D 000 448"398"7 rtTVxivTn 
 
 3nLrxllONS 
 
 FROM STANDARD AUTHORS, 
 
 :?)V£' 
 
 BHNHFIT OF THE PRISON INMATliS, 
 
 Compiled by JAMEa GAULEY 
 
 floral TiisfiiirtorStiitc Prison at Fol.suni. 
 
 "A man »|!vferfAlls so low but that he may rise, and never rises 
 so hitrh li\it that lie niav falli 
 
 ; I'A I'l-; (iKi'iri: 
 
 SACRAMENTO: 
 
 : J. D. YOrNO, SIU'T. 
 
 1888. 
 
 ;l'ArF. I'KINTIMG. 
 
 
 ,^=^^
 
 I 
 
 X
 
 SELFXTIONS 
 
 FROM STANDARD AUTHORS, 
 
 BENEFIT OF THE PRISON INMATES. 
 
 Compiled by JAMES GAULEY, 
 
 Moral Instructor State Prison at Folsom. 
 
 "A man never falls so low but that he may rise, and never rises 
 so high but that he may fall." 
 
 SACRAMENTO : 
 
 STATE OFFICE : : : J. D. YOUNG, SUPT. STATE PRINTING. 
 
 1888.
 
 Presented to the inmates of the State Prison at Folsom, vnth 
 the Editor's kind regards. 
 
 A
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 To THE Inmates op the State Prison at Folsom, California: 
 
 In view of the limited amount of reading matter in the Prison 
 Library, the idea suggested itself to my mind that a pamphlet 
 containing brief and terse extracts from the writings of a few of 
 the best standard authors, together with a few of my own sug- 
 gestions, might confer a positive benefit upon the younger, and 
 meet the approbation of the older inmates of the Prison, I com- 
 piled the one herewith presented. And with the hope that it will 
 be received by you with all its imperfections, and in the same 
 spirit that prompted its compilation, I remain your sincere friend; 
 and also in the belief that '"Our greatest glory is not in never 
 falling, but in rising every time we fall."
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 The KeadinR Habit 1 5 
 
 What Books to Read, with Remarks _ 6 
 
 Poetry 12 
 
 Thoughts for a Young Man 18 
 
 A Word to the Younger Inmates of the Prison 19 
 
 The Art of Skipping 20 
 
 Remembering What One Reads 24 
 
 Conversation 26 
 
 Book Knowledge 29 
 
 Learn to be Brief 29 
 
 Brevities 30 
 
 Good Sense 31 
 
 Learn How to Reason 32 
 
 On Discretion 33 
 
 Self-Respect 34 
 
 The School of DiflBculties the Best Instructor 36 
 
 Temper 40 
 
 The Evils Which Flow from Unrestrained Passions 51 
 
 Tolerance _ 52 
 
 Good-Breeding 53 
 
 Manners and Morals 54 
 
 Lying 58 
 
 Friendship Gl 
 
 Resistance to Temptation . 63 
 
 Miscellaneoiis .. 64 
 
 He's Lost His Grip 68 
 
 A Colloqujf Between Locke and Bayle 71 
 
 On the Immortality of the Soul 73 
 
 A Father's Pathetic Appeal 76 
 
 The Opium Habit 77 
 
 Horatio Sej'mour's Address 81 
 
 Be Careful What You Say 87 
 
 The Prison Bell 88 
 
 In Prison 89
 
 SELECTIONS. 
 
 THE READING HABIT. 
 
 [RICHARDSON.] 
 
 Were I to pray for a taste, says Sir John Herschell, " which 
 should stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, 
 and be a source of happiness and cheerfuhiess to nie during hfe, 
 and a shield against its ills, how everything might go amiss, it 
 would be a taste for reading. Give a man this taste, and the 
 means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making him a 
 happy man; unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most per- 
 verse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best 
 society in every period of history, with the wisest, the wittiest, the 
 tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned 
 humanity. 
 
 " You make him a denizen of all nations — a contemporary of all 
 ages. The world has been created for him. Nothing can supply 
 the place of books. They are cheering and soothing companions 
 in solitude, and in illness or affliction. The wealth of both con- 
 tinents could not compensate for the good they impart." 
 
 Fenelon said: " If all the kingdoms of the empire were laid at 
 my feet in exchange for my books and love of reading, I would 
 spurn them all." 
 
 And the historian Gibbon, wrote- "A taste for books is the 
 pleasure and glory of my life. I would not exchange it for the 
 glory of the Indies." Mere acquired knowledge belongs to us only 
 like a wooden leg and a wax nose. 
 
 '^ Knowledge attained by means of thinking, resembles our nat- 
 ural limbs, and is the only kind that really belongs to us. Hence 
 the difference between the thinker and the pedant. The intellec- 
 tual possession of the independent thinker is like a beautiful 
 picture which stands before us — a living thing, with fitting light 
 and shadow, sustained tones, perfect harmony of color. 
 
 "That of the merely learned man may be compared to a pallet 
 covered with bright colors. To hioiv one good book well, is better
 
 than to know something about a hundred good books at second 
 hand." 
 
 The ordinary reader is profoundly indifferent about style, and 
 will not take the trouble to understand ideas. He keeps to peri- 
 odicals or light fiction, which enables the mind to loll in its easy 
 chair (so to speak), and see pass before it a series of pleasing 
 images. 
 
 An idea, as Mark Pattison says, is an excitant, comes from 
 mind and calls forth mind; an image is a sedative; and most 
 people, when they take up a book, are seeking a sedative. 
 
 WHAT BOOKS TO READ. 
 
 [editor.] 
 
 In view of the shortness of life, and that "there are twenty-five 
 thousand books published annually," and also that there are one 
 hundred millions in the world — one library in France contains 
 three millions — it is not surprising that I am so often asked by the 
 new beginner, and those beginning to read late in life, "What 
 books ought I read? " I would suggest to the former, and to the 
 latter also, that they will very likely derive the following benefits 
 from reading Sir Walter Scott's works : 
 
 Firstly, they will very likely obtain, unwittingly perhaps, such 
 a desire for reading, and reading onl}^ the best authors, as to pre- 
 vent them from reading the coarse, weak, and vulgar trash now 
 flooding the country, and working such widespread demoraliza- 
 tion throughout the length and breadth of the land, as to arrest 
 the attention of all those who have the least sympathy with their 
 kind. 
 
 In a late issue of the " Philadelphia Ledger and Transcript," 
 the editor of that journal says: "Having taught boys to read, 
 society ought to make every possible effort to guide their reading 
 so that their education shall be of advantage to them. At pres- 
 ent it seems as though the chief use made of the little learning 
 some boys acquire in school is in the reading of demoralizing 
 books and ' flash' newspapers, whereby they are incited to become 
 thieves and outlaws, in emulation of the heroes pictured in this
 
 pernicious literature. Many cases have been reported of late, and 
 only a few days ago six small boys were arrested in New York for 
 robbing grocery stores. From the proceeds of their robberies they 
 bought vile papers and books which they also read together in an 
 old woodshed, where they also drank beer obtained by barter of 
 their stolen provisions. In other words, they had used the little 
 education obtained in public schools to start a school of their own, 
 wherein they could study to be criminals 'without a master.' 
 These are types of' hundreds or thousands. * * * * It is a 
 much simpler matter to guide boys and girls in the right way 
 than it is to forcibly restrain or punish them after they have 
 grown to be men and women, have formed bad habits, and per- 
 haps joined the ' criminal classes.' " 
 
 Secondly, by reading " Ivanhoe " the reader will obtain as cor- 
 rect an account of the manners, habits, and customs of the people 
 who lived during the " middle ages " as he would obtain from 
 reading '' Froissart's Chronicles," which are merely a bundle of 
 dry facts which Froissart obtained in traveling over Europe, and 
 upon which so many historical novels are founded. 
 
 Scott's " Tales of a Grandfather " will also give the reader a very 
 correct history of Scotland, and also a graphic and instructive 
 description of the " Border Wars " between the Scotch and En- 
 glish people. In a word, I would advise the reader to read all of 
 Sir Walter Scott's works, with the exception of his " Life of 
 Napoleon," which he evidently wrote for political effect, as well 
 as for the '' canny purpose " of filling his purse and the gratifica- 
 tion of his prejudices. 
 
 The next author I would recommend to the reader is Charles 
 Dickens; because no one, I imagine, could read Dickens without 
 he, the reader, wishing that he were a better man. 
 
 If we estimate greatness by the moral effect produced upon the 
 public mind, it is not too much to say that Dickens was the great 
 moralist of the nineteenth century, as no one man ever did half 
 as much as he in correcting and in abolishing the many flagrant 
 abuses that existed in England during the time in which he 
 wrote. And let me add here that, in reading Dickens, the reader 
 should keep constantly in view that he, Dickens, wrote as he did 
 for the express purpose of calling public attention to those abuses,
 
 — 8 — 
 
 and not for tlie purpose of wea\dng ingenious plots, like those of 
 G. P. R. James. 
 
 Thirdly, by reason of Dickens' great capacity, and the broad 
 humanitarian feeling he had for his fellow-man, he has enabled 
 us, to a very great extent, to " see ourselves as others see us," and 
 also to see, in the poor and lowly, great and noble traits of char- 
 acter, who could not, to paraphrase Pope, "boast of ancestry 
 whose ignoble blood had crept through scoundrels ever since the 
 flood." 
 
 A late critic, who claims to have been personally acquainted 
 with several persons from whom Dickens drew his characters, 
 says that Dickens' characters are mere "phantoms." While the 
 critic's statement may be true in a few instances, it cannot be 
 true in the main, for the reason that we meet with Dickens' char- 
 acters in e very-day life. I am of the opinion that if the critic 
 referred to would station himself at the corner of Pine and Mont- 
 gomery Streets, in San Francisco, he would see fifty " Micaw- 
 bers " within as many minutes " waiting for something to turn 
 up." And if the critic, before leaving his post, should ask a 
 "Forty-niner" if he had ever cabined with a "Quilp," or an old 
 sailor if he had ever had a " Quilp " for a shipmate, that he, the 
 critic, would receive an affirmative answer in both cases. 
 
 And as for " Pecksniffs," they are to be found in every community 
 wherein "Christian statesmen" thirst for gold "and try to cheat 
 the devil by joining the church." After having carefully read 
 Scott and Dickens, I would recommend the reader to read the 
 " British Essayists; " as the reading of them will cause the reader 
 to have more expanded views, prevent, to a very great extent, his 
 mind from running in a groove, and from jumping at the conclu- 
 sion that God, in His divine wisdom, has not accorded to him, the 
 reader, any more of His divine inspiration than He has accorded 
 to the balance of mankind. 
 
 Such, at least, are a few of the impressions that the reading of 
 the "British Essayists" have made upon my mind, and I trust 
 will make upon yours also. And I would further suggest that, 
 before commencing to read the history of Rome, or that of any 
 other foreign country, you not only read the history of your own, 
 but also make yourself thoroughly acquainted with the funda- 
 mental laws upon which your country is based, as it is a duty
 
 — 9 — 
 
 you owe to yourself and to each and every one of your country- 
 men. 
 
 I will not presume to instruct the average reader in what books 
 to read, but merely lay before him what a few of the most emi- 
 nent writers have said upon the subject. 
 
 Dr. McCosh says: " The book to read is not the one that thinks 
 for you, but the one that makes you think." And another author 
 which I cannot now recall says: "It is the cream of a writer's 
 thoughts that you want, the kernel and not the shell; the strong, 
 pungent essence and not the thin, diluted mixture. You should 
 value a book for its suggestiveness even more than for the infor- 
 mation it contains." 
 
