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

ABBOTSFORD.

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."

—Smiles.

MEN—UNLUCKY.

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?

—Rothschild.

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.

YOUNG MEN.

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.

—Unknown.

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.

—Hodgins.

Mercy's door should open to those who knock.

When there is doubt, lean to the side of mercy.

—Cervantes.

MAN—THE CHILD OF MERCY.

—Judge Crittenden, of Ky.

MERCY.

—Nicholas Rowe.

He that showeth mercy when it may be best spared will receive mercy when it shall be most needed.

MERCY.

—Cowper.

It is beautifully said that the veil of futurity is woven by the hand of mercy.

—Bulwer-Lytton.

We pray for mercy, Let that same prayer teach us to render The deeds of mercy.

—Shakespeare.

Merit does not always meet its due reward.

Merit and good-breeding will make their way everywhere.

All are not merry that dance lightly.

—Herbert.

—Scotch.

Method will teach you to win time.

—Goethe.

FRIENDS IN NEED.

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.

—Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler.

Where might is right, right is not upright.

—From the German.

It is indicative of a weak mind to be much depressed by adversity or elated by prosperity.

A well-governed mind learns in time, to find pleasure in nothing but the true and the just.

—Amiel.

Overtasking the mind is an unwise act; when nature is unwilling, the labour is vain.

—Seneca.

When the mind is in a state of uncertainty, the smallest impulse directs it to either side.

—Terence.

MIND.

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.

—Bailey.

Narrowness of mind is often the cause of obstinacy: we do not easily believe beyond what we see.

—La Rochefoucauld.

All who know their mind do not know their heart.

RESIGNATION.

—Theognis, Greek.
Translated by Frere.

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.

—Crabbe.

It is not position, but mind, that I want, said a lady to her father, when rejecting a suitor.

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.

—Homer.

DUTY OF MINISTERS.

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

—F. W. Farrar, D. D.

One ounce of mirth is worth more than ten thousand weight of gloominess.

Man is no match for woman where mischief reigns.

—Balzac.

Most just it is that he who breweth mischief should have the first draught of it himself.

—Jemmat.

CONSTANTINE AND THE MISER.

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.

—Shenstone.

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."

—Benj. Franklin.

No thoroughly occupied man was ever miserable.

—Dutch.

'Tis time enough to bear a misfortune when it comes without anticipating it.

—Seneca.

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.

—Cicero.

Better a mistake avoided, than two corrected.

—Roscommon.

There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.

—Swift.

No lessons are so impressive as those our mistakes teach us.

—Young.

People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.

—Goldsmith.

MODERATION.

—Cowper.

THE CHARM OF MODULATION.

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.

—Scotch.

A MONEY-LENDER.

—Addison.

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!

—Nettie S. Murphy.

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.

THE POWER OF MONEY.

—Broome.

Mention money and the world is silent.

—G. Croly.

MOON.

—H. W. Longfellow.

With morning cool reflection comes.

—Sir Walter Scott.

The morning hour has gold in its mouth.

—Dr. Franklin.

WHILE MOTHER WAS AWAY.

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."

Better the child should cry than the mother sigh.

—Danish.

THE DARING OF A MOTHER.

FUNERAL OF A MOTHER.

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:—

—From the Eclectic Magazine.

A MOTHER'S LOVE.

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.

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.

MOTHERS AND MEN.

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.'"

MOTHER.

MY MOTHER.

—Cowper.

An ounce of mother is worth more than a pound of clergy.

—Spanish Proverb.

A MOTHER'S EXAMPLE.

A MOTHER'S SORROWS.

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."

THE MOTHER'S HOPE.

—Laman Blanchard.

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.

TURF FROM MY MOTHER'S GRAVE.

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: