | |
| Alone | What stamps the wrinkles deepest | 58 |
| Alphabet | Hawaiian in 1886 | 59 |
| Ambition | Man of, has many masters | 60 |
| Amiability | Easy, when | 61 |
| Ambition | Sea of, tempest-tost is | 62 |
| Ultimate result of all | 63 | |
| Amusements | The mind ought | 64 |
| Ancestor | Merit of, effect of, on descendant | 65 |
| Ancestors | Not always well to look them up | 66 |
| Merit from | 67 | |
| Ancestry | Boasting of, lowers, etc. | 68 |
| Never mind, etc. | 69 | |
| Anger | A good man's, lasts an | 70 |
| Avoid a man in a passion | 71 | |
| Begins in folly, ends in repentance | 72 | |
| Effect of subduing | 73 | |
| Fatal to dignity | 74 | |
| Nurse not secretly | 75 | |
| Shows weak judgment | 76 | |
| Suppressed, prevents sorrow | 77 | |
| Unjust and ridiculous when | 78 | |
| When a man grows angry | 79 | |
| Animals | Agreeable friends, why | 80 |
| Treat kindly, as God's creatures | 81 | |
| Kindness to | 82 | |
| Answer | A gracious | 83 |
| Anxiety | The poison of human life | 84 |
| Appearance | Beware of judging by | 85 |
| Dress does not change the man | 86 | |
| Man's reception depends on | 87 | |
| Appearances | Often misleading, instance of | 88 |
| Appetite | Riches cannot buy | 89 |
| Applause | To love it, praiseworthy | 90 |
| Apples | Good medicine | 91 |
| Appointments | May be given, but, etc. | 92 |
| [iii]Approbation | If general | 93 |
| Arbitration | Makes an enemy, or a friend | 94 |
| Argument | Contend not with a fool, etc. | 95 |
| Assistance | Asking and bestowing | 96 |
| Associates | Live not too near to | 97 |
| Association | Produces like characters | 98 |
| Audience | Interesting or fatiguing, it | 99 |
| Beautiful | The, never desolate | 100 |
| Beauty | Of face, and mind compared | 101 |
| Of youth, age, etc. | 102 | |
| Selfish, a flower without perfume | 103 | |
| What is? | 104 | |
| What may be preserved | 105 | |
| Without kindness | 106 | |
| Bed | The, heaven to the weary head | 107 |
| Believe | Men generally, what | 108 |
| Benefactors | The kindest | 109 |
| Beneficent | A, person is like a fountain | 110 |
| Benefit | None too small to magnify | 111 |
| Receiving, sale of liberty | 112 | |
| When to forget, when to remember | 113 | |
| Benevolence | Human, not always pure | 114 |
| Bereavement | Effect on heart | 115 |
| Betrothed | How to know him | 116 |
| Bible | Index to eternity | 117 |
| Mystery of mysteries | 118 | |
| Remember that God is speaking to you in | 119 | |
| Some curious facts in | 120 | |
| The | 120a | |
| Bird | "A little bird told me," origin of expression | 121 |
| Birds | Old, are hard to | 122 |
| Birth | Be not ashamed of humble | 123 |
| Is what | 124 | |
| Birthday | Has different sounds to different ages | 125 |
| Blessings | Those who give them, keep them | 126 |
| Boaster | World has no use for | 127 |
| Book | Good keeper of | 128 |
| If loaned to a girl, read it when returned | 129 | |
| Use as bee uses the flower | 130 | |
| Books | Be careful of what you read | 131 |
| Borrowed, return | 132 | |
| Friends ever near | 133 | |
| Introductions to the best society | 134 | |
| Lending of | 135 | |
| Often denied the poor | 136 | |
| That you may carry to the fire | 137 | |
| [iv]Useless, costly | 138 | |
| Bore | Who is in society | 139 |
| Borrowers | What some do | 140 |
| Boy | At what age should win his way | 141 |
| Be polite, advice of father to | 142 | |
| Gallant answer of one | 143 | |
| How to bring up,—Ruskin | 144 | |
| May be led to college, but, etc. | 145 | |
| Results of disobeying parents | 146 | |
| The blind | 147 | |
| The orphan's fate | 148 | |
| What gifts help him best | 149 | |
| Boys | What they should learn | 150 |
| Brain | (Mind), good to polish | 151 |
| Bread | Eaten, soon forgotten | 152 |
| Breeding | Better than birth | 153 |
| Good, consists of having, etc. | 154 | |
| Good, result of what | 155 | |
| Britain | Great, climate of | 156 |
| Great, nobility of | 157 | |
| Brother | Sufferings claim a, pity | 158 |
| Thy, in poverty, etc. | 159 | |
| Burdened | The, respect them,—Napoleon | 160 |
| Burdens | Another's, weight of | 161 |
| Lightened by helping others | 162 | |
| Burns | Robert, what we owe to him | 163 |
| Business | Effect of prosperity or failure | 164 |
| I'll give money to | 165 | |
| Sentiment in | 166 | |
| To, that we love | 167 | |
| Your, keep to it | 168 | |
| Busybodies | Know all things | 169 |
| Buyer | The, depreciates, etc. | 170 |
| By-and-by | Road to, leads where | 171 |
| Calamity | Do not insult, etc. | 172 |
| Can't | I, does nothing | 173 |
| Cap | "Feather in," derivation of expression | 174 |
| Whom the, fits, let him | 175 | |
| Capacity | Deplorable, when | 176 |
| Cards | Avoid as temptations | 177 |
| For benefits designed | 178 | |
| Care | Carry not to bed with you | 179 |
| Cares | Put them off | 180 |
| Cat | To win a, and lose a | 181 |
| Caution | Consider well, what can be done but once | 182 |
| Life of, reward | 183 | |
| One rule for showing | 184 | |
| [v]Sign not paper, etc. | 185 | |
| Censure | Of one, makes two cordial | 186 |
| Ceremony | A bow of, sometimes repels | 187 |
| Excess of, a want of breeding | 188 | |
| Certainty | That which has happened | 189 |
| Chalmers | Rev. Dr., in London | 190 |
| Chance | Heaven and earth not made by | 191 |
| Change | Times, and we | 192 |
| When you seek to | 193 | |
| Character | An admirable, described | 194 |
| Best, not without fault | 195 | |
| Crown jewel of, sincerity | 196 | |
| Delicacy, inseparable from sweetness of | 197 | |
| Description of upright | 198 | |
| Illustrated, by little things | 199 | |
| Keep it abroad, as at home | 200 | |
| Kindness, better for, than talents | 201 | |
| Man of, shown by merely naming him | 202 | |
| Men believed, or not, because of | 203 | |
| None suddenly very good, or very bad | 204 | |
| Of public man, a football | 205 | |
| One to be admired | 206 | |
| Prosperity brings forth hidden | 207 | |
| The history of a man | 208 | |
| What firm and weak feet do | 209 | |
| What shows strength of | 210 | |
| Charitable | Give, and God repays | 211 |
| Charity | In word only | 212 |
| Begins at home,—its home | 213 | |
| Cast thy bread upon the waters | 214 | |
| Compared with politeness | 215 | |
| Do good by stealth, etc. | 216 | |
| Duty is, where there is plenty | 217 | |
| Exalts, though we stoop to bestow | 218 | |
| Fountain of, always clear | 219 | |
| Give freely to the deserving | 220 | |
| How to give it | 221 | |
| Not to excite hope when | 222 | |
| Relieve fellow man in distress | 223 | |
| See Leviticus XXV, 35 | 224 | |
| Visit of, to needy, visit of the Savior | 225 | |
| What given in, is kept | 226 | |
| What is, and what its reward | 227 | |
| Who at fault with regard to | 228 | |
| Who gives double | 229 | |
| Cheat | On whom shame first time | 230 |
| Cheek | The, is apter to tell | 231 |
| Cheer | Speak word of, to the living | 232 |
| [vi]Cheerfulness | Refreshes by its presence | 233 |
| Smoothes the road of | 234 | |
| Suggests good health, etc. | 235 | |
| Chide | A friend in private, and | 236 |
| Child | A short sermon by one | 237 |
| A sleeping | 238 | |
| Beautiful as rose, etc. | 239 | |
| Bruise not its heart | 240 | |
| Correct, etc. | 241 | |
| Destiny of, work of the mother | 242 | |
| Eyes of, beautiful, etc. | 243 | |
| Her little shoes, lines on | 244 | |
| Inscription on silver plate of | 245 | |
| Judicious praise of | 246 | |
| Learns indoors, what he tells | 247 | |
| Lines on, by Thomas Campbell | 248 | |
| One who was a Christ-child | 249 | |
| Questions of, as teachers | 250 | |
| Restless observation of | 251 | |
| Speak gently to | 252 | |
| Take care of Christian instruction of | 253 | |
| Teach it ideas, not phrases | 254 | |
| Tear on cheek of | 255 | |
| The, and the "Rising Day" | 256 | |
| The beginning of discipline for | 257 | |
| The way to spoil, or to benefit | 258 | |
| Trained by example | 259 | |
| Unhappy end of | 260 | |
| What it should be taught | 261 | |
| Childhood | Indicates the man | 262 |
| Children | A bond of union, etc. | 263 |
| Are tattlers | 264 | |
| Be not impatient with | 265 | |
| Certain care, uncertain comforts | 266 | |
| Dear to parents | 267 | |
| Dutifulness, foundation, of virtue in | 268 | |
| Ease cares, with bliss | 269 | |
| Effect of good instruction, and bad example | 270 | |
| Enjoy the present | 271 | |
| Father's best legacy to | 272 | |
| Flatter not, but encourage | 273 | |
| Good physiognomists | 274 | |
| Dr. Guthrie's opinion | 275 | |
| Indulgence to, breeds ingratitude | 276 | |
| Industrious habits, better than, etc. | 277 | |
| Instruction to, better than riches | 278 | |
| Japanese, always obedient | 279 | |
| Jewels dropped from Heaven | 280 | |
| [vii]Know friend and foe | 281 | |
| Let them learn more than yourself | 282 | |
| Like the to-morrow of society | 283 | |
| Live in the present | 284 | |
| Love, as being fresh from God's hand | 285 | |
| Love of, sign of pure heart | 286 | |
| More precious than gold, etc. | 287 | |
| Need models, not critics | 288 | |
| Not always indulge | 289 | |
| Parents should discipline | 290 | |
| Pastime with | 291 | |
| Poor men's riches | 292 | |
| Praise, effect of | 293 | |
| Prevent parents from being selfish | 294 | |
| Reflect manners of parents | 295 | |
| Should be taught sympathy | 296 | |
| Still ours, though in heaven | 297 | |
| Teach children to tell the truth | 298 | |
| Teach love to | 299 | |
| Travelers newly arrived, etc. | 300 | |
| Treat yours all alike | 301 | |
| Usually what their mothers are | 302 | |
| What to discountenance in | 303 | |
| Will grow up substantially what | 304 | |
| Christ | Abide with us | 305 |
| Description of person of | 306 | |
| His last supper, a memorial, etc. | 307 | |
| If you profess Him, do His deeds | 308 | |
| Patron of poor and afflicted | 309 | |
| The, a carpenter's consolation | 310 | |
| Think rightly of Him | 311 | |
| Christian | A, is the highest style of | 312 |
| He that is a good man | 313 | |
| None, if not Christlike | 314 | |
| Christianity | No civilization without | 315 |
| Christmas | When truly merry | 316 |
| Church | A rebuke for staying away from | 317 |
| Bring self to, not your clothes | 318 | |
| Cannot alone make good | 319 | |
| How it may grow | 320 | |
| I was once preaching in Scotland | 321 | |
| Late goers to, rebuked | 322 | |
| Plan to keep awake in | 323 | |
| Remember God is there | 324 | |
| Take your children to | 325 | |
| Two classes in | 326 | |
| Circumstances | Men are dependent on | 327 |
| Civility | Bases of large fortune | 328 |
| [viii]What is | 329 | |
| Clergyman | In city, what must have | 330 |
| Clock | An ideal example of work | 331 |
| Clergyman | Life of, is it enviable? | 332 |
| Should be like engine, etc. | 333 | |