 Mr. Ruskin says that: '' The real value of any book, to a par- 
 ticular reader, is to be measured by its serviceableness to that 
 reader." And DeQuincey says: "There is a literature of knowl- 
 edge, and a literature of power, and a knowledge that can never 
 be transmuted into power becomes mere intellectual rubbish." 
 
 The choice of books would be greatly aided, if the reader, in 
 taking up a volume, would ask himself just why he is going to 
 read it, and of what service it is going to be to him. This ques- 
 tion, if sincerely put, and truthfully answered, is pretty sure to 
 lead him to the great books — or at least to the books that are 
 great for him. Homer, Plutarch, Herodotus, and Plato; Virgil, 
 Livy, and Tacitus; Dante, Tasso, and Petrarch; Cervantes; 
 Thomas a Kempis; Goethe and Schiller; Chaucer, Spencer, 
 Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, Sir Thomas Brown, Bunyan, Addi- 
 son, Gra}^, Scott, Wordsworth, and Hawthorne — he who reads 
 these, and such as these, is not in serious danger of spending his 
 time amiss. 
 
 But not even such a list as this is to be received as a necessity 
 by every reader. One may find Cowper more profitable than 
 Wordsworth; to another, the reading of Bancroft may be more 
 advantageous than that of Herodotus; while a third may gain 
 more immediate and lasting good from great historical novels 
 like Eber's " Wavada," or Kingsley's " Hj-patia," than from a long 
 and patient attempt to master Grote's " History of Greece," or 
 Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Each indi- 
 vidual reader must try, first of all, what is the best for himself. 
 
 In forming this decision let him make the utmost use of the
 
 — lu — 
 
 best guide, not forgetting tliat the average opinion of educated 
 men is pretty sure to be a correct opinion; but never let him put 
 aside his own honesty and individuahty. He must choose his 
 books as he chooses his friends, because of their integrity and 
 helpfuhiess, and because of the pleasure their society gives him. 
 " Every book that we take up without a purpose," says Mr. Fred- 
 erick Harrison, "is an opportunity lost of taking up a book with 
 a purpose." Every bit of stray information that we cram into 
 our heads without any sense of its iftiportance, is for the most 
 part a bit of the most useful information driven out of our heads 
 and choked off from our minds. 
 
 It is so certain that information, that is, the knowledge, the 
 stored thoughts and observations of mankind, are now grown to 
 proportions so utterly incalculable and prodigious, that even the 
 learned, whose lives are given to study, can only pick up soTiie 
 crumbs that fall from the table of truth. 
 
 They delve and tend but a plot in that vast and teeming king- 
 dom, whilst those whom active life leaves with but a few cramped 
 hours of study can hardly come to know the very vastness of the 
 field before them, or how infinitesimally is the corner they can 
 traverse at the best. 
 
 We know all is not of equal value. We know that books differ 
 in value as much as diamonds differ from the sand on the sea- 
 shore, as much as our living friend differs from a dead rat. We 
 know that in the myriad-peopled world of books very much in all 
 kinds is trivial, enervating, inane, even noxious. And thus, 
 where we have infinite opportunities of wasting our efforts to the 
 end of satisfying our minds without enriching them, of clogging 
 the spirit without satisfying it, there I cannot but think the very 
 infinity of opportunities is robbing us of the actual power of using 
 them. And thus I come often, in my less hopeful moods, to 
 watch the remorseless cataract of daily literature which thunders 
 over the remnants of the past, as if it were a fresh impediment to 
 the men of our day in the way of systematic knowledge and con- 
 sistent powers of thought, as if it were destined one day to over- 
 whelm the great inheritance of mankind in prose and verse. 
 
 I am not presumptuous enough to assert that the large part of 
 modern literature is not worth reading in itself, that the large
 
 — 11 — 
 
 part of modern literature is not readable, entertaining, one may 
 say, highly instructive. 
 
 Nor do I pretend that the verses which we read so zealously in 
 place of Milton's are not good verses. On the contrary, I think 
 them sweetlv conceived, as musical and as graceful as the verse 
 of any age in our histor3^ I say it emphatically, a great deal of 
 our modern literature is such that it is exceedingly difficult to 
 resist it and undeniable that it gives us real information. 
 
 It seems perhaps unreasonable to many to assert that a decent, 
 readable book which gives us actual instruction can be otherwise 
 than a useful companion and solid gain. 
 
 I do say many people are ready to cry out upon me as an 
 obstructionist for venturing to doubt a general confidence in all 
 literature, simply as such. But the question which weighs upon 
 me with such crushing force is this: AMiat are the books in our 
 little remnant of reading time it is most vital for us to know ? 
 
 For the true use of books is of such sacred value to us that to 
 be simply entertained is to cease to be taught, elevated, inspired 
 by books; merely to gather information of a chance kind is to 
 close the mind to knowledge of the urgent kind. 
 
 This union of freedom with authority — of a choice for one's self, 
 and a willingness to believe that the world is right in setting 
 Shakespeare above Swinburne, and Homer above Tupper is, I 
 believe, the true and the only guide in the selection of books to 
 read. In the long run, nothing but truth, simplicity, purity, and 
 a lofty purpose approves a book to the favor of the ages; and 
 nothing else ought to approve it to the individual reader. 
 
 Thus the end is reached and the choice is made, not by taking 
 a book because a " course of reading commands you to do so, but 
 because you come to see for yourself the wisdom of the selection. 
 The pure and wholesome heart of humanity — that thing which we 
 call conscience — is the guide of readers as it is of every other class 
 of works in life." 
 
 Mr. Harrison in another place says: "I have no intention to 
 moralize or to indulge in a homily against the reading of what is 
 deliberately evil. There is not so much need for this now, and I 
 am not discoursing on the Avhole duty of man. I take that part 
 of our reading which is by itself, no doubt, harmless, entertaining, 
 and even gently instructive.
 
 " But of this enormous mass of literature how much deserves to 
 be chosen out, to be preferred to all the great books of the world, 
 to be set apart for those precious hours which are all that the 
 most of us can give to solid reading? The vast proportion of 
 books, are books that we should never be able to read. 
 
 "A serious percentage of books are not worth reading at all. 
 The really vital books we also know to be a very trifling portion 
 of the whole. And yet we act as if every book Avere as good as 
 any other, as if it were merely a question of order which we take 
 up first, as if any book were good enough for us, and as if all 
 were alike honorable, precious, and satisfying. 
 
 " Alas! books can not be more than the men who write them, 
 and as a large proportion of the human race now write books, 
 with motives and objects as various as human activity, books, as 
 books are entitled, a priori, until their value is proved to the 
 same attention and respect as houses, steam engines, pictures, 
 fiddles, bonnets, and other thoughtful or ornamental products of 
 human industry." 
 
 " The Bible," Emerson says, " has been the literature as well 
 as the religion of all large portions of Europe — Havis was the 
 eminent genius of the Persians, Confucius of the Chinese, Cer- 
 vantes of the Spaniards. With this pilot of genius, let the 
 student read one, or let him read many, he will read advantage- 
 ously." 
 
 POETRY. 
 
 fRICHARDSON.l 
 
 Some people read a great deal of poetry with constant zest and 
 unfailing advantage; others, though they may be " great readers " 
 of other classes of literature, find little pleasure or profit in poetry. 
 Is it a duty to read poetry ? Should those who seem to have no 
 natural taste for it, endeavor to cultivate a taste: or should they 
 rest content with the conclusion that some minds have no capa- 
 city for its enjoyment? 
 
 It may not be a downright duty to like poetry, or to try to like 
 it; but certainly it is a misfortune that so large and lovely a divi- 
 sion of the world's literature should be lost to any reader. The
 
 — 13 — 
 
 absence of a poetic taste is a sad indication of a lack of the imag- 
 inative faculty, and without imagination what is life. 
 
 The study and reading of poetry, says President Porter, " exer- 
 cises and cultivates the imagination, and in this way imparts intel- 
 lectual power. It is impossible to read the products of any poet's 
 imagination without using our own. To read what he creates is 
 to recreate in our own minds the images and pictures which first 
 conceived and then expressed in language." 
 
 If a reader finds that the ideal has little or no place in his intel- 
 lectual life, or in his daily process of thought and feeling, then 
 he should consider, with all soberness, the fact that a God-giving 
 power is slipping away from him — a power without which his best 
 faculties must become atrophied: without which he loses the 
 greater half of the enjoyment of life, day by day; without which, 
 in very truth, he cannot see all the glory of the open door of the 
 Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 Children are poets; they see fairy -land in a poor, broken set of 
 toy crockery, or in a ragged company of brolien-nosed dolls. Their 
 powers of imagination ought never to be lost in the humdrum 
 affairs of a work-a-day world; their habit of finding the real in 
 the ideal is one which cannot be laid aside without great detri- 
 ment to the indi^'idual life and character. 
 
 There may then be persons who "have no capacity for poetry," 
 and who cannot cultivate a taste for it; but this inabilit3^ if real, 
 is to be mourned as a mental blindness and deafness, shutting out 
 whole worlds from sight and hearing. There is, of course, a great 
 deal of imaginative literature which is not poetry, in the technical 
 sense; but if one can read Hawthorne or Richter with pleasure, 
 he is quite sure to find no stumbling-block in Schiller's " Lay of 
 the Bell," or Drake's '• Culprit Fay." 
 
 It is the poetic spirit that we should recognize and take to our 
 hearts, whatever be the outward form in which it may be en- 
 shrined. 
 
 What is the poetic spirit? Many have been the attempts to 
 
 define it; but, after all, we can only say, in the words Shelley 
 
 wrote in his "Hymn to the Spirit of Nauve," "all feel, yet see 
 
 thee never." Or again, is not poetry to be described, as nearly as 
 
 we may describe it, in two more lines from the same poem: . 
 
 Lamp of earth where'er thou movest. 
 Its dim shapes are clad with brightness.
 
 — 14 — 
 
 In Professor W. P. Atkinson's lecture on reading, is a passage 
 concerning poetry, which is hoth imaginative and practical. " I 
 have no thought," says he, "of attempting here a definition of 
 poetry, though I should like to come and give you a lecture on the 
 art of reading it." 
 
 "NMiether we call it, with Aristotle, imitation; whether we say 
 more worthily, with Bacon, that it was even thought to have some 
 participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the 
 mind by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the 
 mind ; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the 
 nature of things; whether in modern times we define it, with 
 Shelley, as " the best and happiest thoughts of the best and hap- 
 piest minds;" or say, with Matthew Arnold, that " poetrj^is simply 
 the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of say- 
 ing things;" and again, that " it is to the poetical literature of an 
 age that we must in general look for the most perfect and most 
 adequate interpretation of that age;" or, whether we say, with the 
 greatest poet of the last generation, that " poetry is the breath 
 and finer spirit of all knowledge, the impassioned expression 
 which is in the countenance of all science" — all I am concerned 
 to say here is that poetry is that branch of the literature of power 
 preeminently worthy of study, and that without study we shall 
 know but little about it. We need not think, then, that the read- 
 ing of poetry is a matter of whim or accident to be undertaken 
 without thought or study. President Porter says that a '• taste 
 for poetry, especially that of the higher order, is to a great extent 
 the product of special culture." The foundation for this culture 
 lies in the individual mind; for its development he must seek his 
 material from the treasures around him, and must work out his 
 methods of utilizing that material with the same care, or even 
 greater, which he applies to other departments of intellectual 
 exercise. 
 
 Let him, if he finds his taste in need of cultivation, begin with 
 such poems as he likes; read them more than once; learn their 
 teachings; ai)prehend their inner spirit and purpose. Whatever 
 the ]:»eginning, it is sure to lead to something better, if the reader 
 will but resolutely determine to know what the writer meant to 
 say; to see the picture that he portrayed; and to share his enthu- 
 siasm and warmth of feeling. Mr. G. F. Goshen, a leading En-
 
 — 15 — 
 
 glish banker and political economist, declares that the cultivation 
 of the imagination is essential to the highest success in politics, 
 in learning, and in the commercial business of life. No one is 
 too dull, too prosaic, or too much absorbed in the routine of 
 ''practical life" to be absolved from the care of his imaginative 
 powers, and no one is likely to find that this care will not repay 
 him, even in a practical sense. He who thinks wisely, he who 
 perceives quickly that which others do not see at all, is better 
 equipped for any work than one whose mind works slowly and 
 feebly, and whose apprehensions have grown rusty from disease. 
 Poetry is not for the few, but for the many, for all. The world's 
 great poems, absolutely without exception, have been poems whose 
 meaning has been perfectly clear and whose language has been 
 simple — poems which have addressed themselves to the plain and 
 common sense of the ages. 
 
 Obscurity and whimsicality may belong to the Brownings of 
 literature, to the star-gazing Transcendentalists of 1840. or to the 
 posturing impressionists of to-day, but Homer, and Virgil, and 
 Dante, and Chaucer, and Shakespeare need no mystical com- 
 mentary to explain their meaning; like Mark Antony, they "only 
 speak right on." 
 
 If a poem is obscure, you may know by that mark alone that 
 it is a second-rate or tenth-rate affair, and that it is not worth 
 3^our while to vex your brain over it at all. If a poet has not 
 made himself clear, it is his fault and not yours, if you are a 
 person of average intellectual capacity. Feel not abashed if you 
 do not comprehend the ''orphil"or the "intense;" most likely 
 the author did not comprehend it himself. 
 
 Sunlight, air, water — these are not for the few; nor is poetry 
 to be cooped and confined any more than these. 
 
 Principal Sharp thus speaks of this inherent quality of the 
 best poetry — a qualitj^ which all men may apprehend if they will: 
 "The pure style is that which, whether it describes a scene, a 
 character, or a sentiment, lays hold of its inner meaning, not its 
 surface; the type which the thing embodies, not the accidents; 
 the core or heart of it, not the accessories. * * * Descriptions 
 of this kind, while they convey typical conceptions, yet retain 
 perfect indi^dduality. They are done by a few strokes, in the 
 fewest possible words; but each stroke tells, each word goes home.
 
 — IG — 
 
 Of this kind is the poetry of the psalms and of the Hebrew 
 prophets. It is seen in the brief impressive way in which Dante 
 presents the heroes or heroines of his nether world, as compared 
 with Virgil's more elaborate pictures. In all of Wordsworth that 
 has really impressed the world, this will be found to be the chief 
 characteristic. It is seen especially in his finest 13'rics and his 
 most impressive sonnets. Take only three poems that stand 
 together in his Avorks — "Glen Almain," " Stepping Westward," the 
 " Solitary Reaper " — in each you have a scene and its sentiment 
 brought home with the minimum of words, the maximum of 
 power. It is distinctive of the pure style that it relies not on side 
 effect, but on the total impression, that it produces a unity in 
 which all the parts are subordinated to one paramount aim. The 
 imagery is appropriate, never excessive. You are not distracted 
 by glaring single lines or too splendid images. There is one tone, 
 and that all pervading, reducing all the materials, however 
 diverse, into harmony with the one total result designed. 
 
 " This style, in its perfection, is not to be obtained by any rules 
 of art. The secret of it lies further in than rules of art can reach, 
 even in this: that the writer sees his object, and this only; feels 
 the sentiment of it, and this only; is so absorbed in it, lost in it, 
 that he altogether forgets himself and his style, and cares only 
 in fewest, most vital words, to convey to others the "vision his own 
 soul sees. * ******** 
 
 " The ornate style of poetrj^ is altogether different from this. No 
 doubt the multitude of uneducated and half educated readers 
 which every day increases, loves a highly ornamented, not to say 
 a meretricious style, both in literature and in the arts; and if 
 these demand it, writers and artists will be found to furnish it. 
 There remains, therefore, to the most educated, the task of counter- 
 working this evil. With them it lies to elevate the thought and 
 to purify the taste of less cultivated readers, and so to remedy 
 one of the evils incident to democracy. To high thinking, and 
 noble li^ang, the pure style is natural. But these things are 
 severe, require moral bracing, minds not luxurious but which can 
 endure hardness. Softness, self pleasing and moral limpness, 
 find their congenial element in excess of highly-colored ornamen- 
 tation. On the whole, when once a man is master of himself and
 
 — 17 — 
 
 of his materials, the best rule that can be given him is to forget 
 style altogether, and to think only of the reality to be expressed. 
 
 '■ The more the mind is intent on the realit}', the simpler, truer, 
 more telling the style will be. The advice which the great 
 preacher gives for conduct holds not less for all kinds of writing. 
 Aim at things, and your words will be right without aiming. 
 Guard against love of display, love of singularity, love of seeming 
 original. Aim at meaning what you say, and saying what you 
 mean. 
 
 " When a man is full of his subject and has matured his powers 
 of expression, sets himself to speak thus simply and sincerely, 
 whatever there is in him of strength or sweetness, of dignity or 
 grace, of humor or pathos, will find its way out naturally into his 
 language. That language will be true to his thoughts, true to the 
 man himself." 
 
 How different is such poetical language from the poetry of the 
 obscure, or the mock sentimental, or the positively base! What 
 the " Saturday Review " has said of Byron is true of many another 
 poet: " Even Byron's best passages will not stand critical exam- 
 ination. They excite rather than transport, and when the reader 
 examines seriously what he has felt, the impression of a vague, 
 contagious excitement is all that he retains. In reading Byron, 
 the reader dimly feels that he is in the presence of a very eloquent 
 person, who is, or would like to be thought, in a state of excite- 
 ment about something, and that it is his duty to become excited 
 too." True poetry has a far nobler mission than to puzzle, or to 
 amuse, or to excite; it is the voice of all that is best in humanity, 
 speaking from man to man. Not all of us can thus speak, but we 
 can all hear, and incorporate what we hear in our best and truest 
 life, day by day.
 
 — 18 — 
 
 THOUGHTS FOR A YOUNG MAN. 
 
 [HORACE MANN.] 
 
 The pleasure of Hterature may rightfully accept a portion of the 
 time not demanded by business or by health. The pursuits of 
 science are even more valuable and ennobling than the study of 
 literature. Literature is mainly conversant with the work of man, 
 while science deals with the works of God; and the difference in 
 the subject-matter of the two indicates the difference in their rel- 
 ative value, and in the power and happiness they can respectively 
 bestow. A great portion of our literature is addressed to marvel- 
 ousness, ideahty, and those subordinate faculties that are brought 
 into play by narrative adventure, and scenic representation. 
 
 By far the larger part of all histories, a great portion of epic 
 poetry, and almost all martial poetry are addressed to the loutish 
 propensities of combativeness and destructiveness. But physical 
 science addresses itself to the noble faculty of causality and the 
 kindred members of its groups, including the mathematical pow- 
 ers; and ethical science addresses itself both to causality and to 
 conscientiousness, and seeks also the sacred sanctions of venera- 
 tion for whatever it teaches. 
 
 A vast proportion of our literature consists of what had been 
 written before the truths of modern science were discovered; 
 before the idea that there is an order of nature, and a law of cause 
 and effect, in the spiritual as well as in the natural world, had 
 been received into the mind, and had modified its action; and 
 nothing can be more different than what the same genius would 
 write before being imbued with the spirit of science, and after being 
 so imbued. 
 
 All science may be invested with the charms of literature, but 
 in such cases it does not cease to be science; it only becomes 
 science beautified. 
 
 Hence the poet or the moralist may he scientific 'men, though 
 they rarely have been. 
 
 Before the time of Lord Bacon, men invented laws for nature, 
 instead of inquiring of nature by what laws she wrought. Since 
 his time, men have condescended to interrogate nature instead of 
 dictating to her; and already we have a physical world as differ-
 
 — 19 — 
 
 ent from that known before he wrote, as we can imagine any two 
 plants to be from each other. 
 
 A vast proportion of the existing literature has as little relation 
 to metaphysical truth, as the speculations of the schoolmen, before 
 the time of Bacon, had to physical laws. 
 
 It is not more true that Aristotle and his followers invented laws 
 for nature which she never owned, and explained her phenomena 
 on principles that never existed, than it is that most of those works, 
 which we call works of the imagination, assume the existence of 
 spiritual laws, such spiritual laws as the spirit of man never knew, 
 and therefore produce results of action and character such as all 
 experience repudiates. Hence it is, that I would commend sci- 
 ence more than literature as an improver of the mind. 
 
 Such a state of things needs not to be, and probably ere long 
 will cease to be. Gall, Spurzheim, and Combe, have done much 
 for ph3^sics, or the laws of matter. Already their labors are 
 entirely appreciated; they are producing great improvements and 
 ameliorations in penal jurisprudence and prison discipline, in the 
 treatment of the insane, in ethical philosophy, and in education, 
 which lies at the bottom of all subjects, which, as it seems to 
 me, can never be properly understood but in the light of their 
 science. 
 
 A WORD TO THE YOUNGER INMATES OF THE PRISON. 
 
 [editor.] 
 
 As soon as you have learned to read a paragraph in a news- 
 paper, without stopping to spell every word contained in it, do not 
 jump at the conclusion that you will be taken for a philosopher 
 by propounding questions which you have accidentally stumbled 
 upon in glancing over the pages of Voltaire, Volney, Hume, 
 Thomas Paine, or any other infidel writer. Because if you do 
 you will very likely be forced into a position that will cause 3''0U 
 to expose the extent of your ignorance, to say nothing of your con- 
 summate impudence, in presuming to propound questions that 
 have taxed the greatest minds that the world has ever seen. 
 
 Hume, the historian, taxed his mind for seven years with the 
 proposition, "Whether mind created matter, or whether matter
 
 — 20 — 
 
 and mind were coexistent," and then at the expiration of the 
 seven years went crazy. So you see how idle, and worse than 
 idle, it would be for an uncultivated mind like your own to waste 
 your time in propounding, parrot-like, the few " smart" questions 
 which a great mind like that of Hume failed to solve. 
 
 THE ART OF SKIPPING. 
 
 [RICHARDSON.] 
 
 It is a fortunate thing that one of the most hackneyed quota- 
 tions concerning books and reading should also be one of the 
 most sensible ones — Lord Bacon's saying, that " some books are 
 to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed 
 and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in part, 
 others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read 
 wholly, and with diligence and attention." 
 
 The following of this piece of advice has done a great deal of 
 good, and no harm is likely to come from its wise observance. 
 Some people profess to believe that a book that is worth reading 
 at all is worth reading straight through; a piece of foolishness 
 that would be paralleled by an insistance upon eating a tableful 
 every time one sits down to a meal. A person who makes up his 
 mind to read all of a book or none must be fully convinced of the 
 solemn truth of the saying that " a book's a book, although there 
 is nothing in 't." Against such lack of wisdom the sturdy com- 
 mon sense of Lord Bacon's remark may be put. The reader need 
 but rest assured of its unquestionable truth and spend his time 
 in trying to discover what books are to be tasted, what swallowed. 
 and what digested, rather than vex his soul in questioning whether 
 the general advice is sound or not. 
 
 A book that is worth reading all through is pretty sure to make 
 its worth known. There is something in the literary conscience 
 which tells a reader whether he is wasting his time or not. An 
 hour, a minute, may be sufficient opportunity for forming a de- 
 cision concerning the Avorth or worthlessness of the book. 
 
 If it is utterly bad and valueless then skip the whole of it as 
 soon as you have made the discovery. If a part is good and a
 
 — 21 — 
 
 part bad, accept the one and reject the other. If you are in doubt, 
 take warning at the first intimation that you are misspending 
 your opportunity and frittering away your time over an unprofit- 
 able book. Reading that is of questionable value is not hard to 
 find out; it bears its notes and marks in unmistakable plainness, 
 and it puts forth, all unwittingly, danger signals, of which the 
 reader should take heed. 
 
