Demands for its support a hundred more.
1115
One lie must be thatched with another, or it will soon rain through.
1116
Life is a journey, and they only who have traveled a considerable way in it, are fit to direct those who are setting out.
1117
Which is but short; and pass it no one can.
1118
Than a life that has nothing to boast of but money.
1119
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.
1120
LIFE—DIFFERENT AGES OF.
At twenty years of age, the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.
1121
I find one of the great things in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.
1122
Rough-hew them as we will.
1123
The husband and the wife must, like two wheels, support the chariot of domestic life, otherwise it must stop.
1124
NOT A CANDIDATE.
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."
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.
1125
Every period of life has its peculiar prejudices: whoever saw old age, that did not applaud the past, and condemn the present times?
1126
In life, as in chess, forethought wins.
1127
Yes and No are, for good or evil, the giants of life.
1128
THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET.
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."
1129
It is to live twice, when we can enjoy the recollections of our former life.
1130
LIFE.
1131
LIFE—EVANESCENCE OF.
Which frames my words, accelerates my death.
1132
HUMAN LIFE.
How like the dial's tardy-moving shade,
Day after day slides from us unperceived!
The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth;
Too subtle is the movement to be seen:
Yet soon the hour is up—and we are—gone.
1133
Are we to have a continuous performance by "I did" and "I didn't"?
1134
Some days be dark and dreary
But—
Behind the cloud the sun's still shining.
1135
Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain.
1136
In such a self-forgetful way,
That even when I kneel to pray,
My prayer shall be for—others.
1137
No one sees what is before his feet; we all gaze at the stars.
1138
Can prosper never;
Who rules himself in nought,
Is a slave ever.
1139
A MISSION FOR EVERY ONE.
Or that one honest pain
Of thine is lost.
He, who in loving care,
Numbers thine every hair,
Knows all the cost.
Escapes His love divine;
No smile's forgot,
Nor cup of water given.
Each tender, loving deed,
Like some strange, precious seed,
Shall bear its fruit in heaven.
From out life's troubled throng
Thou'dst not be missed.
Thou knowest not what heart,
That lives in gloom apart,
Would find its sunshine fled
If thou wert dead—
What slender thread of faith would break
If thou shouldest prove untrue.
And lifts its head with winsome grace,
Might sigh: "Alas; ah, me:
Why should I live where none can see?"
But He who made both field and flood,
Hath formed that flower and called it good,
And in His wisdom placed it there
To make the desert seem more fair:
And if He then hath need of flowers
To deck this barren world of ours,
He hath a use for thee!
1140
YOUTH, MANHOOD, OLD AGE.
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.
1141
Is rounded with a sleep.
1142
LIFE REPRESENTED BY A NEWSPAPER.
Which not even critics criticize, that holds
Inquisitive attention while I read—
What is it, but a busy map of life,
Its fluctuations and its vast concerns?
1143
The acts of this life are the destiny of the next.
1144
He who lives at another's table;
He whose wife domineers over him;
And he who suffers bodily affliction.
1145
Life is too short to be spent in nursing animosities, or in registering wrongs.
1146
Small sands the mountain, moments make the year,
And trifles, life.
1147
THE HAPPIEST LIFE.
Midway between the poor and great:
Above the cares of poverty,
Below the cares of high estate.
1148
We find life exactly what we put in it.
1149
Is the unclouded welcome of a wife.
1150
As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.
1151
Be ready at all times to listen to others.
1152
A man with an empty stomach is a poor listener.
1153
The only thing certain about litigation is it's uncertainty.
1154
In small time makes a good possession.
1155
What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?
1156
THE THREE LOOKS.
The young man looks up, and thinks of the future.
The child looks everywhere, and thinks of nothing.
1157
That whatsoever thing is lost,
We seek it, ere it come to light,
In every cranny but the right.
1158
Where you are not appreciated, you cannot be loved.
1159
When people fall in love at first sight, they often live to regret that they didn't take another look.
1160
I hate to go above you;
Because"—the brown eyes lower fell—
"Because, you see, I love you!"
1161
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.
1162
If he loves me, the merit is not mine; my fault will be if he ceases.
1163
LOVE.
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.
1164
To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.
1165
WHAT!
Alas! I am done, you see no more of me;
But I am sorry, yea, sorry with all my heart,
That thus, you have willed it,—to be free:
Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
1166
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."
1167
He who is loved by man is loved by God.
1168
That heart which others bleed for, bleed for me.
1169
Love is the only passion that justifies a perpetual hyperbole, i. e., poetic exaggeration.
1170
There is an atmosphere in the letters of those we love which we alone—we who love—can feel.
1171
LIFE WITHOUT LOVE.