| College | Enter as early as possible | 334 |
| Companions | Lonely, when musing on those gone | 335 |
| Whom to choose | 336 | |
| Company | Pleasant, shortens miles | 337 |
| Compensation | Child and childless | 338 |
| What rich and poor find | 339 | |
| Complain | Every one must see daily | 340 |
| Compliment | How usually accompanied | 341 |
| Illuminate me with a ray of | 342 | |
| Compliments | Deference, most elegant of | 343 |
| Fishers for, get bites | 344 | |
| Conceit | Folly to advise conceited people | 345 |
| Not wise | 346 | |
| People conceited need no sympathy | 347 | |
| Puffs up, but does not prop | 348 | |
| Self, effect of imagination | 349 | |
| Conduct | How to discuss, how to decide | 350 |
| Never waver between right and wrong | 351 | |
| Confidence | Gives pleasure, etc. | 352 |
| No one too sure to miss | 353 | |
| Over, indulge not in | 354 | |
| Plant of slow growth | 355 | |
| Who knows his road, he has | 356 | |
| Whom to put it in | 357 | |
| Conscience | Good, sold but not bought | 358 |
| Good, worth its cost | 359 | |
| A clear, is a good | 360 | |
| Quiet makes serene | 361 | |
| The chamber of justice | 362 | |
| Voice of God | 363 | |
| Voice of God in the heart | 364 | |
| Consistency | Thou art a | 365 |
| Constancy | None in earthly things | 366 |
| Contention | Yield, rather than dispute | 367 |
| Where two discourse | 368 | |
| Contentment | A reason given for | 369 |
| Be not with what you are | 370 | |
| Comes from liking what one has | 371 | |
| Comes from nature, not the world | 372 | |
| Happy he who has | 373 | |
| Having bread, hunt no cakes | 374 | |
| Less with much, than with little | 375 | |
| Little, make it not less | 376 | |
| [ix]Makes palace of a cottage | 377 | |
| Murmur not | 378 | |
| One rule for | 379 | |
| Rich beg for, poor can give | 380 | |
| Rich, poor without | 381 | |
| Secret of perfect | 382 | |
| What brings | 383 | |
| When a happy purchase | 384 | |
| Who should be content with anything | 385 | |
| Wise, grieve not for, etc. | 386 | |
| Worth of, known when lost | 387 | |
| Conversation | Avoid what in | 388 |
| How to please others in | 389 | |
| Its best ingredients | 390 | |
| Music of the mind | 391 | |
| Never argue in | 392 | |
| Never over-bear in | 393 | |
| One of the best rules | 394 | |
| Say much in few words | 395 | |
| To say nothing charmingly, etc. | 396 | |
| Who usually spend longest time in | 397 | |
| With thee conversing | 398 | |
| Conversion | Better to turn than to stray | 399 |
| Converses | He who, with no one | 400 |
| Corrupts | As rust, iron, so envy | 401 |
| Corporations | No souls have, etc. | 402 |
| Corruption | A tree dropping infections | 403 |
| Cottage | When better than a palace | 404 |
| Counsel | Good, never too late | 405 |
| When easy to give | 406 | |
| Who not helped by | 407 | |
| Counsellors | In many, safety | 408 |
| Countenance | Cheerful, crowns a welcome | 409 |
| Often more impressive than the tongue | 410 | |
| Pleasing, an advantage | 411 | |
| Smiling, indicates what? | 412 | |
| Country | Character of, effect on man | 413 |
| Life in, pleasure of | 414 | |
| Love of life, inborn in man | 415 | |
| Love of | 416 | |
| Which best governed | 417 | |
| Who loves not, loves nothing | 418 | |
| Courage | Want of, loss by | 419 |
| Courtesy | Always a time for | 420 |
| Background of one's portrait | 421 | |
| One-sided, dies soon | 422 | |
| Courtship | Men dream in | 423 |
| Their, was carried on in | 424 | |
| [x]What is | 425 | |
| Covetousness | Keeps the eyes on the ground | 426 |
| Coward | Threatens when | 427 |
| Cradle | The hand that rocks the | 428 |
| Credit | Like looking glass, how? | 429 |
| Take care of it | 430 | |
| Two good reasons for not giving | 431 | |
| Criticism | Fascinating to people of small caliber | 432 |
| Critics | Ready made, etc. | 433 |
| Culture | The, of a man | 434 |
| Curiosity | All kneel before its altar | 435 |
| Custom | Forms us all | 436 |
| Daughter | Dear, of old father | 437 |
| Lines on marriage, of an only | 438 | |
| Day | Let it not slip uselessly away | 439 |
| Dead | He mourns, etc. | 440 |
| Death | Difference of, between old and young | 441 |
| Folly not to prepare for | 442 | |
| Should come only with God's command | 443 | |
| What men and angels ask, when one dies | 444 | |
| Debt | Happiness to be out of | 445 |
| Debts | Avoid paying, by not making | 446 |
| Decay | Wealth and power not immortal | 447 |
| Decision | Of character, requires use | 448 |
| Deeds | Good, who should disclose doing of | 449 |
| Noble, last longer than monuments | 450 | |
| Wishes without, worthless | 451 | |
| Deformity | Mock not at | 452 |
| Delay | Injures those prepared | 453 |
| Loss by | 454 | |
| Delicacy | True, exhibits itself, how | 455 |
| Demeanor | Be natural, etc. | 456 |
| Dependents | Duty to | 457 |
| Descent | Honorable, is in all nations | 458 |
| Design | Think on means, etc. | 459 |
| Desire | Increased with acquisitions | 460 |
| Destiny | Like ships on ocean | 461 |
| Dial | Sun, inscription for | 462 |
| Difficulties | Rise above your | 463 |
| Digestion | Mostly occurs in the mouth | 464 |
| Dignity | True, exists, how | 465 |
| Disappointment | All have met, and will meet | 466 |
| Discontent | Evidence of | 467 |
| Not easily concealed | 468 | |
| Our worst enemy | 469 | |
| Where mostly found | 470 | |
| Discreet | Be, in all things, and so | 471 |
| [xi]Discretion | Thy friend's friend has a friend | 472 |
| Dishonest | The, woe to, etc. | 473 |
| Disposition | No man's will alter | 474 |
| Distress | Shut not thy purse strings against | 475 |
| Who feels not for, not a man | 476 | |
| Distrustful | Be deceived, rather than | 477 |
| Doctor | The, when some adore him, some slight him | 478 |
| Dog | Did you never observe that | 479 |
| Instance of faithful | 480 | |
| Nature preserves his food | 481 | |
| Doubt | If in, don't | 482 |
| Doubts | Traitors are | 483 |
| Dream | The orphan boy's | 484 |
| Dreams | Children of night and indigestion | 485 |
| Dress | What woes it may bring | 486 |
| What becomes true feminine beauty | 487 | |
| Drink | Avoid, instance of, heathen | 488 |
| A wife's answer | 489 | |
| Habit, how cured in one | 490 | |
| To escape, never begin | 491 | |
| Dun | Derivation of the word | 492 |
| Duty | A path all may tread | 493 |
| Do it fearlessly | 494 | |
| Do it, let come what may | 495 | |
| I hate to see a thing done by | 496 | |
| Whosoever contents | 497 | |
| Time for that which one loves | 498 | |
| Ear | One should choose a wife | 499 |
| What is told in the | 500 | |
| Ease | One at, easily admonishes others | 501 |
| To be paid for by work | 502 | |
| Easy | Nothing is, to the unwilling | 503 |
| Eating | How one should eat | 504 |
| Half of what we eat | 505 | |
| Economy | Easy chair of age | 506 |
| Effect of not practicing | 507 | |
| Exercise of, no disgrace | 508 | |
| In abundance, prepare for scarcity | 509 | |
| Lay up for rainy day | 510 | |
| Like savings bank | 511 | |
| Practice in prosperity | 512 | |
| Save for age and want | 513 | |
| When too late | 514 | |
| When to spend, when to spare | 515 | |
| Education | Every man must find his own | 516 |
| A boy was compelled | 516a | |
| Efforts | All difficult, nearly, before easy | 517 |
| [xii]Eloquence | In tone, eye, etc., as in words | 518 |
| Emotion | External signs of | 519 |
| Employment | A guard against the evil one | 520 |
| To be employed, is to be | 521 | |
| Enemy | Do good to, as a friend | 522 |
| Ever too near | 523 | |
| Englishmen | Cold to strangers,—Dr. Johnson | 524 |
| Envy | Born without, mark of what | 525 |
| There would be little, if, etc. | 526 | |
| Equals | Where all should be | 527 |
| Equivocation | First cousin to lie | 528 |
| Error | Correct immediately | 529 |
| Beware of | 530 | |
| Who makes not, makes no good hits | 531 | |
| Etiquette | Good taste rejects, excessive nicety | 532 |
| Events | Preceded by certain signs | 533 |
| Evil | Avoid suggestion of | 534 |
| Man endowed with power to conquer | 535 | |
| Eye | Opens and closes, revealing, etc. | 536 |
| Sees not itself, etc. | 537 | |
| Silent speech of | 538 | |
| Eyes | More accurate than ears | 539 |
| Of old, like memories of old, how? | 540 | |
| Those of other people, effect | 541 | |
| Windows of the soul | 542 | |
| Exaggeration | Weakens statements | 543 |
| Who is prone to | 544 | |
| Example | Given, must be tolerated | 545 |
| Examples | Noble, excite to noble deeds | 546 |
| Excuse | Accuses maker of | 547 |
| Exercise | Dispenses with physic | 548 |
| Experience | Can teach even a fool | 549 |
| Lip-wisdom, which | 550 | |
| Extravagance | Keeps pace with prosperity | 551 |
| Face | Effect of clouded | 552 |
| Pictures thoughts, etc. | 553 | |
| Sometimes a letter of credit | 554 | |
| Fail | The surest way not to | 555 |
| Faith | Beautiful instance of | 556 |
| Bridge from earth to heaven | 557 | |
| Compliment to be trusted | 558 | |
| Effect of want of, in no one | 559 | |
| Trust not that, once broken | 560 | |
| Faithfulness | Encouraged by trustfulness | 561 |
| Falsehood | Reward thereof | 562 |
| Telling of, like what | 563 | |
| Familiarity | Mistake to indulge in | 564 |
| [xiii]Family | Little world in itself | 565 |
| Man happiest with his | 566 | |
| Reunion of | 567 | |
| Farewell | A sound that makes us linger | 568 |
| How to say it | 569 | |
| Farmer | He alone has a home | 570 |
| Must not sit in the shade, etc. | 571 | |
| Father | Beautiful picture of | 572 |
| Love of, reward | 573 | |
| One known without being seen | 574 | |
| Fault | Confession makes half amends | 575 |
| Not to repent of a | 576 | |
| Faultless | Ne'er was, is, nor will be | 577 |
| Faults | A man's and his neighbor's | 578 |
| Better find one's own, than, etc. | 579 | |
| Of great men, forgotten | 580 | |
| Of others, when we may blame | 581 | |
| The greatest of | 582 | |
| Wink at wee | 583 | |
| Favor | How to ask one | 584 |
| Pleasure in conferring | 585 | |
| Favoritism | Effect of, on children | 586 |
| Favors | One likes better to | 587 |
| Feast | What makes the best | 588 |
| Feasting | May make fasting | 589 |
| Accustom early in your youth | 590 | |
| Feelings | When too fine | 591 |
| Fidelity | True as needle to pole, etc. | 592 |
| Fireside | My own | 593 |
| Fish | All that a, drinks | 594 |
| Flattery | What kind of, hurts | 595 |
| No quality will get a man | 596 | |
| Flowers | Children of the meadows | 597 |
| Daughters of earth and sun | 598 | |
| Effect of, on the world | 599 | |
| Enjoy the air they breathe | 600 | |
| How many a | 601 | |
| I never cast a, away | 602 | |
| Pledges of fruit | 603 | |
| Fool | Advice to, effect of | 604 |
| Everyone is sometimes | 605 | |
| How discovered | 606 | |
| One needs wit to deal with | 607 | |