 The art of skipping is, in a word, the art of noting and shun- 
 ning that which is bad, or frivolous, or misleading, or unsuitable 
 for one's individual needs. If you are convinced that the book 
 or the chapter is bad, 3'ou cannot drop it too quickly. If it is 
 simply idle and foolish, put it away on that account, unless you 
 are properly seeking amusement from idleness and frivolity. If 
 it is deceitful and disingenuous, your task is not so easy; but your 
 conscience will give you warning, and the sharp examination 
 which should follow will tell you that you are in poor literary 
 company. But there are a great many books which are good in 
 themselves, and yet are not good at all times or for all readers. 
 No book, indeed, is of universal value and appropriateness. The 
 individual must always dare to remember that he has his own 
 legitimate tastes and wants, and that it is not only proper to follow 
 them, but highly improper to permit them to be overruled by the 
 tastes and wants of others. It is right for one to neglect entirely, 
 or to skip through, pages which another should study again and 
 again. 
 
 Let each reader ask himself: Why am I reading this? what 
 service will it be to me? am I neglecting something else that 
 would be more profitable ? Hence, as in every other question in- 
 volved in the choice of books, the golden key to knowledge, a key 
 that will only fit its own proper doors, is pinyose. Thus the reader 
 is the pupil, and the companion, and the fellow-worker of the 
 author, not his slave. 
 
 " It is a wise book that is good from title page to the end," 
 says A. Bronson Alcott. Such a book should be read through; 
 but the books that are wise in spots should be read in spots. 
 
 Again, Mr. Alcott says: '' I value books for their suggestiveness 
 even more than for the information they contain; volumes that 
 may be taken in hand and laid aside, read at odd moments, con- 
 taining sentences that take possession of my thought and prompt
 
 — 22 — 
 
 to the following them into their wider relations with life and 
 things." This suggestiveness of books read at odd moments is 
 one of the great advantages of judicious skipping. From this 
 habit comes, often, a riper and wholesomer harvest than would 
 spring from the most painstaking devotion to regulated and rou- 
 tine reading and study. 
 
 One page, one sentence, thus planted in the fertile soil of a 
 receptive mind, is better than a whole library read from a mere 
 sense of duty, and without reference to one's true welfare, as indi- 
 cated by his nature and his needs. No one thus wisely choosing 
 what he may best read, need be in any fear that he is a superfi- 
 cial reader. " Did you ever happen to see," asks a writer whose 
 name I have unfortunately lost, " did you ever happen to see, in 
 shrewd, old hard-headed Bishop Whately's annotations on Lord 
 Bacon's essays, a good passage about what is and what is not 
 superficiality ? It is in the sentence in Bacon's essays, on studies, 
 ' Crafty men contemn studies.' This ' contempt,' says the Bishop, 
 whether of crafty men or narrow-minded men, finds its expression 
 in the word ' smattering,' and the couplet is become almost a 
 
 proverb : 
 
 A little learning is a dangerous thing; 
 Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring." 
 
 But the poet's remedies for the dangers of a little learning are 
 both of them impossible. No one can drink deep enough to be in 
 truth anything more than superficial; and every human being 
 that is not a downright idiot must taste. 
 
 And the Bishop, in his downright way, goes on to give practical 
 illustrations of the usefulness of a little knowledge, and proceeds: 
 " What, then, is the smattering, the imperfect and superficial 
 knowledge that deserve contempt? 
 
 "A slight and superficial knowledge is justly condemned when 
 it is put in the place of more full and exact knowledge. 
 
 " Such an acquaintance with chemistry and anatomy, for in- 
 stance, as would be creditable and not useless to a lawyer, would 
 be contemptible for a physician; and such acquaintance with law 
 as would be desirable for him, would be a most discreditable smat- 
 tering for a lawyer." 
 
 Mr. Hamerton has some wise words on this subject: "It be- 
 comes a necessary part," says he, "of the art of intellectual living,
 
 — 23 — 
 
 so to order our work as to shield ourselves if possible, at least 
 during a certain portion of our time, from the evil consequences 
 of hurry. The whole secret lies in a sinele word — selection. 
 * * * The art is to select the reading which will be most 
 useful to our purpose, and, in writing, to select the words which 
 will express our meaning with the greatest clearness in a little 
 space. 
 
 "The art of reading is to skip judiciously. Whole libraries 
 may be skipped in these days, when we have the results of them 
 in our modern culture without going over the ground again. And 
 even the books we decide to read there are almost always large 
 portions which do not concern us, and which we are sure to forget 
 the day after we have read them." 
 
 The art is to skip all that does not concern us, whilst missing 
 nothing that we really need. No external guidance can teach us 
 this; for nobody but ourselves can guess what the needs of our 
 intellects may be. 
 
 But let us select with decisive firmness, independently of other 
 people's ad\dce, independently of the authority of custom. Of 
 course it follows that to some extent we can let others do the work 
 of selecting for us, subject to correction whenever necessary. " In 
 comparing the number of good books with the shortness of life, 
 many might well be read by proxy, if we had good proxies," says 
 Emerson. 
 
 Sensible literary guides must be followed to a large extent, 
 whether in their recommendation of one book as against another, 
 or of certain poems or prose extracts in comparison with others. 
 
 Books of selection, it is true, sometimes omit things we would 
 have greatly liked ; but who will pretend to say that he always 
 finds everything that would have pleased or profited him, even 
 when he makes his own choice? 
 
 As no worker in any field of labor can, in this social world, dis- 
 pense with the help of others, so it is especially necessary for 
 readers to follow the guidance of pioneers and wise critics, and 
 to make use of the selections these critics have made, as well as 
 their indication of whole books. And sometimes, as Emerson's 
 remark shows us, we may not only delegate to others the work of 
 choice and selection, but also that of reading itself.
 
 24 — 
 
 REMEMBERING WHAT ONE READS. 
 
 [RICHARDSON.] 
 
 Scarcely anjiihing more annoys readers than the fact that they 
 forget so much of what they have read. 
 
 In history, dates and names pass from mind ; poems that they 
 once knew by heart fade awa}' from recollection; and the charac- 
 ters, the plots, or perhaps the very titles of stories which were once 
 familiar, depart as utterly as though they had never been known 
 at all. 
 
 In connection with this question of the retention or nonreten- 
 tion of what one reads, it should never be forgotten that God has 
 evidently arranged the powers of the human mind in such a way 
 that we must forget a great deal, however carefully we strive to 
 remember all we can. A large part of our knowledge, too, is to 
 be considered as nutriment, or as intelligent exercise; and we 
 should no more lament over its loss than because we do not re- 
 member what we had for breakfast a year ago to-day, or the exact 
 length of the invigorating walk we took on that breezy morning, 
 week before last. 
 
 A book is by no means read without profit, if a part, or even the 
 whole of it, be forgotten beyond recall. And it is a consolation to 
 reflect that the very best use to which some of our past reading 
 can be put, is to be forgotten as speedily as possible. If we have 
 forgotten some things that were good and pleasant, we have luck- 
 ily blotted from our minds not a little that was noxious and unat- 
 tractive. 
 
 But a " poor memor}'^ " is a thing that can be materially strength- 
 ened; and after all reservations have been made, we should not 
 forget the duty of remembering all we really ought to remember, 
 so far as the natural powers of our minds will permit. The first 
 and the last aid to memory is a habit of pa^dng strict attention to 
 what we read. " Special efforts should be made to retain what is 
 gathered from reading," says President Porter, " if any such eflforts 
 are required. Some persons read with an interest so wakeful and 
 responsive, and an attention so fixed and energetic, as to need no 
 appliance and no efforts in order to retain what they read. They 
 look upon a page and it is imprinted upon the memory. * * *
 
 — 25 — 
 
 " But there are others who read only to lose and to forget. 
 
 " Facts and truths, words and thoughts, are alike evanescent. 
 
 " We shall not attempt to explain here the nature of these differ- 
 ences. We are concerned only to devise the remedy; we insist 
 that those who labor under these difficulties should use special 
 appliances to avoid or overcome them. 
 
 " But that upon which we insist most of all, is that what we read 
 we should seek to make our own, only in the manner and after the 
 measure of which we are capable." 
 
 President Porter then goes on to advise each reader to follow his 
 natural bent and aptitudes; not to worry if he has not a good ver- 
 bal memory, over his inability to remember choice phrases or 
 striking stanzas, nor to vex his soul over his failure to retain 
 names and dates. " When a man reads," he says, " he should put 
 himself into the most intimate intercourse with his author, so that 
 all his energies of apprehension, judgment, and feeling may be 
 occupied with, and aroused by, what his author furnishes, what- 
 ever it may be. If repetition or review will aid him in this, as it 
 often will, let him not disdain or neglect frequent re\aews. If the 
 use of the pen in brief or full notes, in catch words or symbols, will 
 aid him, let him not shrink from the drudgery of the pen and the 
 common-place book." 
 
 Philip Gilbert Hamerton has expressed an opinion that what 
 is called a " defective memory," is by no means an unmixed e\al. 
 
 He says there is such a thing as a "selecting memory, 
 which is not only useful for what it retains, but for what it 
 rejects. 
 
 '■ "N^'hat really interestsxis, we can usually retain without recourse 
 to any elaborate system of memories. 
 
 "That which does not properly interest us we cannot thus 
 retain. Bad memories are often the best selecting memories. 
 
 "They seldom win distinction in examinations; but in Utera- 
 ture and art they are quite incomparably superior to the mis- 
 cellaneous memories that receive only as boxes and drawers 
 receive what is put into them. 
 
 "A good Hteraryor artistic memory is not like a Post Office that 
 takes in ever3i:hing, but like a very well edited periodical, which 
 prints nothing that does not harmonize with its intellectual life."
 
 — 26 — 
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 
 Professor Matthews says: "Fox acknowledged that he had 
 derived more poHtical information from Burke's conversation 
 alone than from books, sciences, and all his worldly experience 
 put together." The same author further says: Conversation is as 
 necessary as meditation to the highest culture. And what is 
 more delightful than this communion of thinkers? Pleasant it is 
 to sit in a library or study, with a goodly array of wise or charm- 
 ing books about you, in which are preserved, as in a vial, the pre- 
 cious "life blood" of the world's master spirits; or, with the 
 choicest of those " abstracts and brief chronicles of the times," 
 the newspapers, to tell how flows the warm life-blood of the world, 
 and how the car of progress goes thundering along the high roads. 
 
 Pleasant is it, with paper-knife in hand, to skim the contents 
 
 of the last monthly magazines brimming with the freshest wit 
 
 and wisdom of the day; but pleasanter far than any of these is 
 
 communion with living men whose conversation is full of " that 
 
 seasoned life of men which is stored up in books," who have 
 
 roamed through all the fields of literature, and gathering the 
 
 choicest flowers have arranged them for your delight. Reading 
 
 is a great pleasure, but it is solitary. Byron says: 
 
 They who true joy would win 
 
 Must share it; happiness is born twin. 
 
 True as this generally is it is doubly true of literary enjoyment. 
 The fullest instruction and the fullest enjoyment are never de- 
 rived from books till we have ventilated the ideas thus obtained 
 in free and easy chat with others. 
 
 The mental faculties demand exercise as truly as the bodily, 
 and enjoy it as keenly. The mind that is healthy delights in the 
 glow of movement and contest. 
 
 It loves to meet Avitli a congenial spirit — one that has sucked 
 the sweetness of the same authors, and enjoyed them with the 
 same gust — which has brought away their quaint essence, and 
 treats it to the juice of the grape without thrusting upon it the 
 stalks and husks. 
 
