Life and Literature / Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, / and classified in alphabetical order

Irresolution.—Don't stand shivering upon the bank; plunge in at once and have it over.

—Haliburton.

The wife of a distinguished man when asked where her jewels were, replied, "my jewels are my children, my husband, and his triumphs."

MOTHER'S JEWELS.

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."

JOY.

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.

—R. Blair.

—Otway.

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."

—Boswell's Johnson.

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.

—La Bruyere.

A CONSCIENTIOUS JUDGE.

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.

—Pascal.

Give every one the benefit of a doubt. You might be sadly in need of it yourself some day!

—N. S. Murphy.

Gently to hear, kindly to judge.

We shall be judged, not by what we might have been, but what we have been.

—Sewell.

He hears but half, that hears one party only.

—Aeschylus.

Any time is the proper time for saying what is just.

—From the Greek.

Justice and truth may sleep but will never die.

Habits of justice are a valuable possession.

—Antiphones.

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."

—Mrs. A. B. Hegeman.

Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.

—Goethe.

Kindness has converted more sinners than either zeal, eloquence, or learning.

—F. W. Faber.

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:—

GRATITUDE OF AN INDIAN CHIEF.

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!"

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.

—Gerald Massey.

—Shakespeare.

KINDNESS TO INSECTS.

Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness, is a valuable part of the business of life.

—Dr. Johnson.

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.

Whoever knows how to return a kindness he has received must be a friend above all price.

—Philoctetes.

Write injuries in the dust and kindness in marble.

DEFINITIONS OF A KISS.

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.

KISSING—PROPRIETY OF.

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.

—Fuller.

Men may acquire knowledge, but not wisdom. Some of the greatest fools the world has known have been learned men.

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."

—Boswell's Johnson.

LABOR.

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.

—Vauvenargues.

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.

—Moser.

LABOR.

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.

—Gilpin.

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.

A LABORING SCARECROW.

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."

ADVICE TO A YOUNG LADY.

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."

—Old Magazine.

SCOTCH STUDENT AS LAMPLIGHTER.

Ah! how sweet it is to remember—the long, long ago.

ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE.

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.

—Pliny, the Elder.

A good laugh is sunshine in a house.

—Thackeray.

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.

The law's delay, the insolence of office.

—Shakespeare.

Law is sometimes like a mouse-trap; easy to enter, but not easy to get out of.

FOLLY OF GOING TO LAW.

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.

—Feltham.

He that goes to law for a sheep will be apt to lose a cow.

REQUISITES FOR GOING TO LAW.

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.

LEAVING THE LAWYERS A MARGIN.

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.

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.

—Locke.

—Gay.

One pound of learning requires ten of common sense to apply it.

Who swallows quick, can chew but little. (Applied to learning.)

—Chinese.

AUTUMN LEAVES.

GENERAL LEE'S REPLY.

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.

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."

From "Lee of Virginia,"
—By Edward Jennings Lee, M. D.

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.

—Seneca.

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.

—Richter.

FOR LIBERALITY.

—Lord Lansdowne.

LIBERALITY.

The office of liberality consisteth in giving with judgment.

—Cicero.

Libraries are the wardrobes of literature.

—James Dyer.

A lie has no legs and cannot stand; but it has wings, and can fly far and wide.

—Bishop Warburton.

Equivocation is first cousin to a lie.