| One who says he is always right, is | 608 | |
| White hairs ill become | 609 | |
| Fools | If all wore white caps, what then? | 610 |
| Tell what they intend to do | 611 | |
| Force | Where it prevails, right dies | 612 |
| [xiv]Foresight | Be not stingy of seed corn | 613 |
| Forest | An idyl of | 614 |
| Forget | Ability to, token of greatness | 615 |
| Forgiveness | Asked, with repentance | 616 |
| Easier to whom | 617 | |
| God-like, etc. | 618 | |
| How beautiful, etc. | 619 | |
| Lasts while we love | 620 | |
| Lines on | 621 | |
| Not given, destroys forgiveness | 622 | |
| Not of the world | 623 | |
| Of part only of wrong, what | 624 | |
| Try its effect | 625 | |
| Who do, and who do not, forgive | 626 | |
| Fortune | Change of, dangerous | 627 |
| Continued good, not security | 628 | |
| Gives too much to | 629 | |
| Good sometimes without seeking | 630 | |
| Good that comes seldom | 631 | |
| Its vicissitude | 632 | |
| Hardest gained, longest kept | 633 | |
| Knocks once at every door | 634 | |
| Let it not elate or depress | 635 | |
| Manners sometimes make | 636 | |
| May change in a day | 637 | |
| Often harmful to virtue | 638 | |
| Smiles on those who labor | 639 | |
| Whil'st favor'd, friends, you smiled | 640 | |
| Free-thinker | One rebuked | 641 |
| Freedom | Once gained, hard to | 642 |
| Weeps, when | 643 | |
| Friend | Attack not, but defend absent | 644 |
| Be mine, teach me to be thine | 645 | |
| Flattering, like one's shadow | 646 | |
| Hand of an old | 647 | |
| How to make a | 648 | |
| If you have one, be happy | 649 | |
| In misfortune, go quickly to | 650 | |
| Leave not, in adversity | 651 | |
| Lose not old, to gain new | 652 | |
| Lost by disputing with | 653 | |
| Lost by lending money to | 654 | |
| Love thine | 655 | |
| More dishonorable to distrust, etc. | 656 | |
| No life complete without | 657 | |
| None, who ceases to be for slight causes | 658 | |
| Not hidden in adversity | 659 | |
| Oblige him to-day | 660 | |
| [xv]Old, the best mirror | 661 | |
| Shake not off | 662 | |
| Stab from, hard to heal | 663 | |
| Tells not truth, when | 664 | |
| When sure of | 665 | |
| Who never good | 666 | |
| Who sticks closer than brother | 667 | |
| Wink not at his vices | 668 | |
| World a wilderness without | 669 | |
| Friends | Absolute, rare | 670 |
| But few on earth | 671 | |
| Due to choice | 672 | |
| Equals make the best | 673 | |
| False, are like our shadows | 674 | |
| Few real in the world | 675 | |
| Gained by good manners | 676 | |
| How lost | 677 | |
| How to choose | 678 | |
| Let us make the best of our | 679 | |
| Like melons, why | 680 | |
| Like titled husbands, when | 681 | |
| Make new, keep old | 682 | |
| My treasures are my | 683 | |
| Necessary to life | 684 | |
| Old, not to be disdained | 685 | |
| Paucity of, on earth | 686 | |
| Poor man's assets | 687 | |
| Purchase not, by | 688 | |
| Recognized and loved in heaven | 689 | |
| Separated by a gift kept back | 690 | |
| Strange to say, I am the only | 691 | |
| There is no living without | 692 | |
| True, anticipate wants | 693 | |
| Unexpected, spring up | 694 | |
| Where many, where few | 695 | |
| Friendship | A severe test of | 696 |
| Contend which shall have most | 697 | |
| Cultivate your neighbor's | 698 | |
| In love may end | 699 | |
| Renewed requires more care | 700 | |
| Keep it in constant repair | 701 | |
| Killed by suspicion | 702 | |
| Make not with knave | 703 | |
| Needs not years to prove | 704 | |
| Nothing purer than first | 705 | |
| Permanency of, depends, etc. | 706 | |
| Quickly made, quickly ended | 707 | |
| Rare is true love, true, is still | 708 | |
| [xvi]Real, like what | 709 | |
| Shown by help, not by pity | 710 | |
| Soothes affliction's darkest hour | 711 | |
| Summer, drops off in adversity | 712 | |
| The higher | 713 | |
| True, great blessing | 714 | |
| True, is like sound health | 715 | |
| Who fit for | 716 | |
| Who unworthy of | 717 | |
| Who worthy of, will, etc. | 718 | |
| Whose to value | 719 | |
| Worth more than hate | 720 | |
| Fruit | Good, never comes from | 721 |
| Fun | Nothing like it sometimes | 722 |
| Future | Groping for the door of | 723 |
| If you would have | 724 | |
| The, does not come from | 725 | |
| To be met without fear | 726 | |
| Gain | Difficult, better than with ease | 727 |
| Has oft, with treacherous hopes | 728 | |
| One must give, to get | 729 | |
| Pleasant odor, has | 730 | |
| Prefer loss to unjust | 731 | |
| When loss | 732 | |
| Gains | No pains, no | 733 |
| Generosity | Justice and | 734 |
| Justice should precede | 735 | |
| Should not exceed ability | 736 | |
| Gentleman | A good test of | 737 |
| Coat, makes not | 738 | |
| Good rule to tell one by | 739 | |
| Main characteristics of | 740 | |
| Real and artificial | 741 | |
| Teach man to be a | 742 | |
| True, who is | 743 | |
| Gift | Donor should not speak of | 744 |
| Give freely to him that | 745 | |
| Make with smile, not frown | 746 | |
| To make, delicate art | 747 | |
| Unexpected, most welcome | 748 | |
| Gifts | Mental, who in possession of | 749 |
| The best, to man | 750 | |
| Girl | Dying, lines to her lover | 751 |
| Some good advice to | 752 | |
| Girls | How they should be educated | 753 |
| Give | No one can | 754 |
| Gladness | Not to all who dance | 755 |
| [xvii]Glass | The hour, emblem of life | 756 |
| God | Greatness of | 757 |
| His love for man | 758 | |
| Presence of, shown by blade of grass | 759 | |
| The Father's love | 760 | |
| The more a man denies himself | 761 | |
| The love of | 762 | |
| Who serves, will come to Him | 763 | |
| Will meet one, who comes | 764 | |
| Gold | Key of, opens doors | 765 |
| The golden rule in verse | 766 | |
| Golf | A rival to matrimony, instance of | 767 |
| Good | All, comes to him who waits and works | 768 |
| Doing, man responsible for | 769 | |
| Doing, is the only | 770 | |
| Pleasure of doing, wears not out | 771 | |
| Received, makes one tender of evil | 772 | |
| Seeking others' | 773 | |
| What is the difference between | 774 | |
| When, comes too late | 775 | |
| Good-bye | Better than farewell, etc. | 776 |
| Goodness | The sign of | 777 |
| Good-night | To all and each | 778 |
| Gospel | The cross is the guarantee | 779 |
| Gossip | Reasons for avoiding | 780 |
| See Leviticus XIX, 16 | 781 | |
| Tale-bearers, equal tale-makers | 782 | |
| Gossips | The funnels of conversation | 783 |
| When they ought to endure misery | 784 | |
| Governors | If families have no sons devoted to | 785 |
| Governs | He best who | 786 |
| Grace | One, by Burns | 787 |
| Saying at meals, instance of | 788 | |
| Gratitude | Expect not, from the selfish | 789 |
| Fine expression of | 790 | |
| God judges one's, how | 791 | |
| How sometimes mistaken | 792 | |
| Look above with | 793 | |
| Naught so becomes man | 794 | |
| What presents make longest | 795 | |
| Where found, and not found | 796 | |
| Great | Desertion of the | 797 |
| Grief | Excessive, not pleasing to God | 798 |
| God sure to help in | 799 | |
| More than necessary, before necessary | 800 | |
| Shown, excites sympathy | 801 | |
| They mourn, who mourn without witnesses | 802 | |
| Time will soften | 803 | |
| [xviii]When one mourns indeed | 804 | |
| Grumbling | Rebuked, instance of | 805 |
| Guilt | Cowardly always | 806 |
| Guthrie | Thomas, an anecdote | 807 |
| Thomas, to his son, | 807a | |
| Ha | Contrasted with Ah | 808 |
| Habit | Bred by use | 809 |
| Drink, how to correct | 810 | |
| Form good, bad will die | 811 | |
| Like a cable | 812 | |
| No man free, who is a slave of | 813 | |
| Not resisted, becomes necessary | 814 | |
| Test of truth with some | 815 | |
| Habits | Evil, change innocence to guilt | 816 |
| Gather strength like the seas | 817 | |
| Hard to make, and break | 818 | |
| Tastes change, inclinations never | 819 | |
| To strip off, flaying alive | 820 | |
| Hand | To stop the, is the way to | 821 |
| Hands | Eloquence of | 822 |
| The most beautiful | 823 | |
| Happiness | Consists in what? | 824 |
| Consists in contentment | 825 | |
| Consists not in | 826 | |
| Cottage can hold enough for palace | 827 | |
| Earthly of man, when complete | 828 | |
| Great in lowly station | 829 | |
| Made, by making others happy | 830 | |
| Of a happy couple | 831 | |
| Reflective, like light | 832 | |
| Rejoice in that of others | 833 | |
| Unmixed, not found | 834 | |
| Hate | Hurts the hater most of all | 835 |
| It is the nature of the human | 836 | |
| Haughtiness | Freezes those below us | 837 |
| Two may gain by it | 838 | |
| Health | Appreciated, when | 839 |
| Be not too busy to care for | 840 | |
| Better than a kingdom | 841 | |
| Better to have, than wealth | 842 | |
| Necessary to duty and pleasure | 843 | |
| Thou chiefest good | 844 | |
| The only way for a rich man to be in | 845 | |
| Heart | An innocent | 846 |
| Broken, instance of | 847 | |
| Every, has its secret sorrow | 848 | |
| Feeling, parting, tale of many a | 849 | |
| Great, has no room for wrongs | 850 | |
| [xix]Human, God enters | 851 | |
| Instance of royal, in poor woman | 852 | |
| Is it guided by instinct? | 853 | |
| Most bitter trial of | 854 | |
| None in which errors are not | 855 | |
| Of another, how opened | 856 | |
| Of woman, most tender when pious | 857 | |
| Overrules the head | 858 | |
| Rewarded according to merit | 859 | |
| Sad, sometimes does good work | 860 | |
| Sad tale of many a human | 861 | |
| Small, but world cannot satisfy | 862 | |
| The, resembles the ocean | 863 | |
| The turnpike road to | 864 | |
| The merry, goes all the day | 865 | |
| Hearts | Dissensions between | 866 |
| Men and women led by | 867 | |
| Heaven | Beautiful beyond compare | 868 |
| Let others seek earth's | 868a | |
| Debts to, sometimes disregarded | 869 | |
| Delights of | 870 | |
| Faith the road to | 871 | |
| Not the property of the rich | 872 | |
| "That better land," where is it? | 873 | |
| Plants even look up to | 874 | |
| Help | Give, even to lame dogs | 875 |
| What should be given | 876 | |
| History | Is little more than | 877 |
| Home | Best ornament of, the owner | 878 |
| Cling to it, from the Greek | 879 | |
| Definitions of | 880 | |
| Friends, ornaments of | 881 | |
| God's share in | 882 | |
| Grandest of all | 883 | |
| Home-keeping hearts happiest | 884 | |
| Husband, pleasure to | 885 | |
| Incomplete without books | 886 | |
| Know yours first, then other lands | 887 | |
| Man without, is like, etc. | 888 | |
| Many a, is nothing but a | 889 | |
| More delightful than travel | 890 | |
| None without hearts | 891 | |
| A man unconnected | 892 | |
| None without love | 893 | |
| No place like | 894 | |
| Of every land the pride | 895 | |
| Return to, happy when | 896 | |
| Some things which prevent owning one | 897 | |