 Talking is a digestive process which is absolutely essential to 
 the mental construction of the man who devours many books. A 
 full mind must have talk, or it will grow dyspeptic.
 
 — 27 — 
 
 Sir William Hamilton used to say that a man never knows any- 
 thing until he has taught it in some way; it may be orally, or it 
 may be in writing a book. It is equally true that many authors 
 have talked better than they have written. Philosophers tell us 
 that knowledge is precious for its own sake; that it is its o\vn ex- 
 ceeding great reward. But experience tells us that knowledge is 
 not knowledge until the use of it; that it is not ours until we have 
 brought it under the dominion of the great social faculty — speech. 
 Solitary reading will enable a man to stuff himself with informa- 
 tion; but without conversation his mind will become like a pond 
 without an outlet — a mass of unhealthy stagnature. 
 
 It is not enough to harvest knowledge by study; the wind of 
 talk must winnow it, and' blow away the chaff; then will the clear, 
 bright grains of wisdom be garnered for our own use or that of 
 others. 
 
 Then let us talk; and that our talk may be a true recreation, 
 let us talk Avith congenial spirits. Such spirits may be met with 
 singly in the ordinary intercourse of life, but the full play of the 
 mind demands that they should be encountered, " not in single 
 spies, but in battalions; " and hence the necessity of clubs to 
 bring together, like steel filings out of sand at the approach of a 
 magnet, men of the most opposite pursuits and tastes, the attri- 
 tion of whose minds may brush away their rust and cobwebs, 
 and give them edge and polish. 
 
 Henry Giles says: Nothing is better than conversation as a 
 corrective of self-sufficiency. In educated conversation a man 
 soon finds liis level. He learns more truly than from books, in 
 converse with living men, to estimate his powers modestly and 
 justly. A book is passive; it does not repel pretention; it does 
 not rebuke vanity. Indeed, reading and study become to many 
 but the nurture of conceit. If some persons value themselves on 
 the books they own, it is not surprising that others should value 
 themselves on, the books they read. As knowledge grows on the 
 thoughts in books, so pedantry feeds on their words, and is proud, 
 poor, lean, and solitary. In conversation a man is not long in 
 discovering that he alone does not know ever^'thing, and that 
 though he were to die, ^Ansdom would not perish with him. In 
 conversation, intelligent men, comparing themselves among them- 
 selves, exercise mutually a silent but a faithful criticism, which.
 
 — 28 — 
 
 tlioiight just and candid, is not indulgent; which, though not 
 indulgent, is not ungenerous; and which does as much to cement 
 a brotherly companionship as it ministers to mutual improve- 
 ment. Conversation, while correcting the mind, enlarges it. We 
 share in the fruits of other minds, and of minds more productive 
 than our own. 
 
 The power that comes to us from without, strengthens the power 
 that is within. A man's thought is original by the peculiarity of 
 his mental constitution ; so far as he has a thought at all, it must, 
 in some sense, be a thought distinct from every other man's 
 thought. It is shaped in the mould of his individual intellect; it 
 is colored by the atmosphere of his emotional and moral character. 
 A man's thought is shaped by the peculiarity of his personal his- 
 tory, mental and otherwise. He has thus an experience, memo- 
 ries, feelings, and associations through which none but himself 
 have gone. All these are more or less involv^ed in any word that 
 a man can truly bring out of himself, any word that is the tran- 
 script of a soul-grown idea. The most honest man, the most 
 simple-minded man, will often fail of this distinctive utterance in 
 methodical composition and set speech. 
 
 The individuality of his idea, of his being, are diluted into 
 verbiage, or they become lost in the misty haze of commonplace. 
 Conversation permits him to wait for the right word, and supplies 
 the unbidden inspiration that can speak it rightly. Thus you 
 gather in from every side the realities of mind; the realities of 
 life. 
 
 The poorest leaves with you something which might have been 
 loss not to have acquired. This and all such acquirements enter 
 into experience. Experience consists of feelings and knowledge 
 transmuted into life. Memory and observation gather in the 
 materials; imagination and reflection work the transformation. 
 Every region of apprehensible existence supplies materials, but 
 in nothing as in human character are materials of such value; 
 and in conversation, human character most undesignedly reveals 
 itself. Other men studied from our own position; ourselves stud- 
 ied from theirs ; the world contemplated alternately from both ; 
 these, I take it, are the elements of experience; and in conversa- 
 tion we have them all combined.
 
 — 29 
 
 BOOK KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 [CHESTERI'IELD.] 
 
 I have this evening been tired, jaded, nay, tormented, by the 
 company of a most worthy, sensible, and learned man — a near 
 relation of mine — who dined and passed the evening with me. 
 This seems a paradox, but is a plain truth; he has no knowledge 
 of the world, no manners, no address; far from talking without 
 book, as is commonly said of people who talk silly, he only talks 
 by book; which in general conversation is ten times worse. He 
 has formed in his own closet, from books, certain systems of every- 
 thing, argues tenaciously upon those principles, and is both sur- 
 prised and angry at whatever deviates from them. His theories 
 are good, but unfortunately are impracticable. Why? Because 
 he has only read, and not conversed. 
 
 LEARN TO BE BRIEF. 
 
 [editor.] 
 
 Long visits, long stories, long exhortations, and long prayers, 
 seldom profit those who have to do with them. Life is short, time 
 is short. Moments are precious. Learn to condense, abridge, and 
 intensify. We can endure many an ache and ill, if soon over, 
 while even pleasures grow insipid and intolerable, if they are pro- 
 tracted beyond the limits of reason and convenience. 
 
 Learn to be brief; lop off branches; stick to the main fact in 
 your case. If you pray, ask for what you would receive and get 
 through; if you speak, tell your message, and hold your tongue; 
 boil down two words into one, and three into two. " Learn to be 
 brief." Take a lesson from the Lord's Prayer, which is brevity 
 itself.
 
 — 30 — 
 
 BREVITIES. 
 
 The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, 
 are wisely careful never to set up any of their own. — Edmund 
 Burke. 
 
 Good fortune, like misfortune, comes oftentimes when we least 
 expect it. Consequently we should never jump at the conclusion 
 that we are never to see another happy day. — Ed. 
 
 As time is money, and money is power, it is evidently the height 
 of folly for a poor man to spend either a cent, or one minute's time, 
 foolishly. 
 
 It is one of two things with us in this world. We must be 
 "boss," or else be "bossed." — Ed. 
 
 However virtuous and exemplary a young man may have been, 
 he is 3^et within peril of falling; and however vicious and aban- 
 doned he ma}^ have been, he is yet within hope of saving. — Horace 
 Mann. 
 
 " The chief misfortunes that befall us in life can be traced to 
 some vices or follies which we have committed." 
 
 " They who have nothing to give, can afford relief to others by 
 imparting what they feel." 
 
 The temperate are the most truly luxurious. By abstaining 
 from most things, it is surprising how many things we enjoy. — 
 Samuel Sims. 
 
 " He who lays his hand upon a woman save in the way of kind- 
 ness, it were base flattery to call him coward." 
 
 Query — In denying that we are to be held accountable in the 
 next world for the misdeeds committed in this, is the " wish 
 father to the thought?" — Ed. 
 
 " Deceit is not sagacity." 
 
 " Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense." 
 
 " Disappointment and distress are often blessings in disguise." 
 
 " In drinking the health of others be careful you do not lose 
 your own."
 
 — 31 — 
 
 Lacondaire says: "You cannot imprison reason, you cannot 
 burn up facts, you cannot dishonor virtue, you cannot assassinate 
 logic." 
 
 " Most people's ideas are adopted children; few brains can raise 
 a family of their own." 
 
 "Luxury, pride, and vanity have frequently as much influence 
 in corrupting the sentiments of the great, as ignorance, bigotry, 
 and prejudice have in misleading the opinions of the multitude." 
 
 Luxuries long indulged in become necessities; consequently 
 the poor should never indulge in them for any considerable length 
 of time, as the indulgence is sure to cause more pain than pleas- 
 ure. The whiskjf and opium habits, for example. — Ed. 
 
 GOOD SENSE. 
 
 [lord lytton.] 
 
 Good sense is not merely intellectual attribute. It is the result 
 of a just equilibrium of all our faculties, spiritual and moral. 
 
 The dishonest are the toys of their own passions; may have 
 genius; but they rarely, if ever, have good sense in the conduct 
 of life. They may often win large prizes, but it is a game of 
 chance, not skill. But the man whom I perceive walking an 
 honorable and upright career, just to others and also to himself, 
 is a more dignified representative of his Maker than the mere 
 child of genius. Of such a man, we say, he has good sense; yes, 
 but he has also integrity, self-respect, and self-denial. A thou- 
 sand trials which his sense braves and conquers are temptations 
 also to his probity, his temper; in a word, to all the many sides 
 of his complicated nature. Now I do not think he will have this 
 good sense any more than a drunkard will have strong nerves, 
 unless he be in the constant habit of keeping his mind clear from 
 the intoxication of envy, vanity, and the various emotions that 
 dupe and mislead us. Good sense is not, therefore, an abstract 
 quality or a solitary talent; it is the natural result of the habit of 
 thinking jiistly, and, therefore, seeing clearly, and is as different 
 from the sagacity that belongs to a diplomatist or an attorney as 
 the philosophy of Socrates differs from the rhetoric of Georgias.
 
 52 — 
 
 LEARN HOW TO REASON. 
 
 [editor.] 
 
 The great distinguishing feature between man and brute being 
 reason, it is astonishing that the poorer portion of mankind who 
 cannot afford to make a mistake or to commit an error, do not 
 give this subject more thought. 
 
 Particularly when we take into consideration that their man- 
 hood, their liberty, and their very lives, oftentimes depend upon 
 a judicious exercise of their reason. 
 
 Which I need not say — ^by reason of its apparent truth — is the 
 greatest of all God-given faculties. Scarcely a newspaper comes 
 to hand that we do not see in its columns an account of some 
 foolish and wicked quarrel that e^ddently never would have 
 occurred if the parties to the quarrel had been taught how to 
 reason. 
 
 " He who Avill not reason is a bigot, he who cannot is a fool, 
 and he who dares not is a slave," are words that should be writ- 
 ten in gold upon the walls of every school house and prison 
 throughout the length and breadth of the land. 
 
 I have been led into this chain of thought, by reading the fol- 
 lowing pungent and able article by the editor of the Oakland 
 Times, which reads as follows: " The handy pistol has got in its 
 work again in the affair of Kennedy- Bohen, at San Jose. These 
 shootings, as the incidents of personal disputes, are always the 
 result of ignorance and the evidence of barbarism. Men who 
 have never learned how to think, who have no training or logic, 
 who have been guided always by prejudice which never reasons, 
 find themselves in wordy conflict. Neither knows what argument 
 is, so neither is able to intelligently say what he thinks he knows. 
 So, with many words, one man succeeds in saying nothing, and 
 with more words the other says nothing in answering him. Each 
 discovers that he is saying nothing, whereupon he proceeds to 
 rave, curse, swear, and blackguard. The blasphemous challenge 
 is at once accepted by the other, and it is discovered that the two 
 owe their intellectual vacancy and degradation to the habit of 
 substituting denunciation for argument and curses for climaxes. 
 A foolish world laments when they pull their pops and crack
 
 — 33 — 
 
 away at each other. Rather should the world rejoice that each 
 fool turns fool-killer, for so are decimated the ranks of the flat- 
 heads, whose thinking is done for them by demagogues who 
 make up the substance of the mob, who are the ragged foot sol- 
 diers of communism." 
 