Roses bereft of sweet nature's perfume;
Love is the guide mark to those who are weary
Of waiting and watching in darkness and gloom.
Left on the dust-ridden roadside to die;
Love leads the way to our highest endeavors,
Lightens and lessens the pain of each sigh.
Brook-streams that move not, or star-bereft sky;
Love creates efforts most worthy and noble,
Prompts us to live and resigns us to die.
1172
LOVE.
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the whole world dies
With the setting sun.
And the heart but one;
But the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.
1173
So the remembrance of my former love
Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
1174
Love is like the moon; when it does not increase, it decreases.
1175
FORGET THEE?
The brightest star to twinkle,
The ivy round the oak to twine,
The tearful heart to sprinkle
The sod that wraps affection's grave,
The never silent surging sea
The sandy shore to lash and lave—
Then think that I'll forget thee.
1176
THE MAIDEN IN LOVE.
And all for a youth who has stolen my heart away.
1177
We are easily duped by those whom we love.
1178
MORE THAN HIS SHARE.
"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."
1179
No disguise can long conceal love where it is, nor feign it where it is not.
1180
LOVE.
Regardeth all things less.
If thou first taste of love, then shalt thou see
Honey shall bitter be!
What roses are, they never know, who miss
Fair Cytherea's kiss.
1181
When all is spent adversity then breeds
The discontent.
1182
The moment one is in love one becomes so amiable.
1183
ONE WHO LOVES.
That whereso'er I fram'd a scheme of life
For time to come, she was my only joy
With which I used to sweeten future cares:
I fancy'd pleasures, none but one who loves
And doats as I did, can imagine like them.
1184
The secret of being loved is in being lovely, and the secret of being lovely, is in being unselfish.
1185
A lover never sees the faults of the one he loves till the enchantment is over.
1186
THE TRAGEDY OF FICKLE LOVE.
Her constancy too long;
Her love had yielded to her pride
And the deep sense of wrong.
She scorned the offering of a heart
Which lingered on its way,
Till it could no delight impart,
Nor spread one cheering ray.
That all his power was o'er;
Indifference in her calm smile dwelt—
She thought of him no more.
Anger and grief had passed away,
Her heart and thoughts were free;
She met him, and her words were gay
No spell had memory.
Of hope had long since flown;
No charms dwelt in his chosen themes,
Nor in his whispered tone.
And when, with word and smile, he tried
Affection still to prove,
She nerved her heart with woman's pride
And spurned his fickle love.
1187
OH, NO! WE NEVER MENTION HIM.
My lips are now forbid to speak that once familiar word:
From sport to sport they hurry me, to banish my regret;
And when they win a smile from me, they think that I forget.
But were I in a foreign land, they'd find no change in me.
'Tis true that I behold no more the valley where we met,
I do not see the hawthorn-tree; but how can I forget?
The breeze upon the sunny hills, the billows of the sea;
The rosy tint that decks the sky before the sun is set;—
Ay, every leaf I look upon forbids me to forget.
They hint that he forgets me too,—but I heed not what they say:
Perhaps like me he struggles with each feeling of regret;
But if he loves as I have loved, he never can forget.
1188
Is it possible a man can be so changed by love that one would not know him for the same person?
1189
Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to be.
1190
Love is loveliest when embalm'd in tears.
1191
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.
1192
MARTIN LUTHER AND HIS FRIENDS.
"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."
1193
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.
1194
LUXURY.
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."
M
1195
He who is too much afraid of being duped has lost the power of being magnanimous.
1196
A MAIDEN'S LAMENT.
"Though years roll by, my love shall ne'er wax old!"
And so to him my heart I did surrender,
Clear as a mirror of pure burnished gold;
To every wave raised by the autumn gust,
Firm stood my heart, on him alone depending,
As the bold seaman in his ship doth trust.
Or hath some mortal stolen away his heart?
No word, no letter since the day he left me;
Nor more he cometh, ne'er again to part!
From earliest morn until the close of day;
In vain, till radiant dawn brings back the morrow,
I sigh the weary, weary nights away.
A little maid that in thy palm could lie:
Still for some message comforting and tender
I pace the room in sad expectancy.
1197
I shall not look upon his like again.
1198
A truly great man never puts away the simplicity of the child.
1199
He who does not advance, goes backward; recedes.
1200
A man who is amiable will make almost as many friends as he does acquaintances.
1201
An angry man is often angry with himself when he returns to reason.
1202
AN OLD MAN OF ACUTE PHYSIOGNOMY.
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.
1203
Every man is a volume, if you know how to read him.
1204
As no man is born without faults, the best is he who has the fewest.
1205
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."
1206
MAN.
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 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.
1207
Wherever a man goes to dwell his character goes with him.
1208
Our acts make or mar us,—we are the children of our own deeds.