| Sweet to approach, etc. | 898 | |
| [xx]Though small, a palace | 899 | |
| True nature of | 900 | |
| Wanderer's return to | 901 | |
| What makes | 902 | |
| Homeless | Beware of those who are | 903 |
| I am as | 904 | |
| Honesty | A reason for giving good measure | 905 |
| To be honest and faithful | 906 | |
| Commercial, obligatory | 907 | |
| Needs no protestations of | 908 | |
| Reward of | 909 | |
| When to count our spoons | 910 | |
| Honor | Birthplace is not, etc. | 911 |
| He, the Duke of Devonshire | 912 | |
| Injury to | 913 | |
| Instance of | 914 | |
| Of what to father, what to son | 915 | |
| When overpaid | 916 | |
| Hook or Crook | By, derivation of | 917 |
| Hope | A charming word | 918 |
| Always better, than despair | 919 | |
| Disappointment tracks step of | 920 | |
| Effect of living on | 921 | |
| Finest sort of courage | 922 | |
| Loss of, effect of | 923 | |
| None, breaks hearts | 924 | |
| Oft ends in hope | 925 | |
| Setting of, like setting sun | 926 | |
| Sometimes a delusion | 927 | |
| There is, if we live | 928 | |
| Where, in death, John Knox | 929 | |
| Hospitality | May give joy and honor | 930 |
| Hours | All our sweetest | 931 |
| House | Changed after absence | 932 |
| Children, light of | 933 | |
| Mended, often more costly than new | 934 | |
| None like God's out-of-doors | 935 | |
| Not to go uninvited | 936 | |
| Houses | Built to live in, etc. | 937 |
| Household | What is an unhappy one | 938 |
| Humanity | Goes with religion | 939 |
| Our, were a poor thing, but for the | 940 | |
| Humble | Full the, there is | 941 |
| Humility | Full head most humble | 942 |
| Root of virtue | 943 | |
| Hunger | Mother of impatience, etc. | 944 |
| Who must | 945 | |
| Hungry | The full stomach cannot | 946 |
| Wait, a hard word to the | 947 | |
| [xxi]Husband | Excellencies of a | 948 |
| Interests of, same as wife's | 949 | |
| Hymn | What one hymn accomplished | 950 |
| I | The letter, worthy of aversion, when | 951 |
| What am I? Naught, etc. | 952 | |
| Ideas | Like beards, grown men have them | 953 |
| Idleness | Brings need | 954 |
| Desertion and suicide | 955 | |
| Idle man has no time for work | 956 | |
| Increases, if indulged | 957 | |
| Love, cures | 958 | |
| Lose labor, rather than time in | 959 | |
| Must thank itself, if barefoot | 960 | |
| Waste not my spring in | 961 | |
| Ignorance | For want of asking questions | 962 |
| Often a voluntary misfortune | 963 | |
| Ills | Bear known, rather than risk unknown | 964 |
| Of man, his own seeking | 965 | |
| Imitation | Sign of esteem | 966 |
| Immortality | Man's longing after | 967 |
| Impertinence | Who guilty of | 968 |
| Importance | Self, as of, etc. | 969 |
| Imports | Should be more than exports | 970 |
| Improvement | All not susceptible of | 971 |
| Inaction | It is better to have nothing to do | 972 |
| Inclinations | Men of all ages, have | 973 |
| Income | Carry not all on the back | 974 |
| Our, are like our shoes | 975 | |
| Inconstancy | Expressed by Shakespeare | 976 |
| Inconsistency | Mankind made up of | 977 |
| Indecision | Lose this day loitering | 978 |
| Independence | To be loved | 979 |
| If any man can do without | 980 | |
| Indigestion | Financial, sign of | 981 |
| Individuals | Qualities of | 982 |
| Industry | Makes the best gown | 983 |
| Inevitable | The, bear with a smile | 984 |
| Infants | Smiles of | 985 |
| The first joy it brings | 986 | |
| Infirmities | Blame not one, for | 987 |
| Influence | Personal, good result of | 988 |
| It is reported that a | 989 | |
| Ingratitude | Common to hate benefactors | 990 |
| Inheritance | Thine, how to enter on it | 991 |
| Injuries | Write thine in the dust | 992 |
| Injury | Creates suspicion | 993 |
| Noblest remedy for | 994 | |
| Revenge of, forgiveness | 995 | |
| [xxii]Who hurts another, injures himself | 996 | |
| Ink | Power of | 997 |
| Innocence | Brings gaiety | 998 |
| Foundation of real courage | 999 | |
| Narrow, if only according to law | 1000 | |
| Innocent | Better to be deceived, than to accuse the | 1001 |
| Insult | Easy to take, sign of vulgarity | 1002 |
| Harder to forgive, than injury | 1003 | |
| Integrity | Political, instance of | 1004 |
| Preferred to eloquence | 1005 | |
| Shown by conduct, not by words | 1006 | |
| Intellect | One of dull | 1007 |
| God has placed no limits to the exercise of | 1008 | |
| Intolerance | Index of weakness | 1009 |
| Irresolution | Don't stand upon | 1010 |
| Jewels | A wife's dearest | 1011 |
| Children are mother's | 1012 | |
| Joy | At birth, and death | 1013 |
| Departed, remembrance of, painful | 1014 | |
| I cannot speak, tears so | 1015 | |
| If shared, doubles pleasure | 1016 | |
| Johnson | Samuel, on marriage | 1017 |
| Joke | Risk not one with ill-bred | 1018 |
| Judge | A conscientious | 1019 |
| Judgment | At fault, in young and old | 1020 |
| Give benefit of doubt | 1021 | |
| Hear gently, judge kindly | 1022 | |
| How we shall be judged | 1023 | |
| Vicious, if based on evidence of one side | 1024 | |
| Just | Any time proper to say what is | 1025 |
| Justice | Ever alive | 1026 |
| Habits of, valuable possession | 1027 | |
| What its standard | 1028 | |
| Kindness | A, do it now | 1029 |
| Binds society together | 1030 | |
| Converts more sinners than zeal | 1031 | |
| Delayed, destroys | 1032 | |
| Do not remind, of | 1033 | |
| How to multiply,—Franklin | 1034 | |
| Induced by sickness, and sadness | 1035 | |
| Instance of, by Indian chief | 1036 | |
| Little acts of, like what | 1037 | |
| Never proclaim doing of | 1038 | |
| No dearth of | 1039 | |
| Not to be repaid like money | 1040 | |
| Reward of, instance | 1041 | |
| Show, even to insects | 1042 | |
| [xxiii]Valuable part of business of life | 1043 | |
| Victory of, over injury | 1044 | |
| What to forget, what to remember | 1045 | |
| Who knows how to return | 1046 | |
| Write in marble | 1047 | |
| Kiss | Definition of a | 1048 |
| Not always touches the heart | 1049 | |
| Of welcome, pleasant | 1050 | |
| Kissing | Some say that | 1051 |
| Knowledge | A necessary retreat | 1052 |
| Ask young people for | 1053 | |
| Gained by seeking | 1054 | |
| Is not gained on a | 1055 | |
| Let others light candle of, at yours | 1056 | |
| Man of, may be a fool | 1057 | |
| No one man has all | 1058 | |
| Planted when young | 1059 | |
| Practice, necessary to | 1060 | |
| Remember very well when at Oxford | 1061 | |
| Knox | John, eulogy on | 1062 |
| Labor | Beauty and blessedness of | 1063 |
| Finishes what genius begins | 1064 | |
| Fruit of, sweetest pleasure | 1065 | |
| Man's most lasting friend | 1066 | |
| Must have relaxation | 1067 | |
| Those most enjoy life who do | 1068 | |
| Laborer | How he works by the day | 1069 |
| Lady | Young, advice to | 1070 |
| Lamplighter | Scotch student as | 1071 |
| Langsyne | Sweet to remember | 1072 |
| Language | Origin of | 1073 |
| Laugh | A, first of child | 1074 |
| Good, sunshine in a home | 1075 | |
| Instrument of happiness | 1076 | |
| Laughing | Overmuch, have aching heart | 1077 |
| Laughter | Contrasted with the smile | 1078 |
| Not always proof of ease | 1079 | |
| Law | Avoid, by agreeing | 1080 |
| Case, what to do with it | 1081 | |
| Delay of, etc. | 1082 | |
| Easy to enter, hard to escape | 1083 | |
| Folly of going to | 1084 | |
| Gain and loss by | 1085 | |
| Lawyer's office, what it is | 1086 | |
| Requisites for going to | 1087 | |
| Suit in, uncertainty of | 1088 | |
| Taught in one lesson | 1089 | |
| [xxiv]Who gets spoils of | 1090 | |
| Lawyer | Leaving a margin for | 1091 |
| Lines on | 1092 | |
| Lawyers | How the gowns of, are lined | 1093 |
| Like shears, cut what is between | 1094 | |
| Some convert poor advice into good coin | 1095 | |
| Laziness | Begins in cobwebs, ends in chains | 1096 |
| Learned | May be taught | 1097 |
| Learning | Chief art of | 1098 |
| Not entailed, gained by study | 1099 | |
| One pound of learning requires | 1100 | |
| Who swallows quick | 1101 | |
| Leaves | Autumn, lines on | 1102 |
| Lee's | General, reply | 1103 |
| Opinion of British officer | 1104 | |
| Legacy | Who watches for, like a raven | 1105 |
| Leisure | Sweet, if earned | 1106 |
| Letters | Often cause regret | 1107 |
| Sometimes warmly sealed, coldly opened | 1108 | |
| Liberality | What one gives, is forever his own | 1109 |
| The office of, consisteth in | 1110 | |
| Libraries | Wardrobes of literature | 1111 |
| Lie | Cannot stand, but can fly | 1112 |
| Equivocation is | 1113 | |
| One consequence of | 1114 | |
| One, must be | 1115 | |
| Life | A journey who may direct in | 1116 |
| A term of, is set | 1117 | |
| Better sunny, than to boast of money | 1118 | |
| City, produces effeminacy of habit, etc. | 1119 | |
| Different ages of | 1120 | |
| Direction of | 1121 | |
| Divinity shapes it | 1122 | |
| Domestic, the husband | 1123 | |
| Eternal, only candidates for election | 1124 | |
| Every period has its prejudices | 1125 | |
| Forethought wins in | 1126 | |
| Giants of, what are | 1127 | |
| Happy on sunny side of street | 1128 | |
| How to live twice | 1129 | |
| How to part with | 1130 | |
| How short is human | 1131 | |
| Human, what is | 1132 | |
| "I did," and "I didn't," | 1133 | |
| If dark, still the sun is behind the clouds | 1134 | |
| Lies within the present | 1135 | |
| Live day by day for others | 1136 | |
| Look before thy feet, gaze not at stars | 1137 | |
| [xxv]Make not sport of it | 1138 | |
| Mission in, for everyone | 1139 | |
| Only small portion of, enjoyed | 1140 | |
| Our little, is rounded with a | 1141 | |
| Represented by newspaper | 1142 | |
| The acts of this | 1143 | |
| Three whose lives are not | 1144 | |
| Too short to nurse wrongs in | 1145 | |
| Trifles make up sum of | 1146 | |
| The happiest | 1147 | |
| We find in it, what we put in | 1148 | |
| What the sweetest in | 1149 | |
| When we learn limits of | 1150 | |
| Listen | Be always ready to | 1151 |
| Listener | Poor, who is | 1152 |
| Litigation | Uncertainty of, certain | 1153 |
| Little | By little, if oft done | 1154 |
| Loneliness | What most lonely | 1155 |
| Looks | The three, of men | 1156 |
| Lost | The things, where we seek it | 1157 |
| Love | Appreciation necessary to | 1158 |
| At first sight, often regretted | 1159 | |
| Childish, sweetly expressed | 1160 | |
| Compared with indifference | 1161 | |
| Fault mine, if it ceases | 1162 | |
| To a man, the disappointment | 1163 | |
| Happiness of existence | 1164 | |
| How to part with | 1165 | |
| I know not, unless it be | 1166 | |
| If loved by man, loved by God | 1167 | |
| If there's delight in | 1168 | |
| Justifies poetic exaggeration | 1169 | |
| Letters of those we | 1170 | |
| Life without, day without sunshine | 1171 | |
| Light of life dies with | 1172 | |
| Like a nail, driven out by another | 1173 | |
| Like the moon, how | 1174 | |
| Loved one, not forgotten | 1175 | |
| Maiden in—600 B. C. | 1176 | |
| Men easily duped by | 1177 | |
| More than his share | 1178 | |
| No disguise can conceal | 1179 | |
| Nothing sweeter than | 1180 | |
| Oft maintained by wealth | 1181 | |
| Produces amiability | 1182 | |
| Promotes schemes of life | 1183 | |
| Secret of obtaining | 1184 | |
| Sees no fault till | 1185 | |
| [xxvi]Tragedy of fickle | 1186 | |
| True, cannot forget | 1187 | |
| What a change it makes | 1188 | |
| What we love girls and boys for | 1189 | |
| When loveliest | 1190 | |
| Will die, if not expressed | 1191 | |
| Luther | Martin, and his friends | 1192 |
| Was remarkable for | 1193 | |
| Luxury | Cost of, may help industrious poor | 1194 |
| Magnanimous | He who is too much afraid of | 1195 |
| Maiden | Lament of, lines on | 1196 |
| Man | A compliment to | 1197 |
| A truly great, never | 1198 | |
| Advances or recedes | 1199 | |
| Amiable, makes many friends | 1200 | |
| Angry, condemns himself | 1201 | |
| An old, of acute observation, etc. | 1202 | |
| A volume, if one knows how to read him | 1203 | |
| Best, who is | 1204 | |
| Burns, his recognition of | 1205 | |
| By X. B. Saintine | 1206 | |
| Character goes with him | 1207 | |
| Child of his own deeds | 1208 | |
| Assumptions of | 1209 | |
| Deeds, standard of merit of | 1210 | |
| Description of | 1211 | |
| Direct not, who will himself choose | 1212 | |
| Dissatisfied, most to be pitied | 1213 | |
| Drunk, quarrel not with | 1214 | |
| Each may learn from other | 1215 | |
| End of wicked and righteous | 1216 | |
| Exalted, seen from afar | 1217 | |
| Failure of, do not destroy respect for | 1218 | |
| Firmness is for | 1219 | |
| Forgetting good intentions, what? | 1220 | |
| Fully appreciated by equal or superior | 1221 | |
| Great, a good listener | 1222 | |
| Greatest glory, rising when he falls | 1223 | |
| Be content with the day as it is | 1224 | |
| Honest, believed without oath | 1225 | |
| Honest, tied by a thread | 1226 | |
| How to make true | 1227 | |
| If disliked, speak not of | 1228 | |
| Impossible to please every | 1229 | |
| Instinctive desire to see distinguished | 1230 | |
| It is not what he has, nor | 1231 | |
| Knows not the future | 1232 | |
| [xxvii]Like horse, esteemed for qualities | 1233 | |
| Looks aloft and beholds what | 1234 | |
| Married, best club for | 1235 | |
| Measures other, at first meeting | 1236 | |
| More inhuman than wolves, when | 1237 | |
| Must begin as inferior to become superior | 1238 | |
| Never speak of a | 1239 | |
| None always wise | 1240 | |
| Obstinate, held by opinions | 1241 | |
| Of high station, many blasts to shake | 1242 | |
| Of one idea, not to be reasoned with | 1243 | |
| Old, life like what | 1244 | |
| Perfected by trials | 1245 | |
| Pleasant, described | 1246 | |
| Poor, for want of, or from too many friends | 1247 | |
| Poor, unnoticed | 1248 | |
| Produced by nature, not by art | 1249 | |
| Real, finds not excuses for self | 1250 | |
| Should not be alone | 1251 | |
| Silent, sometimes deep and dangerous | 1252 | |
| Social creature | 1253 | |
| Strive not too anxiously | 1254 | |
| Swollen by prosperity, shrunk by adversity | 1255 | |
| The difference between | 1256 | |
| The unpunctual | 1257 | |
| Though surly, may be honest | 1258 | |
| True, never frets about place in the world | 1259 | |
| He had nothing and was | 1260 | |
| Weak, easily moulded | 1261 | |
| Well bred, acknowledges a fault | 1262 | |
| Well bred, always sociable | 1263 | |
| What did he leave at death | 1264 | |
| When act of equals, angel's | 1265 | |
| When he may be known truly | 1266 | |
| When to make a world for himself | 1267 | |
| Who deserves name of | 1268 | |
| Who excels, sought after | 1269 | |
| Who masters the world | 1270 | |
| Who thinks, governs, etc. | 1271 | |
| Wise, shapes himself to environments | 1272 | |
| Working, hunger enters not his house | 1273 | |
| Manners | Coldness of, freezes | 1274 |
| Contrasted with character | 1275 | |
| Mirror man's image | 1276 | |
| People with good, quiet, etc. | 1277 | |
| Shadows of virtue | 1278 | |
| Vulgar people cannot be still | 1279 | |
| Want of, in society, unpardonable | 1280 | |
| Mansion | Be not inferior to thine | 1281 |
| [xxviii]Marriage | A bloom or a blight | 1282 |
| A maiden's trust in | 1283 | |
| Advice on, by Themistocles | 1284 | |
| Be careful before | 1285 | |
| Bond should be broken only by death | 1286 | |
| Can two live as cheaply as one? | 1287 | |
| Choice in—Samuel Johnson | 1288 | |
| Choose not alone a proper | 1289 | |
| Effect on romance and history | 1290 | |
| Like public feast | 1291 | |
| Like shears, how | 1292 | |
| Marry in your own rank | 1293 | |
| Newly wedded, rule for | 1294 | |
| One seldom weds first love | 1295 | |
| Pious elder said to his son | 1296 | |
| Reason for many unhappy ones | 1297 | |
| Should be state of equality | 1298 | |
| The dying moments of a single life | 1299 | |
| The treasures of the deep are not so precious | 1300 | |
| Two views—beware | 1301 | |
| Vow, lines on | 1302 | |
| Wed for character, not money | 1303 | |
| Married | A girl should look happy | 1304 |
| Marshall | Chief Justice, anecdote of | 1305 |
| Master | Be sometimes blind and deaf | 1306 |
| If your own | 1307 | |
| Our, is our | 1308 | |
| Matrimony | Knot tied with tongue, etc. | 1309 |
| Look for a help-mate in | 1310 | |
| Sum of happiness when | 1311 | |
| Two views of | 1312 | |
| Maxims | From the Persian | 1313 |
| Meals | The, which are eaten in | 1314 |
| Meat | How poor, and rich get | 1315 |
| Melancholy | Johnson said of | 1316 |
| Memory | All complain, but not of judgment | 1317 |
| Ideas registered by attention | 1318 | |
| Prayer on the subject of | 1319 | |
| Sweetest, when without regret | 1320 | |
| Men | Better to be taught, than fed | 1321 |
| Great, arise from the people | 1322 | |
| How hard to teach some | 1323 | |
| Middle class of, show nation's character | 1324 | |
| Unlucky | 1325 | |
| Study men rather than books | 1326 | |
| Wise, care not for what they cannot have | 1327 | |
| Young, apt to overrate | 1328 | |
| [xxix]Young, the trouble with most | 1329 | |
| Mercy | Anecdote of Queen Victoria | 1330 |
| Door of, when open | 1331 | |
| Lean to, if in doubt | 1332 | |
| Man, the child of | 1333 | |
| Not forgotten, the deeds of | 1334 | |
| Reward of him who shows | 1335 | |
| Teach your sons to love it | 1336 | |
| Weaves the veil of futurity | 1337 | |
| We pray for, let us render | 1338 | |
| Merit | Not always rewarded | 1339 |
| Success of | 1340 | |
| Merry | All not who dance lightly | 1341 |
| Metaphysics | Peculiar definition of | 1342 |
| Method | Teaches to win time | 1343 |
| Methodists | Noteworthy characteristic of | 1344 |
| Might | If right, right not upright | 1345 |
| Mind | A weak one, how effected | 1346 |
| A well-governed, learns in time | 1347 | |
| Do not overtask | 1348 | |
| Effect on, of small matters | 1349 | |
| If uncertain, impulse directs | 1350 | |
| It cannot be too deeply | 1351 | |
| Narrowness of, is often | 1352 | |
| Noble, spurns idle pratings | 1353 | |
| Some know their minds and yet not their hearts | 1354 | |
| Steadiness of, a blessing | 1355 | |
| The, a man's kingdom | 1356 | |
| The face is the | 1357 | |
| True woman admires more than wealth | 1358 | |
| Untraveled—what is | 1359 | |
| Youthful, like wax | 1360 | |
| Minds | Small, hurt by small things | 1361 |
| Noblest are easiest | 1362 | |
| Ministers | Of God, chief duty of | 1363 |
| Mirth | Ounce of, worth more, etc. | 1364 |
| Mischief | Man no match for woman in | 1365 |
| Most just is it that he who | 1366 | |
| Miser | Constantine's lesson to | 1367 |
| Grows rich, by seeming poor | 1368 | |
| Pays too much for his gold | 1369 | |
| Misery | No thoroughly occupied man has | 1370 |
| Misfortune | Do not bear, till it comes | 1371 |
| Repine not at | 1372 | |
| Mistake | Anyone may make, fools stick to | 1373 |
| Avoid, rather than correct | 1374 | |
| Quarrel not with slight | 1375 | |
| [xxx]There are few, very few that | 1376 | |
| Mistakes | Teach impressive lessons | 1377 |
| Young heads are giddy | 1378 | |
| Model | Copy not self | 1379 |
| Moderation | Lines on,—Cowper | 1380 |
| Modulation | Tis not enough the voice be | 1381 |
| Money | Abundance of, ruins | 1382 |
| A curse, if not earned | 1383 | |
| Complain of, want of | 1384 | |
| It cannot change blood | 1385 | |
| Lender of, his moods and tenses | 1386 | |
| Love of, root of much devotion | 1387 | |
| Man's master, or slave, is | 1388 | |
| Many heart-aches, behind plenty of | 1389 | |
| Not found in purses of others | 1390 | |
| No time to waste, in making | 1391 | |
| Obtained by work | 1392 | |
| Power of | 1393 | |
| Silences the world | 1394 | |
| Moon | Lines on,—Croly | 1395 |
| Lines on,—Longfellow | 1396 | |
| Morning | Brings cool reflection | 1397 |
| The, hour has | 1398 | |
| Mother | A royal, obedience of her children | 1399 |
| Child and, Danish proverb | 1400 | |
| Daring of a | 1401 | |
| Funeral of a | 1402 | |
| Hallow her memory | 1403 | |
| Heart of, child's school-room | 1404 | |
| Heart, reached through child | 1405 | |
| Helpful comforter | 1406 | |
| Her history is written in her child | 1407 | |
| Moulds the man | 1408 | |
| Old, duty of children to | 1409 | |
| On death of,—Cowper | 1410 | |
| Ounce of, worth more, etc. | 1411 | |
| Results of her examples | 1412 | |
| Sorrows of | 1413 | |
| Story of that of Pomponius Atticus | 1414 | |
| The, laughter of child, sweet to | 1415 | |
| True estimate of | 1416 | |
| Turf, from grave of | 1417 | |
| Whom can we better trust than? | 1418 | |
| Music | Heart not touched by, forlorn | 1419 |
| Loosens heart, bound by care | 1420 | |
| No, is so charming to my ear | 1421 | |
| Sometimes in a footstep | 1422 | |
| [xxxi]Nature | Errs not, though art may | 1423 |
| Exists by motion | 1424 | |
| Good and ill, contrasted | 1425 | |
| Good, beauty of | 1426 | |
| Good, preserves good looks | 1427 | |
| Laws of, man cannot override | 1428 | |
| One follows the inclinations of his own | 1429 | |
| Pleasure of mingling with | 1430 | |
| Who can paint like | 1431 | |
| Natures | Vulgar, handle firmly | 1432 |
| Neglect | Unmerited, a sharp sting | 1433 |
| Neighbor | Profitable to know him | 1434 |
| Put not off obliging | 1435 | |
| Very few live by choice | 1436 | |
| Neighbors | Duty towards | 1437 |
| Nest | A bird's | 1438 |
| New | There is nothing new under the sun | 1439 |
| News | He bold is, who brings | 1440 |
| Nicknames | Which stick best | 1441 |
| Night | Brings coolness and counsel | 1442 |
| The outlaw's day | 1443 | |
| Time for rest | 1444 | |
| No | Learn to say | 1445 |
| Nobody | Who is, in the commonwealth | 1446 |