 Professor J. H. Newman says: "The man who has learned to 
 think, and to reason, and to compare, and to discriminate, and 
 to analyze; who has refined his taste, and formed his judgment, 
 and sharpened his mental vision, will not indeed at once be a 
 lawyer, or a pleader, or an orator, or a statesman, or a physician, 
 or a good landlord, or a man of business, or a soldier, or an engi- 
 neer, or a chemist, or a geologist, or an antiquarian ; but he will 
 be placed in that state of intellect in which he can take up any 
 one of these sciences or callings, or any other for Avhich he has a 
 taste or special talent, with an ease, a grace, a versatility, and a 
 success, to which another is a stranger." 
 
 ON DISCRETION. 
 
 [ADDISON.] 
 
 There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, 
 but there is none so useful as discretion. It is this, indeed, which 
 gives a value to all the rest; which sets them at work in their 
 proper times and places, and turns them to the advantage of 
 tlie person who is possessed of them. Without it learning is 
 pedantry and wit impertinence; ^'irtue itself looks like weak- 
 ness; the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in 
 errors and active to his own prejudices. Discretion does not only 
 make a man the master of his own parts, but of other men's. 
 The discreet man finds out the talents of those he communes with, 
 and knows how to apply them to the proper uses. Accordingly, 
 if we look into particular communities and divisions of men, we 
 may observe that it is the discreet man, not the witty, nor the 
 learned, nor the brave, who guides the conversation and gives 
 measures to society. A man with great talents, but void of dis- 
 cretion, is like Polyphemus in the fable, strong and blind: endued 
 with an irresistible force, which, for want of sight, is of no use 
 
 to him. 
 
 3
 
 — 34 — 
 
 Though a man has all other perfections, yet if he wants discre- 
 tion he will be of no great consequence in the world; on the con- 
 trary, if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common 
 share of others, he may do what he pleases in his particular sta- 
 tion in life. At the same time that I think discretion the most 
 useful talent a man can be master of, I look upon cunnmg to be 
 the accomplishment of little, mean, ungenerous minds. 
 
 Discretion points out the noblest ends to us, and pursues the 
 most proper and laudable methods of attaining them. Cunning 
 has only private, selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may 
 make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views; 
 and like a well formed eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning 
 is a sort of short-sightedness, that discovers the minutest objects 
 which are near at hand, but is not able to discover things at a dis- 
 tance. Discretion, the more it is discovered, gives greater author- 
 ity to the persons who possess it; cunning, when it is once detected, 
 loses its force, and makes a man incapable of bringing about even 
 those events which he might have done had he passed only for a 
 plain man. Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to 
 us in all the duties of life; cunning is a kind of instinct, that only 
 looks out after our immediate interest and welfare. Discretion is 
 only found in men of strong sense and good understandings; cun- 
 ning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons 
 who are but the fewest removes from them. In short, cunning is 
 only the mimic of discretion; and it may pass upon weak men, in 
 the same manner as vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and grav- 
 ity for wisdom. 
 
 SELF-RESPECT. 
 
 [SAMUEL SMILES.] 
 
 Self-discipline and self-control are the beginning of practical 
 wisdom, and these must have their root in self-respect. 
 
 Hope springs from it — hope which is the companion of power 
 and the mother of success; for who hopes strongly has within him 
 the gift of miracles. 
 
 The humblest may say: " To respect myself, to develop myself; 
 this is my true duty in life. An integral and responsible part of
 
 — 35 — 
 
 the great system of society, I owe it to society and to its author 
 not to degrade or destroy either my body, mind, or instincts. On 
 the contrary, I am bound to the best of my power to give to those 
 parts of my constitution the highest degree of perfection possible. 
 " I am not only to suppress the evil but to evoke the good ele- 
 ments in my nature. And as I respect myself so am I equally 
 bound to respect others, as they on their part are bound to respect 
 me." 
 
 Hence, mutual respect, justice, and order, of which law becomes 
 the written record and guarantee. 
 
 Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man may 
 clothe himself — the most elevating feeling with which mind can 
 be inspired. 
 
 One of Pythagoras' wisest maxims, in his " Golden Verses," is 
 that with which he enjoins the pupil to "reverence himself." 
 Borne up by this high idea, he will not defile his body by sensual- 
 ity, nor his mind by servile thoughts. This sentiment carried into 
 daily life will be found at the root of all the virtues — cleanliness, 
 sobriety, charity, morality, and religion. 
 
 " The pious and just honoring of ourselves," said Milton, "may 
 be thought the radical moisture and fountain-head from whence 
 every laudible and worthy enterprise issues forth." 
 
 To think meanly of one's self, is to sink into one's own estima- 
 tion, as well as in the estimation of others. And as the thoughts 
 are, so will the acts be. Man cannot aspire if he looks down; if 
 he will rise, he must look up. The very humblest may be sus- 
 tained by the proper indulgence of this feeling. 
 
 Poverty itself may be lifted and lighted up by self-respect, and 
 it is truly a noble sight to see a poor man hold himself upright 
 amidst the temptations, and refuse to demean himself by low 
 actions.
 
 — 36 
 
 THE SCHOOL OF DIFFICULTIES THE BEST INSTRUCTOR. 
 
 [.SAMUEL SMILES.] 
 
 To use the words of Burke, difficulty is a severe instructor, set 
 over us by supreme ordinance of a paternal guardian and in- 
 structor, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves 
 us better, too. " He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves 
 and sharpens our skill; our antagonist is thus our helper." 
 
 Without the necessity of encountering difficulty life might be 
 easier, but men would be worthless. 
 
 For trials, wisely improved, train the character and teach self- 
 help; thus hardship may often prove the wholesomest discipline 
 for us, though we recognize it not. 
 
 When the gallant young Hodson, unjustly removed from his 
 Indian command, felt himself sore pressed down b}^ unmerited 
 calumny and reproach, he yet preserved the courage to say to a 
 friend : " I strive to look the worst boldly in the face, as I would 
 an enemy in the field, and do my appointed work resolutely and 
 to the best of my ability, satisfied that there is reason for all, and 
 that even irksome duties well done bring their own reward, and 
 that if not, still they are duties." 
 
 The battle of life is, in most cases, fought uphill, and to win it 
 without a struggle were, perhaps, to win it without honor. If 
 there were no difficulties there would be no success; if there were 
 nothing to struggle for there would be nothing to be achieved. 
 
 Difficulties may intimidate the weak, but they act only as a 
 wholesome stimulus to men of resolution and valor. All experi- 
 ence of life, indeed, serves to prove that the impediments thrown 
 in the way of human advancement may, for the most part, be 
 overcome by steady, good conduct, honest zeal, activity, perse- 
 verance, and, above all, by a determined resolution to surmount 
 difficulties and stand up manfully against misfortune. The school 
 of difficulty is the best school of moral discipline for nations as 
 for individuals. Indeed, the history of all the great and good 
 things that have 3'et been accomplished by men. 
 
 Wherever there is difficulty, the individual man must come out 
 for l)etter, for worse. Encounter witli it will train his strength 
 and discipline his skill, heartening him for future effort, as the
 
 — 37 — 
 
 racer, by being trained to run against the hill, at length courses 
 with facility. The road to success may be steep to climb, and it 
 puts to the proof the energies of him who would reach the summit. 
 
 But by experience a man soon learns that obstacles are to be 
 overcome by grappling with them ; that the nettle feels as soft as 
 silk when it is boldly grasped ; and that the most effective help 
 towards realizing the object proposed is the moral conviction that 
 we can and will accomplish it. Thus difficulties often fall away 
 of themselves before the determination to overcome them. ]Much 
 will be done if we do but trv. Nobody kno^^s what he can do till 
 he has tried; and few tr}'' their best till they have been forced to 
 do it. " If I could do such and such a thing," sighs the despond- 
 ing youth. 
 
 But nothing will be done if he only wishes. The desire must 
 ripen into purpose and effort; and one energetic attempt is worth 
 a thousand aspirations. It is these thorny "ifs" — the mutterings 
 of impotence and despair — which so often hedge round the field 
 of possibility, and prevent anything being done or even attempted. 
 A difficulty, said Lord Lyndhurst, is a "thing to be overcome;" 
 grapple with it at once; facility will come with practice, and 
 strength and fortitude with repeated effort. 
 
 Thus the mind and character may be trained to an almost per- 
 fect discipline, and enabled to act with a grace, spirit, and liberty, 
 almost incomprehensible to those who have not passed through a 
 similar experience. Everything that we learn is the mastery of 
 a difficulty; and the mastery of one helps to the mastery of 
 others. 
 
 D'Alembert's advice to the student who complained to him 
 abotit his want of success in mastering the first elements of math- 
 ematics was the right one, 'Go on, sir, and faith and strength 
 will come to you." 
 
 The danseuse who turns a pirouette, the \nolinist who plays a 
 sonata, have acquired their dexterity by patient repetition and 
 after many failures. 
 
 Carisimi, when praised for the ease and grace of his melodies, 
 exclaimed, "Ah! you little know with what difficulty this ease 
 has been acquired." 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, when once asked how long it had taken 
 him to paint a certain picture, replied, "All my life."
 
 — 38 — 
 
 Henry Clay, the American orator, when giving advice to young 
 men, thus described to them the secret of his success in the cul- 
 tivation of his art: "I owe my success in life," said he, "chiefly 
 to one circumstance — that at the age of twenty-seven I com- 
 menced, and continued for years, the process of daily reading 
 and speaking upon the contents of some historical or scientific 
 book. These off-hand efforts were made, sometimes in a corn- 
 field, at others in the forest, and not unfrequently in some distant 
 barn, with the horse and the ox for my auditors. It is to this 
 earl}^ practice of the art of all arts that I am indebted for the 
 primary and leading impulses that stimulated me onward and 
 have shaped and moulded my whole subsequent destiny." 
 
 Curran, the Irish orator, when a youth, had a strong defect in 
 his articulation, and at school he was known as " Stuttering Jack 
 Curran." While he was engaged in the study of the law, and 
 still struggling to overcome his defect, he was stung into eloquence 
 by the sarcasm of a member of a debating club, who character- 
 ized him as "Orator Mum," for, like Cowper, when he stood up to 
 speak on a previous occasion, Curran had not been able to utter a 
 word. 
 
 The taunt stung him, and he replied in a triumphant speech. 
 This accidental discovery in himself of the gift of eloquence 
 encouraged him to proceed in his studies with renewed energy. 
 He corrected his enunciation by reading aloud, emphatically and 
 distinctly, the best passages in literature for several hours every 
 day, stud3dng his features before a mirror, and adopting a method 
 of gesticulation suited to his rather awkward and ungraceful 
 figure. 
 
 He also proposed cases to himself, which he argued with as 
 much care as if he had been addressing a jury. Curran began 
 business with the qualification which Lord Eldon stated to be the 
 first request for distinction, that is, "to be not worth a shilling." 
 
 While working his way laboriously at the bar, still oppressed 
 by the diffidence which had overcome him in his debating club, 
 he was on one occasion provoked by the Judge (Robinson) into 
 making a very severe retort. In the case under discussion, Cur- 
 ran observed, that he had never met the law laid down by his 
 lordship in any books in his library. " That may be, sir," said 
 the Judge, in a contemptuous tone, "but I suspect that your
 
 — 39 — 
 
 library is very small." His lordship was notoriously a furious 
 political partisan, the author of several anonymous pamphlets 
 characterized by unusual violence and dogmatism. Curran, 
 aroused by the allusion to his straitened circumstances, replied 
 thus: "It is very true, my lord, that I am poor, and that circum- 
 stances have certainly curtailed my library; my books are not 
 numerous, but they are select, and I hope they have been perused 
 with proper disposition. I have prepared myself for this high 
 profession by the study of a few good works rather than by the 
 composition of a great many bad ones. I am not ashamed of my 
 poverty, but I should be ashamed of my wealth could I have 
 stooped to acquire it by servility and corruption. If I rise not to 
 rank I shall at least be honest; and should I ever cease to be so, 
 many an example shows me that an ill-gained elevation, by mak- 
 ing me the more conspicuous, would only make me the more uni- 
 versally and the more notoriously contemptible." 
 