| Who is, thinks everybody else is | 1447 | |
| Nothing | By doing, we learn to | 1448 |
| Novelty | The young are fond of | 1449 |
| Numbers | Easily impress us | 1450 |
| Oats | Reply to Dr. Johnson's definition of | 1451 |
| Obedience | Most important word in education | 1452 |
| One of most beautiful things | 1453 | |
| Wise, modest | 1454 | |
| Obligation | Haste to discharge, sort of ingratitude | 1455 |
| Most men remember, etc. | 1456 | |
| Published, paid | 1457 | |
| Obscurity | People newly out of, etc. | 1458 |
| Obstinacy | Is will asserting itself | 1459 |
| Occupation | Thrice happy those who have | 1460 |
| A man should follow | 1461 | |
| Ocean | The abode of the British | 1462 |
| Odd | Peculiar people, disagreeable | 1463 |
| Offense | How people oftenest offend | 1464 |
| Office | Power of, dog even obeyed in | 1465 |
| Bad man in, public calamity | 1466 | |
| Omissions | No less than commissions | 1467 |
| Opinion | It has been shrewdly said | 1468 |
| No liberal man | 1469 | |
| [xxxii]Opportunities | Often lost by want of self-confidence | 1470 |
| Past gone, future may never come | 1471 | |
| Opportunity | Let slip, proof of imbecility | 1472 |
| Loss of, what lost by | 1473 | |
| Master of human destiny | 1474 | |
| Not seized, flies away | 1475 | |
| Poor use of, instance | 1476 | |
| Often lost by deliberation | 1477 | |
| Take the current when it serves | 1478 | |
| The, neglected | 1479 | |
| To-day it is offered | 1480 | |
| Oppressors | There are sharks in the ocean | 1481 |
| Orators | All, are dumb, when beauty | 1482 |
| Parent | Ambitious, misdirect children | 1483 |
| Be not ashamed, if yours, humble | 1484 | |
| Effect of neglect of children, by | 1485 | |
| Remember not toil endured for | 1486 | |
| Parents | Good conduct of, blesses children | 1487 |
| If fools, apt to make children so | 1488 | |
| We know not their worth, till lost | 1489 | |
| Parting | Like ships on the sea | 1490 |
| Proves a kind of anguish | 1491 | |
| Passion | Control yours | 1492 |
| Nothing like silence | 1493 | |
| Past | Comes not back, witness three things | 1494 |
| Let by-gones be | 1495 | |
| Stirs man more than future | 1496 | |
| Path | Beaten, safe one | 1497 |
| Pearl | Often hidden in ugly shell | 1498 |
| Pen | The tongue of the mind | 1499 |
| People | How to wake them | 1500 |
| Perfection | Not in this world | 1501 |
| Permanence | As the sun's shadow shifts | 1502 |
| Perseverance | Makes mole-hills of mountains | 1503 |
| Scottish, proverbial | 1504 | |
| Persistence | Necessity of | 1505 |
| Petitions | Strengthened by gold | 1506 |
| Philanthropy | Its satisfaction | 1507 |
| True instance of | 1508 | |
| Phillips | Wendall, anecdote of | 1509 |
| Physician | First patient, etc. | 1510 |
| His best fee producer | 1511 | |
| Real, of mankind | 1512 | |
| Satire upon | 1513 | |
| Physic | For the most part, is | 1514 |
| Pity | Godlike, acted on | 1515 |
| Plants | Fresh and fair, when | 1516 |
| [xxxiii]Pleasure | Brevity of | 1517 |
| Dignity in, as well as in business | 1518 | |
| Greatest, what is | 1519 | |
| How made pleasant | 1520 | |
| Makes acquaintances | 1521 | |
| Oft sweetest in memories | 1522 | |
| Sometimes comes from flattery | 1523 | |
| The most delicate and sensible | 1524 | |
| Pneumonia | One way of avoiding | 1525 |
| Poets | Modern, mix water with milk | 1526 |
| Politeness | An essential ingredient of | 1527 |
| Instance of, in small boy | 1528 | |
| Instance of true | 1529 | |
| Natural to delicate natures | 1530 | |
| True, everywhere the same | 1531 | |
| Politics | Are now | 1532 |
| Poor | Few except the poor, feel for them | 1533 |
| Folks' wisdom | 1534 | |
| He that thinks he can | 1535 | |
| Poor and content | 1536 | |
| Speak gently to | 1537 | |
| The, be mindful of | 1538 | |
| The, kings when | 1539 | |
| The, wait not to relieve | 1540 | |
| The, why they complain | 1541 | |
| The world avoids | 1542 | |
| Portraits | Husband and wife, mottoes under | 1543 |
| Position | Not every easy, is soft | 1544 |
| Poverty | Cannot be hidden | 1545 |
| Grows heavier when | 1546 | |
| Is in want of much | 1547 | |
| Poor man resembles fiddler, etc. | 1548 | |
| Power | Love of, instinct of human heart | 1549 |
| Often goes before talent | 1550 | |
| Often silences the law | 1551 | |
| Partnership with men in, not safe | 1552 | |
| Practice | Strange, if what one preaches | 1553 |
| Praise | Best diet for us | 1554 |
| Just, a debt | 1555 | |
| Love of, in every heart | 1556 | |
| Of self, contents most | 1557 | |
| One who can be trusted, deserves | 1558 | |
| Self, a bad sign | 1559 | |
| Sweetest of all sounds | 1560 | |
| Use of indiscreet, when | 1561 | |
| Prayer | Brings all blessings, instance | 1562 |
| For absent | 1563 | |
| House, in which there is none, has no roof | 1564 | |
| [xxxiv]Key to God's mercies | 1565 | |
| Pray with heart, etc. | 1566 | |
| Quaint old, a | 1567 | |
| Preacher | As an ambassador | 1568 |
| Seeking fame, finds folly | 1569 | |
| Prejudice | Opinions, most violent | 1570 |
| Prejudices | Who full of | 1571 |
| Present | Enjoy it | 1572 |
| Make it sweet | 1573 | |
| Presents | Many delight more in | 1574 |
| Pretence | Makes people nothing | 1575 |
| Prevention | An ounce of, is worth | 1576 |
| Pride | Art thou an exalted being? | 1577 |
| Breeds no friends | 1578 | |
| Never be too much elated | 1579 | |
| Superior to adversity | 1580 | |
| Principles | Be unable to forsake | 1581 |
| More precious than accomplishments | 1582 | |
| Procrastination | Effect of | 1583 |
| Professions | Without practice, worthless | 1584 |
| Profit | Not always an honor | 1585 |
| Progress | None for the slothful | 1586 |
| Promise | Deeds should equal | 1587 |
| No piety in keeping unjust | 1588 | |
| Obligation of | 1589 | |
| Promises | To keep, make not many | 1590 |
| Property | When not wise to give away | 1591 |
| Prophecy | Fullfilment of a | 1592 |
| Propose | Let those who | 1593 |
| Prospects | Distant, please us | 1594 |
| Prosperity | Brings friends | 1595 |
| Creates selfishness often | 1596 | |
| Hard work, the road to | 1597 | |
| How obtained | 1598 | |
| In ascending hill of, meet no friend | 1599 | |
| Makes friends | 1600 | |
| Makes friends and enemies | 1601 | |
| Not always proof of rectitude | 1602 | |
| Shows weak mind, how | 1603 | |
| Proselyte | We love a | 1604 |
| Proverbs | Japanese | 1605 |
| Punctuality | A characteristic of politeness | 1606 |
| Begets confidence and respect | 1607 | |
| It is neither polite nor, | 1607a | |
| Lord Nelson's rule | 1608 | |
| Want of, dishonesty | 1609 | |
| Want of, mark of little minds | 1610 | |
| Purposes | If not hatched, they decay | 1611 |
| [xxxv]Purse | Consumption of | 1612 |
| Empty, calls for a sweet tongue | 1613 | |
| Not to oversee workmen, is to | 1614 | |
| Quakerwise | Instance of | 1615 |
| Quarrel | Best time to | 1616 |
| Leave open the door of reconciliation | 1617 | |
| To, with one person | 1618 | |
| Quarrels | Have nothing to do with | 1619 |
| Question | Should be rational | 1620 |
| Rain | Ideas of pessimist and optimist of | 1621 |
| Rank | Quote not thy high birth | 1622 |
| Reading | Attempt not too much | 1623 |
| Reason | Makes a man a prince, etc. | 1624 |
| When a man has not a good | 1625 | |
| Reciprocity | Good rule of | 1626 |
| Rule of, by Confucius | 1627 | |
| Recreation | Necessary to human nature | 1628 |
| Regret | Folly to shiver over | 1629 |
| Relaxation | Above, produces | 1630 |
| Religion | Costs nothing, does nothing | 1631 |
| Doubt not blessings of | 1632 | |
| Good, if good for all days | 1633 | |
| Is knowledge of what? | 1634 | |
| It is rare to see a rich man | 1635 | |
| More in walk than talk | 1636 | |
| Presents difficulties to whom | 1637 | |
| True, when seen is admired | 1638 | |
| Repentance | When deferred, lost in judgment | 1639 |
| Not to bewail, but to forsake sin | 1640 | |
| Reproof | A gentle, anecdote of Wesley | 1641 |
| Reputation | Man known by his | 1642 |
| Resignation | It is reported of a person | 1643 |
| Rest | All seek it | 1644 |
| A present need | 1645 | |
| Is sweet to those who | 1646 | |
| It yields a bountiful crop | 1647 | |
| The man who goes easiest | 1648 | |
| Too much creates rust | 1649 | |
| Resolution | Hasty, unsafe | 1650 |
| Irresolute people, etc. | 1651 | |
| Sleep over, etc. | 1652 | |
| Rewards | Disinterested, seldom miss | 1653 |
| One knows not for whom he gathers | 1654 | |
| Rich | Man is, who is content | 1655 |
| Some miseries of the | 1656 | |
| The, poor, if saving for heirs | 1657 | |
| [xxxvi]The, should be generous | 1658 | |
| Very rich men seldom or never | 1659 | |
| Who is truly | 1660 | |
| Riches | Hard to gather, easy to scatter | 1661 |
| How to learn to use them | 1662 | |
| Influence of | 1663 | |
| Inseparable from care | 1664 | |
| Loss of, changes judgment of men | 1665 | |
| Not conducive to labor | 1666 | |
| Opposed to generosity and humility | 1667 | |
| Serve a wise man | 1668 | |
| Strange that the miser strives for | 1669 | |
| We see how much a man has | 1670 | |
| What are? | 1671 | |
| Where to find them | 1672 | |
| Without frugality none | 1673 | |
| Right | When one can do as he pleases | 1674 |
| Rising | Late, effect of | 1675 |
| Road | To wish for anything that is | 1676 |
| Robbery | What is not | 1677 |
| Roof | One, and two winds | 1678 |
| Root | Water and protect the | 1679 |
| Rose | Worth an empire, when | 1680 |
| Royalty | A feather in the cap | 1681 |
| Rudeness | There cannot be a greater | 1682 |
| Rumor | No, wholly dies, once | 1683 |
| Sabbath | Blessing to the poor | 1684 |
| Observance of, freshens the mind | 1685 | |
| Peculiarly the poor man's day | 1686 | |
| Well spent, prepares for better | 1687 | |
| Safety | Better a little in | 1688 |
| Said | More can be, in one minute | 1689 |
| Salt | Where a luxury | 1690 |
| Sand | Name on that of the sea | 1691 |
| School | Emulation in | 1692 |
| His first,—Henry Kirke White | 1693 | |
| It has been remarked that | 1694 | |
| Scholars | Early trials of | 1695 |
| Scotland | Climate of, etc. | 1696 |
| Sea | Love it? | 1697 |
| Sweet to look at from land | 1698 | |
| Thoughts at | 1699 | |
| See | Old people, best in the | 1700 |
| Secret | A thing locked in memory | 1701 |
| A, when safe | 1702 | |
| Not a, if known to three | 1703 | |
| To keep, shun the inquisitive | 1704 | |
| [xxxvii]Secrets | Folly to expect others to keep, etc. | 1705 |
| Make dungeons of the heart | 1706 | |
| Where secrecy or | 1707 | |
| Self | Be always ready to yield, etc. | 1708 |
| Be what friends think you | 1709 | |
| Command, if you would be great | 1710 | |
| Conceit of, rebuked | 1711 | |
| Denial of, brings blessings | 1712 | |
| Denial of, teach it | 1713 | |
| Difficult to be selfish and honest | 1714 | |
| Do something to be admired in | 1715 | |
| Do you want to know? | 1716 | |
| Don't lean on others | 1717 | |
| How we judge and are judged | 1718 | |
| "I," sometimes coat of arms | 1719 | |
| If warm, thinks others so | 1720 | |
| Not what you've given | 1721 | |
| In it our joys are found | 1722 | |
| Interest of, a compass, etc. | 1723 | |
| Interest of, warps judgment | 1724 | |
| Interest of, world much ruled by | 1725 | |
| Least said of, is too much | 1726 | |
| Lover of, has no rival | 1727 | |
| Man only can disgrace himself | 1728 | |
| Modest men speak not of merits, of | 1729 | |
| More easy to be wise for others, than for | 1730 | |
| No harder battle than to conquer | 1731 | |
| None like self but | 1732 | |
| One knocks on sore place in | 1733 | |
| Or others, which best to know | 1734 | |
| Pleasing object to, one obliged | 1735 | |
| Praise of, ill bred | 1736 | |
| Present know, future not | 1737 | |
| Some persons considerate of | 1738 | |
| Some persons can neither stir hand nor | 1739 | |
| Those who agree with us, we think sensible | 1740 | |
| Those wise, who think with | 1741 | |
| Trouble not another with, etc. | 1742 | |
| We cannot see ourselves | 1743 | |
| What others, and I, say of | 1744 | |
| Self-interest | Is but the survival | 1745 |
| Selfishness | Continual mourning is | 1746 |
| If out of world, what then? | 1747 | |
| Self-praise | May be used but little | 1748 |
| Sense | Common, rare to whom | 1749 |
| He lacks, who | 1750 | |
| Sermon | In what frame to hear | 1751 |
| [xxxviii]Reason for not preaching one, from manuscript | 1752 | |
| Story of Welsh preacher | 1753 | |
| When effective | 1754 | |
| Sermons | Best, to ourselves by ourselves | 1755 |
| Severe | Oh ponder well! | 1756 |
| Shadows | We are—we pursue | 1757 |
| Shepherd | The good, and the lost sheep | 1758 |
| Sickness | Every man's master is | 1759 |
| Absence of | 1760 | |
| Sight | Out of, out of | 1761 |
| Silence | A safeguard is | 1762 |
| Best for whom | 1763 | |
| Consummate eloquence of sorrow | 1764 | |
| Keeping of, no cost is | 1765 | |
| Often an answer | 1766 | |
| Often persuades more than speech | 1767 | |
| Sure reward for | 1768 | |
| When it shows wisdom | 1769 | |
| Silver | Plated, sarcasm for pretence | 1770 |
| Simplicity | Old, now rare | 1771 |
| Sin | Committed twice, seems none | 1772 |
| Of others, always before our eyes | 1773 | |
| Sincerity | Mislead not others | 1774 |
| Singing | Happy use of | 1775 |
| Sinks | He who stands stiff | 1776 |
| Slander | How to cure habit of | 1777 |
| He who, his neighbors | 1778 | |
| Slave | When one is | 1779 |
| Slavery | Air of Britain opposed to | 1780 |
| Not from God | 1781 | |
| Sleep | After dinner, etc. | 1782 |
| All equal, when asleep | 1783 | |
| Annihilater of time | 1784 | |
| Beloved from pole to pole | 1785 | |
| Characteristic of the sleeper is | 1786 | |
| Closes the windows of the eyes | 1787 | |
| Difference of, between poor and rich | 1788 | |
| Heaven trims our lamps while we sleep | 1789 | |
| Home to the homeless, etc. | 1790 | |
| Induced by preacher, instance of | 1791 | |
| Judge between high and low | 1792 | |
| Omit not offer of | 1793 | |
| Patron of mankind, etc. | 1794 | |
| Trust it not without prayer | 1795 | |
| Unsolved mystery | 1796 | |
| Smile | Always attractive | 1797 |
| Brightened by a tear | 1798 | |
| [xxxix]Put one on your face, etc. | 1799 | |
| Valuable and costs nothing | 1800 | |
| Smith | Adam, anecdote of | 1801 |
| Smoke | Turned into gold | 1802 |
| Society | Among unequals, no harmony | 1803 |
| Built upon trust, one in another | 1804 | |
| No comfort to whom | 1805 | |
| One way to be agreeable in | 1806 | |
| Ready to worship success | 1807 | |
| Sir, your levellers wish to | 1808 | |
| True art of being agreeable in | 1809 | |
| Solitude | Longing for, etc. | 1810 |
| Something | Do, however small | 1811 |
| Son | A, lines on 21st birthday | 1812 |
| Advice to a | 1813 | |
| Best gift to, by parent | 1814 | |
| Conduct of, shames or praises his mother | 1815 | |
| His opinion of his father's ability | 1816 | |
| Love of home, a joy, etc. | 1817 | |
| Son-in-law | What gained or lost by | 1818 |
| Sorrow | Concealed, burns the heart | 1819 |
| Employment, best antidote for | 1820 | |
| How many manage to enjoy it | 1821 | |
| Knits hearts as no gold can | 1822 | |
| Ransom for offense | 1823 | |
| Wake not sleeping | 1825 | |
| Sorrows | All are bearable if | 1826 |
| Think of blessings and forget | 1827 | |
| Soul | Erring, leave to God | 1828 |
| Judge thine, as it must be judged | 1829 | |
| Where is home of | 1830 | |
| Speech | Avoid evil | 1831 |
| Gentle, and | 1832 | |
| Inaccurate, comes from loose thinking | 1833 | |
| Make not sharp, to lady | 1834 | |
| Too much, insipid and tedious | 1835 | |
| When becoming, to show boldness of | 1836 | |
| Spend | Less than thou | 1837 |
| Spendthrift | Slave of others | 1838 |
| Stanza | Story of a | 1839 |
| Stars | Candles in heaven's air | 1840 |
| Man little in presence of | 1841 | |
| The, govern men, but | 1842 | |
| Stomach | Empty, effect of, on wisdom | 1843 |
| Storm | Most violent, soonest over | 1844 |
| Stranger | Be gracious unto | 1845 |
| Pity the miseries of | 1846 | |
| The passing | 1847 | |
| [xl]Success | Age contented with mediocrity | 1848 |
| Dependent on zeal | 1849 | |
| How to succeed | 1850 | |
| Its worst use | 1851 | |
| Mediocrity succeeds best | 1852 | |
| Not always to most learned | 1853 | |
| Of men, not rich | 1854 | |
| Search for, and doubt not | 1855 | |
| Small, leads to great | 1856 | |
| Too dear when | 1857 | |
| Who sure of, never undertakes, etc. | 1858 | |
| Sufficiency | No one has a | 1859 |
| Who has, smiles at, etc. | 1860 | |
| Summer-day | The, endures not ever | 1861 |
| Sun | The glorious lamp of heaven | 1862 |
| The, when it shines, etc. | 1863 | |
| Sunday | Observe, bells of, as angel's music | 1864 |
| Why made the Sabbath | 1865 | |
| Superiors | The ways of, are generally | 1866 |
| Swimming | Easy when held up | 1867 |
| Sympathy | A golden key | 1868 |
| A good test of | 1869 | |
| Clasp of hands, oft reveals | 1870 | |
| Heavenly, greater than gold | 1871 | |
| The human heart sighs for | 1872 | |
| These two complain, but no one | 1873 | |
| System | A saver of time | 1874 |
| Tact | Shown in addressing at proper time | 1875 |
| Talent | World ready to receive | 1876 |
| Is something, but tact, is | 1877 | |
| Talk | All, shows no respect | 1878 |
| Spendthrift of the tongue | 1879 | |
| They always, who think not | 1880 | |
| Talker | Great, sometimes right | 1881 |
| The, sows, the listener | 1882 | |
| Talking | Name some, who talk too much | 1883 |
| A man of sense talks little | 1884 | |
| Tardiness | Rebuke of, by Washington | 1885 |
| Taste | Cost, takes away | 1886 |
| Teaching | Learning twice | 1887 |
| Tear | Nothing dies sooner than | 1888 |
| Tears | God counts a woman's | 1889 |
| Language strangled by | 1890 | |
| Silent effusions of sincere feelings | 1891 | |
| Sometimes have the | 1892 | |
| The diamonds of the eye | 1893 | |
| Tide working upward to the eye | 1894 | |
| [xli]Temper | Govern, or it will govern you | 1895 |
| Good, is like a | 1896 | |
| If you have a good | 1897 | |
| When one can afford to keep, or lose it | 1898 | |
| Temptations | All come to the idle | 1899 |
| Toil is a foil | 1900 | |
| Theatre | Opinion of, by some actors | 1901 |
| Theory | Worth less, than practice | 1902 |
| Things | All, that begin, end | 1903 |
| Little do, and big will come | 1904 | |
| Little, do not despise | 1905 | |
| Small, despise not | 1906 | |
| Thought | Rules the world | 1907 |
| The most important | 1908 | |
| Thoughts | First, not always the best | 1909 |
| In matters of conscience, etc., which best | 1910 | |
| Without evil, God's best gift | 1911 | |
| Thumb | It is said the, is stronger | 1912 |
| Thunder | Reason for liking to hear it | 1913 |
| Tickling | There is scarcely anyone | 1914 |
| Time | A great master | 1915 |
| Forgotten in conversation | 1916 | |
| Happy, passes quickly | 1917 | |
| Honor, while passing | 1918 | |
| How noiseless falls | 1919 | |
| Hour lost in the morning, etc. | 1920 | |
| Passes, like the | 1921 | |
| Spare moments, gold dust of | 1922 | |
| Unveils truth | 1923 | |
| Title | A peculiar way of acquiring | 1924 |
| Tobacco | What animals use | 1925 |
| To-day | Live, love and labor in | 1926 |
| To-morrow | Prepare for | 1927 |
| Whose is it? | 1928 | |
| Told | What cannot be | 1929 |
| Tongue | Better hold, than | 1930 |
| But one, though two eyes | 1931 | |
| Control it | 1932 | |
| Creates great mischief | 1933 | |
| Instrument of good or ill | 1934 | |
| Let mildness attend your | 1935 | |
| More necessary to guard than, etc. | 1936 | |
| Sin not with, life-long lesson | 1937 | |
| The, cuts like steel | 1938 | |
| Tool that grows keener by use | 1939 | |
| Tourist | Some too busy traveling, to see | 1940 |
| Trade | A good, seldom needs aid | 1941 |
| A useful, like gold | 1942 | |
| [xlii]Conscience, etc., made wares of | 1943 | |
| Who has, may travel | 1944 | |
| Travel | Foreign, influence of | 1945 |
| How to make delightful | 1946 | |
| Johnson's advice about | 1947 | |
| Treasures | Hid in sand, instance of | 1948 |
| Tree | The beach's petition | 1949 |
| Like a, am I sheltering others? | 1950 | |
| Trials | The greater, the more glory to overcome | 1951 |
| Trouble | A satire upon | 1952 |
| Help those in,—instance | 1953 | |
| Troubles | Relieved by time | 1954 |
| To tell, lightens | 1955 | |
| Trust | Perfect, instance of | 1956 |
| Truth | Accustom children to speak it | 1957 |
| Always necessary, a lie, never | 1958 | |
| Contrasted with falsehood | 1959 | |
| Contrasted with vice | 1960 | |
| Dignity of, lost, how | 1961 | |
| Evil of not believing | 1962 | |
| Instance of existence of | 1963 | |
| I cannot tell how the | 1964 | |
| Like the sun, etc. | 1965 | |
| Love of, man's perfection | 1966 | |
| Often comes unsought | 1967 | |
| One, not made by many probabilities | 1968 | |
| Reward of, instance of | 1969 | |
| Say things that are true, rather than new | 1970 | |
| Seize upon it, wherever found | 1971 | |
| Suffer for, rather than gain by falsehood | 1972 | |
| Touching instance of, at sea | 1973 | |
| Who speaks it not, a traitor to it | 1974 | |
| Truthfulness | Reward of | 1975 |
| Twilight | Nature hath appointed | 1976 |
| Unexpected | The, often happens | 1977 |
| Unfinished | The, is | 1978 |
| Unfortunate | The, act as chill air on some | 1979 |
| The, speak gently to, instance | 1980 | |
| Who serves the, serves God | 1981 | |
| Unknown | The, often magnified | 1982 |
| Unreasonable | Things, never durable | 1983 |
| Unwritten | That alone belongs to thee | 1984 |