 William Cobbett's account of how he learned English grammar 
 is full of interest and instruction for all students laboring under 
 difficulties. " I learned grammar," said he, "when I was a private 
 soldier on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge of my berth, or 
 that of my guard-bed, was my seat to study in; my knapsack 
 was my bookcase; a list of books lying on my lap was my writ- 
 ing-table, and the task did not demand anything like a }^ear of 
 my life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil. In winter 
 time it was rarely I could get any evening light but that of the 
 fire, and only my turn even at that. And if I, under such cir- 
 cumstances, and without parent or friend to ad\dse or encourage 
 me, accomplished this undertaking, what excuse can there be for 
 any youth, however poor, however pressed with business, or how- 
 ever circumstanced as to room or other conveniences. 
 
 " To buy pen or a sheet of paper I was compelled to forego some 
 portion of food, though in a state of half starvation; I had.no 
 moment of time that I could call my own, and I had to read and 
 write amidst the talking, laughing, whistling, brawling of at least 
 half a score of the most thoughtless of men, and that, too, in the 
 hours of their freedom from all control. Think not lightly of the 
 farthing that I had to give now and then for ink, pen, or paper! 
 That farthing was, alas! a great sum to me. I was as tall as I am 
 now; I had great health and great exercise. The whole of the
 
 — 40 — 
 
 money not expended for us at market was twopence a week for 
 each man. 
 
 " I remember, and well I may! that on one occasion I, after all 
 necessary expenses, had, on a Friday, made shift to have a half- 
 penny in reserve, which I had destined for the purchase of a red 
 herring in the morning; but when I pulled off my clothes at 
 night, so hungry then as to be hardly able to endure life, I found 
 that I had lost my halfpenny! I buried my head under the mis- 
 erable sheet and rug, and cried like a child. And again I say, if 
 I, under circumstances like these, could encounter and overcome 
 this task, is there, can there be, in the whole world, a youth to 
 find an excuse for the non-performance ?" 
 
 TEMPER. 
 
 [henry GILES.] 
 
 It is trvily astonishing how little our moral reflections dwell 
 upon our tempers ; how seldom the errors of it impress us with any 
 strong regrets or penitence. We rarely blame ourselves on their 
 account, and we further presume that others also ought not to 
 blame us. We A'alue a good reputation beyond riches, and for 
 fame or fortune we think no exertion too great; but as to the regu- 
 lation of temper, not to say that we rarely esteem it a duty, we 
 rarely give it a thought. We do not reflect on the space of exist- 
 ence over which our temper spreads, and which it bathes in light 
 or sows with thorns. We do not remember how passing cruel we 
 may be without inflicting wounds of imprisonment, without either 
 the dagger or the dungeon. We do not think that we are all crea- 
 tures of sympathy, that we share each other's life, and that we 
 have a power, all but boundless, to render each other happy or 
 unhappy. In the strength of our selfishness we too often forget 
 the harshness of our words, the coldness or bitterness of our looks, 
 and we care not for the deep and bleeding incisions which they 
 leave behind them. We do not enough consider how much a 
 gentle temper may be the evidence of a noble nature; and how 
 much an ungentle one may be the shadowing forth of a dark and 
 contracted soul; the moral beauty as well as moral strength that
 
 — 41 — 
 
 are implied in sweetness of spirit, and the moral hideousness that 
 makes its dwelling in a bitter heart. 
 
 What is the difference in principle between the most cruel ty- 
 rant and the truest lover of his kind ? It is temper. When 3'our 
 imagination forms to itself the idea of an angel or a fiend, what 
 is still the difference ? It is temper. And could you clothe the 
 angel or the fiend in human shape, the most prominent character- 
 istic in each would yet be temper. 
 
 As to those also whom we once have known, who casually 
 crossed our path, or walked along with us for years in this, our 
 pilgrimage, does not our involuntary memory turn to their habits 
 of temper? 
 
 When their bones are in ashes, when many of their good and 
 bad deeds have gone into forgetfulness, again and again they live 
 to us in the recollection of their tempers; we see again their 
 benign or clouded looks, we hear again their kind or harsh ex- 
 pressions. We can forget an act of malice, however dark, but we 
 cannot forget that which for years has eaten as iron into our souls. 
 
 We may be ungrateful for an act of goodness, however generous, 
 but we are unable to dissolve the charm which through many 
 days of peace and charity, spreads its light around us. We 
 consider not how much temper enters into daily life; how it 
 penetrates the whole surface of existence; that it is our daily 
 employments, in our general society, in our homes, around our 
 hearths; that it gives sweetness to the dinner of herbs, or turns 
 luxury to the food of misery. 
 
 It would be impossible to enumerate and classify all the fail- 
 ings of temper, for they are as many as there are peculiarities of 
 human character. The general constitution of the mind gives 
 the cast to the temper; and therefore the varieties of temper must 
 be infinite. We shall, however, glance at bad temper in a few of 
 its most evil forms, and we can only do so in some of their broader 
 distinctions. There are the violent, strong in coarse and selfish 
 passions, unable to bear any contradiction to a stubborn will, and, 
 as the case may be, they keep in strife a nation or a household. 
 The temper of this species is the prime element in the tyrannic 
 character, whether of greater or smaller dimensions, whether of a 
 family or an empire. Give it a religious direction and it makes
 
 — 42 — 
 
 the bigot, the fanatic, and the persecutor. Give it power, and it 
 will again open the inquisition, or rekindle the fires of the stake. 
 
 In more calm and respectable orders of society, wherever deco- 
 rum at the least has rule, this disposition can have but rare 
 exhi})ition; but in other grades of life, in which character has but 
 rude formation and expression, no restraint, it has a ravaging and 
 a fearful existence. It grieves one to the very heart to know that 
 a low, barbarous, and ruffian nature, sulky, obtuse, and unfor- 
 bearing, can fill to the brim the measure of calamity, that the 
 few he has near him can endure; that the home he calls his 
 castle, he can for others make a dungeon; that the liberty of 
 which he boasts, he can make to them a bondage; that the power 
 which should be their guardianship, he can make their terror; it 
 grieves one, I say, to know that such a savage may exist in a free 
 and Christian country; that he can heap sorrows without number 
 on dependent and defenseless victims; that he can embitter their 
 existence and bruise their hearts; that within his sphere of 
 bounded tyranny, he can be as complete a despot as if he wore 
 the crown of all the Russias — a cruel, fierce, and unmitigated 
 despot. 
 
 There are, again, the morose; and the temper of this class, as 
 it has various forms, so it has likewise manifold sources. It may 
 be founded in extreme self-consequence, or in extreme self-dissat- 
 isfaction, and it may be evidenced in haughty contempt, or in 
 silent and cold indifference. Such a temper constrains the spirit; 
 it leaves the soul few social attractions and few generous desires; 
 it throws gloom where there ought to be light; it withers the 
 smile half formed; it silences the word half spoken; it robs 
 action of loveliness, and takes all grace from speech; it has no 
 soul of frank and generous appreciation; its natural element is to 
 destroy rather than to create; it seems to live only to prove how 
 nmch a rational creature may mistake the object of his existence, 
 and how much pain one human creature may give to another 
 without reaping any gain or pleasure to himself The misery that 
 violence inflicts, it inflicts openl}'^ — this does it silently; violence 
 often feels its wrong — this never; violence has its moments of 
 deep compunction, and periods of sorrowful and gentle tender- 
 ness, that almost atone for many of its worst injuries — but this 
 austere reserve has no visitings of open-heartedness, and no
 
 — 43 — 
 
 times of refreshment. I have said that a violent temper makes 
 the tyrant — this makes the cynic; I have said that a violent 
 temper makes the fanatic — this makes the ascetic; if both, there- 
 fore, be equal in unkindness, the one is at least more coldly intol- 
 erable than the other. 
 
 Further, there are the revengeful. The others I have mentioned 
 are commonly founded in pride; this more frequently in vanity. 
 Pride can be magnanimous, can forget, and can forgive; but 
 wounded vanity remembers an offense forever, and seldom for- 
 gives it. To beings of this spirit, flattery is the very breath of 
 their nostrils, the food of their life. Rough or disagreeable truth 
 is not to be endured; but what, then, must be positive injustice? 
 Sensitive at all points, such persons are hurt when you do not 
 know it and could not intend it. Often 3'ou give a mortal stab 
 when 3^ou but make a careless movement; they ponder over words 
 and actions until a mole-hill seems to be a mountain, and they 
 revolve and revolve the thought so often that an offense becomes 
 fixed, immovable in their imaginations; they catch the trans- 
 gressor b}'- the throat and will not let him go until he has paid 
 the uttermost farthing. In this imperfect world we have many 
 failings and many provocations, but as we value the least frag- 
 ment of a benign humanity, let us keep the spirit free from this 
 most bitter dreg of earthly evils, this last and worst sin of a short- 
 sighted and corrupt nature. O, let us, as we value our own 
 heart's best and most godlike peace, as we value every moment 
 of present tranquillity and of future hope, keep them free from 
 anti-social and hard and unmerciful dispositions. 
 
 There are, moreover, the discontented. The temper of these is 
 that which goes from Dan to Beersheba, and on every step of the 
 way cries that all is barren. This is the one that sees little in 
 man or in life with the open heart or clear eye of enjoyment; this 
 is the one that no society can please, that no character can suit, 
 that no exertions can earn approval from, that no condition can 
 satisfy; that is, equally complaining, equally unhapp}'', equally 
 dissatisfied, in prosperity or in poverty. For those of such spirit, 
 earth has no retreat; they can have no shelter and no refuge. 
 ^Mlither can the}' flee? The world is full of imperfections, and 
 so are the men who live in it. If we have only sight for evils, 
 they are abundant in every place and in all conditions; wherever
 
 — 44 — 
 
 we turn, if we will look on aught but these, we must have aching 
 heads and aching souls. 
 
 There are persons who seem even to delight in proving that 
 there is in the world more of evil than of good, and more of what 
 is baneful than of what is beautiful. They take joy from pros- 
 perity, and they add more than its natural bitterness to poverty; 
 in success the}^ are without gratitude, in failure they are without 
 patience or dignity; to describe them in few words, they are 
 always disappointed. The mountain or the plain, the city or the 
 desert, soft skies or dark ones, are all equal to those who will not 
 see the works of God with a single eye, and will not hear the 
 words of man with an open ear. The glories of nature, or the 
 glories of art, men, books, or business — nothing can take from 
 them the occasion to complain. No gleam from heaven can cheer 
 their hearts, no sounds on earth can charm awa}^ their irritation. 
 There is no benison in religion that can give them a contented 
 peace; they wither under a spiritual malady; they are not happy, 
 and, stranger still, they scarcely would be happy. If this be 
 thought an overcolored picture, turn to what we witness daily in 
 life, to what we daily feel in our own minds, the peevish tempers 
 in which we all so constantly indulge, and in which we think it no 
 harm to indulge, the remorseless and ungenerous petulance with 
 which we hurt our fellow creatures, with which we make them 
 suffer for any of our own small vexations or annoyances — vexa- 
 tions or annoyances that we have brought upon ourselves, and 
 which it is more than probable we fully merit. In this most 
 unamiable temper we chill and disgust the best intentioned 
 friends; the movement of kindness is despised; the word of affec- 
 tion dies upon the lips of the vitterer; a willingness to think wrong 
 where it is not, to exaggernte where it is, predominates in such 
 natures; no devotion of attachment, no ardor of generosity, no 
 zeal of love can conquer it. Child or servant lives but in slavery 
 or fear, and often when most deserving receives most rebuke. 
 