| Vicissitudes | But yesterday, the word of Caesar | 1985 |
| Village | I had rather be the | 1986 |
| Virtue | Act of, performed, conceal it | 1987 |
| If there's a | 1988 | |
| [xliii]Virtues | In competition with interest | 1989 |
| Should characterize nobility | 1990 | |
| Voice | Mightier than strings, etc. | 1991 |
| Tone of, in speaking | 1992 | |
| Wages | Of palace and sweatshop | 1993 |
| Wants | Search not for them | 1994 |
| Source of | 1995 | |
| Who cannot provide for others | 1996 | |
| Washington | George, story of cherry tree | 1997 |
| Waste | Brings want | 1998 |
| Dollars played with in youth, etc. | 1999 | |
| What, Greek proverb | 2000 | |
| Water-cure | About three-fourths of the weight | 2001 |
| Wealth | A change it works | 2002 |
| Contrasted with competency | 2003 | |
| Golden roof breaks rest | 2004 | |
| Much on earth, little in heaven | 2005 | |
| Poor man's, what | 2006 | |
| Wealthy | Many a lout is | 2007 |
| Weeping | Some satisfaction to grief | 2008 |
| Welcome | Do not say, but show it | 2009 |
| Warm, best cheer | 2010 | |
| Who comes seldom, is | 2011 | |
| You are, as flowers in May | 2012 | |
| Well | Dig a, before you are | 2013 |
| Whittier | Humorous lines by | 2014 |
| Wicked | Who sows thorns, should wear shoes | 2015 |
| Wife | Advice to one | 2016 |
| A stubborn, is a | 2017 | |
| Advice to,—Shakespeare | 2018 | |
| Finds all joy in good husband | 2019 | |
| Fortitude of, etc. | 2020 | |
| Fortune in, and with | 2021 | |
| Good, acts according to husband's estate | 2022 | |
| Good one, a blessing; bad one, a curse | 2023 | |
| Have no friend more intimate | 2024 | |
| Her happiest knowledge, etc. | 2025 | |
| Instance of grief of one | 2026 | |
| Key of the house | 2027 | |
| Man's best or worst fortune | 2028 | |
| May lift or lower husband | 2029 | |
| When a man has secured a | 2030 | |
| Will | A ready, makes light feet | 2031 |
| Prompt, makes nimble legs | 2032 | |
| Where there is a | 2033 | |
| Wills | What you leave at death | 2034 |
| Wind | Among the trees | 2035 |
| [xliv]God tempers to shorn lamb | 2036 | |
| Winter | Finds out what | 2037 |
| Wisdom | Safer to learn than to instruct in | 2038 |
| To know how to grow old | 2039 | |
| Youth, not era of | 2040 | |
| Wish | He who pursues | 2041 |
| Wishes | No avail without service | 2042 |
| Wishing | Worst of all employments | 2043 |
| Wit | Not found in beating the brain | 2044 |
| Witness | Eye, outweighs others | 2045 |
| Woe | None greater than, etc. | 2046 |
| Woes | By telling our | 2047 |
| Woman | Fashionable, loves whom | 2048 |
| Her heart's question | 2049 | |
| Her noblest station | 2050 | |
| Kindness in, not their | 2051 | |
| Love her, for what she tries to be | 2052 | |
| Manners, her ornament | 2053 | |
| Should refuse a lover, how | 2054 | |
| Soft voice, excellent in | 2055 | |
| Well dressed, when | 2056 | |
| When beautiful, but without principles, what | 2057 | |
| Who can stem her will | 2058 | |
| With only outward advantages, etc. | 2059 | |
| Women | Happiest, have no history | 2060 |
| Learn to manage them | 2061 | |
| Pretty, without religion, etc. | 2062 | |
| What we love, admire and shun in | 2063 | |
| Woods | Take to, if worn, etc. | 2064 |
| Word | Angry, darkens the day | 2065 |
| No, He hath spoken | 2066 | |
| Random, may soothe or wound | 2067 | |
| Spoken, not to be recalled | 2068 | |
| Unspoken, does no harm | 2069 | |
| Want of, effect sometimes | 2070 | |
| Words | Angry, ruin many | 2071 |
| An able man shows his spirit | 2072 | |
| Are but wind, but | 2073 | |
| Charming in friend's vocabulary | 2074 | |
| Fair, gladden many hearts | 2075 | |
| Man of few, a good listener | 2076 | |
| Hard, break hearts | 2077 | |
| If good wanted, speak not ill | 2078 | |
| Kind, music of the world | 2079 | |
| [xlv]Kind, oases in life's desert | 2080 | |
| On wings of thought they go to heaven | 2082 | |
| Pictures of our thoughts | 2083 | |
| Rashly spoken, forgive | 2084 | |
| Some, cut like steel | 2085 | |
| Think before using | 2086 | |
| Thy, have darted hope | 2087 | |
| When cannot be recalled | 2088 | |
| Without acts, flowers without perfume | 2089 | |
| Written, contrasted with spoken | 2090 | |
| Written remain, avoid ill | 2091 | |
| Work | A good beginning is half the | 2092 |
| Art little? Do thy little well | 2093 | |
| Hard to wait for | 2094 | |
| Honest, be not ashamed of | 2095 | |
| If you do not in summer, starve in winter | 2096 | |
| Man known by his | 2097 | |
| One's, is the | 2098 | |
| Often tired in, but never of | 2099 | |
| Over-work is really worry or anxiety | 2100 | |
| Shows man his abilities | 2101 | |
| Take pleasure in your | 2102 | |
| World | Tent and life a dream | 2103 |
| Knowledge of, where acquired | 2104 | |
| Not made for us, a happy thought | 2105 | |
| Quarrel with, is with self | 2106 | |
| My theology is reduced to this | 2107 | |
| The, cares most for riches | 2108 | |
| To enjoy, be deaf, dumb and blind to follies of | 2109 | |
| Worship | Public, necessary to religion | 2110 |
| Wrath | Soft answer turneth away | 2111 |
| Wretched | Call not that man, who | 2112 |
| Wrinkles | A good life | 2113 |
| Writ | What is, is | 2114 |
| Writing | Nationality of handwriting | 2115 |
| Remains, speech passes away | 2116 | |
| Wrong | Avoidance of, helps the power to do right | 2117 |
| Remedy for, is to forget | 2118 | |
| Report of, pains | 2119 | |
| Yankee | Derivation of the word | 2120 |
| Yawn | Why does one, make another? | 2121 |
| Yesterday | Were bright, then may die to-day | 2122 |
| Thy, is past, thy to-day | 2123 | |
| Young | The, speak gently to | 2124 |
| [xlvi]Youth | Beauty and possibilities of | 2125 |
| Easy, makes hard old age | 2126 | |
| I approve of a | 2127 | |
| Judges in haste | 2128 | |
| Proper bride for | 2129 | |
| Riches for illusions | 2130 | |
| What it is | 2131 | |
| What youngsters think nowadays | 2132 | |
| Work in, brings repose to age | 2133 | |
| Zeal | Excessive, better than none | 2134 |
Pages 4, 6, and 436 are blank in the original.
Quotations 1824 and 2081 are missing in the original.
The following corrections have been made to the text:
Page 1: IN ALPHABETICAL[original has ALBHABETICAL] ORDER
Page 15 (#55): Do you seek Alcides'[original has Alcide's] equal?
Page 17 (#64): Phaedrus.[original has Phoedrus.].
Page 20 (#81): "'[single quote missing in original]This horse is not my brother!'[original has double quote]
Page 23 (#86): ensconce[original has escone] thy legs
Page 59 (#227): he overcomes all things."[quotation mark missing in original]
Page 85 (#335): When musing on companions gone[original has gon]
Page 87 (#348): Conceit may[original has many] puff a man up
Page 90 (#376): Quarles.[original has Quarle.]
Page 91 (#386): Epictetus.[original has Epictatus.]
Page 93 (#401): Antisthenes.[original has Antishenes.]
Page 107 (#478): God, is alas!—forgotten[original has forgotton]
Page 114 (#518): Rochefoucauld.[original has Rochefaucauld.]
Page 116 (#524): common among Englishmen towards strangers.[original has extraneous quotation mark]
Page 116 (#525): Rochefoucauld[original has Rochefaucauld] said, "The truest mark
Page 129 (#596): of consequence enough to be flattered."[quotation mark missing in original]
Page 142 (#680): Claude Mermet.[period missing in original]
Page 147 (#715): value of it is seldom known[original has knows] until it is lost
Page 153 (#751): By Winthrop M. Praed.[original has Pread]
Page 154 (#753): addition and subtraction[original has substraction]
Page 155 (#757): to the foliage of a boundless forest."[quotation mark missing in original]
Page 155 (#758): I Cor.[original has colon] 2, 9v.
Page 164 (#797): When the tree is felled, its[original has it's] shadows disappear.
Page 166 (#805): described as to his favorite dish.[original has extraneous double quote]
Page 167 (#807a): From Memoir[original has Memior] of Dr. Guthrie.
Page 170 (#821): way to stop the mouth.[period missing in original]
Page 170 (#822): addressing the Deity[original has Diety]
Page 181 (#871): Conspicuous[original has Conspicious] as the brightness
Page 192 (#909): He knew me as soon as I came in, and said,[original has extraneous single quote]
Page 192 (#912): would have sent to Denmark for it, so[original has So] unconditional
Page 199 (#951): to the person who uses it.[period missing in original]
Page 205 (#986): From Littell's[original has Littel's] Living Age.
Page 215 (#1036): charms were crowned by the sun[original has sum], which had fully emerged from the horizon
Page 236 (#1139): He hath a use for thee![original has extraneous quotation mark]
Page 243 (#1178): getting rather more than thy share."[quotation mark missing in original]
Page 264 (#1288): a man may be as happy, as with any one woman[original has women] in particular
Page 274 (#1330): earnest about it, I said—'[original has double quote]He is certainly
Page 274 (#1330): for aught I know to the contrary.'[single quote missing in original]"
Page 306 (#1483): try to make lawyers, doctors,[comma missing in original] preachers
Page 313 (#1516): The thirsty earth soaks[original has soakes] up the rain
Page 323 (#1562): [quotation mark missing in original]"Where did you leave God?"
Page 328 (#1592): could not have gone on without it.[original has extraneous double quote]
Page 339 (#1656): eighteen centuries of Christianity."[quotation mark missing in original]
Page 341 (#1666): I said, "No, never!" "[original has single quote]Why not?"
Page 344 (#1683): Hesiod[original has Hesoid], a Greek, 850 B. C.
Page 350 (#1711): when you go out.[period missing in original]
Page 353 (#1732): From the address of a grateful[original has greatful] Hindoo
Page 360 (#1775): and every disposition to scandal."[quotation mark missing in original]
Page 361 (#1780): Slaves cannot breathe in Britain[original has Britian]
Page 373 (#1841): Will show the myriads[original has myraids] more
Page 386 (#1924): "You are wrong there, too.[original has comma]"
Page 393 (#1957): In Boswell's Life of Johnson, he says:—[original has extraneous double quote]Next morning
Page 404 (#1997): "Come to my arms,[comma missing in original]" said his father
Page 407 (#2014): Her every want to meet."[quotation mark missing in original]
Page 407 (#2014): "Why, sakes alive," cried he.[period missing in original]
Page 423 (#2056): one could not remember what she had on."[quotation mark missing in original]
Page 425 (#2071): Theognis, a Greek.[original has comma instead of period]
Page 432 (#2115): wrote exactly in the Scotch style."[quotation mark missing in original]
Page 460: under Life, "I did," and "I didn't,"[quotation mark missing in original] 1133
Page 468: Philanthropy[original has Philanthrophy], Its satisfaction, 1507
Page 475: under Soul, Where is home of,[original has comma followed by a question mark] 1830