 Brethren, if our souls are tortured with unknown sorrows, as 
 many of them must be, if we have griefs for which we have no 
 speech, if we have cares with which we cannot trust the stranger, 
 if we have thoughts and woes which we have no heart to tell even 
 to our nearest friends, yet let us not dishonor them, let us not 
 desecrate them by distilling them into the venom of ungenial
 
 — 45 — 
 
 tempers, let us magnanimously endure them, let us be ourselves 
 the martyrs of our own sufferings; and if we cannot assauge 
 them in our closet by weeping and by prayer, let us not embitter 
 the lot of others by peevishness and by cynicisms. If we cannot 
 be cheerful, let us at least not be unamiable. If we cannot rejoice 
 when others rejoice, let us not throw gall into the cup of pleasure 
 which mortals here are permitted to taste, and which must soon 
 be emptied. 
 
 But to observe, as sometimes we all may, the face grow dark, 
 and the tones become harsh, on account of some wretched trifle, 
 some bubble that is to vanish in a moment, we wonder not it should 
 be so, because they are Christians, but because they are rational 
 creatures; we wonder not because they give pain to brethren, but 
 because the}' ruffle their own peace: and all this for what to 
 either was not worth a moment's trouble or a moment's anno}'- 
 ance. 
 
 To close the enumeration we mention the capricious; and this 
 is the worst, for it is the most uncertain. You have nothing on 
 which to calculate: you have no means of refuge or of remedy. 
 To the violent and morose, you may oppose patience and thus 
 disarm them; the haughty we may meet with humility, and 
 haply subdue them; the discontented you may learn not to 
 notice; the peevish, if they are worth gaining, or your duty 
 teaches you to make the effort, you may at least gain by proofs of 
 sincerity and tenderness ; but of the capricious you have never the 
 slightest security, neither for hatred nor for love. Gentle this hour, 
 they are stern in the next, zealous and indifferent, kindly and 
 severe, indulgent and vindictive, charitable and unmerciful; thev 
 run incessantly through all modes of feeling; they exhibit in no 
 long periods of time all possible contrasts of characters; their evil 
 is equally evanescent with their good, but you can never be armed 
 for their e\dl, and you have no sooner felt their good, than you 
 fear to lose it. At one time they would move heaven and earth to 
 make you happy, and in the turn of a moment they would scarcely 
 move a finger; at one time they would burden you with favors, 
 and at others they heap on you their darkest disUke; to-day they 
 offer you their friendship and to-morrow they withdraw it, and 
 both the offer and the withdrawal are equally without assignable 
 or discoverable reason. Their will is their law, but if there be
 
 — 46 — 
 
 such a thing, their law is chance. They seem to have no settled 
 rules in either their feelings or their actions, no defined order of 
 character, and, therefore, you have no common principles on which 
 to judge them or by which to hold them. You feel near them, 
 similarly to those who stand around an eastern Sultan's throne — 
 who at one moment bask in the smiles of his favor, but who are 
 in hourly fear he will give the nod which shall unsheath the 
 sword of the executioner. 
 
 Those Avho are in immediate connection with the class that I 
 have described, live in constant and painful alternation, in which 
 there is no ease, or certainly, or comfort; in which life is made 
 such a mortal torture as scarcely to be endured ; in which family 
 dependence is a galling yoke, and the bread of toil is eaten in tears 
 of bitterness. Servants in lands of liberty, can retreat, they can 
 choose their masters — but families, what can they do ? Remain 
 and suffer; remain, endure, and be hopeless and helpless victims; 
 remain, and for mere existence bear whatever those who rule their 
 existence can heap upon them; remain and have all the pangs of 
 martyrdom and none of its honors. We cannot always choose our 
 lot, nor is it right to quarrel with the lot which is assigned us; but 
 if it were permitted us, there are surely many things which we 
 would prefer to constant irritation and to domestic tyranny. It 
 were better to scoop a cave in an Arabian desert, and, as the old 
 hermits did, diet on herbs and water, than to be under this irrita- 
 ble and cruel caprice, though we should have robes of purple and 
 fare sumptuously every day; it were better to raise a tent in some 
 woods of the far off and untrodden west; it were better to be 
 amidst the wild and pathless prairies, and to take the red man's 
 fate, to have freedom and peace, and communion with God, amidst 
 His most awful solitudes and His grandest works, than to be 
 inmates of a palace in which ill temper were the presiding spirit. 
 Duty might command us to bear, but inclination would never 
 choose it. 
 
 I have thus endeavored to point out a few broad generalities. 
 
 In such a subject, minuteness were impossible. We give no 
 rules for cure, because we conceive all such rules inefficacious. 
 Each one should know his own special temptation, and if he is at 
 all to be corrected, from himself should come the remedy. 
 
 It is vain to give rules and maxims; they are of no account,
 
 — 47 — 
 
 unless there is an inward feeling of imperfection; unless there is 
 an earnest, a heartfelt, a conscientious spirit of sincerity; if these 
 be in the mind, it will truly discover and most earnestly apply the 
 very best means of moral progression. Still it is right for us to 
 consider a few of the excuses which are alleged for ill temper. 
 And when faults of temper are at all admitted, what are the 
 excuses pleaded? Some plead natural constitution — they are 
 betrayed, when they design it not, into wrong speaking and into 
 wrong doing. Some plead bodily illness or the misfortunes of 
 life; want of health has thrown a cloud upon their spirits, or men 
 have not dealt well with them, or fortune and the world have been 
 rough and boisterous on their course ; some plead the errors of their 
 previous training; they were not taught better, and they did not 
 see better; they were furnished with no right principles, and they 
 saw all wrong examples. Some plead provocations not to be 
 resisted, and say that to have been otherwise than they are, were 
 to have been more than human. Some unwilling to confess any 
 fault, will maintain that their conduct is that which is just and 
 necessary. This would, no doubt, be the large class, when they 
 reason \vith men ; we hope they are not so, when they reason with 
 their conscience; still, at times, they must remember that although 
 man sees only the outside appearance, God judges the heart. But 
 as to these or any other excuses, whilst we should be generous in 
 admitting them for our brethren, we should be cautious in taking 
 them to ourselves. 
 
 That physical constitution is at the root of many of our faults, 
 is not to be denied, but neither is it to be denied that it has an 
 intluence on much of our excellence. We know there are those 
 in earliest youth, whom all of us have had the means of discern- 
 ing, confiding, faithful, charitable, ready to be pleased, unwilling 
 to find fault; whilst others have been sharp, harsh, unkind, 
 watchful, proud, and selfish. And seldom has it been that the 
 latter nature has been opposed to early promise. That natural 
 disposition may cause moral derangement should not be denied, 
 neither should it be excluded from the number of mitigating 
 circumstances; that illness may depress, and misfortunes vex us, 
 we are all too well experienced to be severe on those who have 
 undergone them impatiently; that wrong education may leave 
 faults which shall endure to the latest hours of life, many of us
 
 — 48 — 
 
 have but too much reason to lament, and these faults may be far 
 more sincerely lamented b}^ those who commit them, than by 
 those who condemn them; that great provocation — and much 
 there certainly is in life — demands also charitable allowance, we 
 have no reason and no wish to deny, when it calls forth a strong 
 and indignant burst of passion. 
 
 But when we have made all the admission that justice 
 demands and charity can grant, some serious considerations 
 remain, after all, to be pondered. In what way do we use these 
 excuses? How often do we advance them when there is no 
 ground for any of them, when there is no illness, no adversity, no 
 evil example, no evil communication, no resistance; when everj^ 
 word and will is law; when health, and prosperity, and pleasures, 
 and hopes, and friendship, and smiles from heaven and from 
 men, and obsequious attendants are all about us, or awaiting 
 our commands; when the miseries that strike others down have 
 passed over us, and not touched us ; when death, the lot of all, 
 as yet has left our dwelling full; when as yet the destroying 
 angel has never waved his sword over us, nor pierced our hearts, 
 nor opened the sluices of our tears; how often then are we in 
 bitter and unhappy moods, when there seems no human reason, 
 but an infatuated perverseness. 
 
 And though all these excuses in part were true, how much in 
 our self-love do we over-color them. We are our own advocates, 
 and therefore we are not likely to be just or severe judges. But 
 though they were entirely true, what of that? Is it not demanded 
 of a moral and virtuous man to overcome temptation, to subdue 
 difficulties? Will not the right-minded man, not to say the 
 Christian, struggle against his natural infirmities, nor cease until 
 he has secured a victory? If we were to act on all our merely 
 natural emotions, moral reasoning must be put out of question. 
 Akin to the brutes, we should be driven by the force of impulse, 
 and to this necessity we can neither attach praise nor censvire. 
 We call not the gentleness of the lamb virtue, nor the fierceness 
 of the tiger vice. But man we expect to have a control over his 
 sensations; we expect him to be a moral being, and if he looks to 
 us, not to reckon the wrong he has done, because he has done it 
 in accordance with his sensations; he asks us in point of fact to
 
 — 49 — 
 
 strip him of his humanity. Similar reasoning applies to the 
 other causes alleged, but not so directly. 
 
 We cannot here go into the distinctions; enough is it to say 
 that we have seen them frequently overcome, and what has been 
 done hitherto can be done again. What men ought to do they 
 can do, and all excuses to the contrary are but so many equivo- 
 cations and sophistries for self-will. 
 
 It has been the misfortune of many to have received a false 
 training, and to have witnessed unseemly examples, but they 
 have cast off the incubus of their education and been good in 
 spite of their examples. It has been the misfortune of many to 
 lie long and low in sickness, but it has been their glory and their 
 blessing to be meek through all their pains. There have been 
 those who have come to a poor and dependent old age, and yet 
 preserved the affections of their hearts and the light of their 
 spirits; there have been those who have seen their best expecta- 
 tions fail on the point of fulfillment, and their best contrived 
 plans turned into vanity, and their honest exertions defeated, and 
 nothing but losses, struggles, and fears made the daily and nightly 
 companions of their thoughts, who have yet well endured their lot 
 and valiantly fought their fight, who could shake off the dark 
 fiend that haunts the afflicted, who would not hear the voice of 
 the tempter, and cursed neither God nor man. There have been 
 those who, in the teeth of the most xdolent provocation, thought 
 forbearance more noble than contest; who learned and practiced 
 the magnanimous lesson, "not to return e\'il for evil," and who 
 preferred rather to endure injury than to inflict it; who would 
 have chosen rather to pray with Christ on his cross than to reign 
 with the wrongdoer on his throne. All these excuses are futile 
 and unsound; we must not deceive ourselves by them. Evil 
 tempers can be corrected, and they ought. 
 
 They can be corrected. Who is he that says, he cannot help 
 being angry, or sullen, or peensh? I tell him he deceives him- 
 self. We constantly avoid doing so, when our interest or decorum 
 requires it, when we feel near those whom we know are not bound 
 to bear our whims, or who will resent them to our injury; but 
 what strangers will not endure we cast upon our friends. That 
 temper can be corrected, the world proves by thousands of in- 
 stances. There have been those who set out in life with being
 
 — 50 — 
 
 violent, peevish, discontented, irritable, and capricious, whom 
 thought, reflection, effort, not to speak of piety, have rendered, as 
 they became mature, meek, peaceful, loving, generous, forbearing, 
 tranquil, and consistent. It is a glorious achievement, and 
 blessed is he who attains it. 
 
 But taking the argument to lower ground, which I do unwill- 
 ingly, you continually see men controlling their emotions, when 
 their interest commands it. Observe the man who wants assist- 
 ance, who looks for patronage, how well, as he perceives coldness, 
 does he crush the vexation that rises in his throat, and stifle the 
 indignation that burns for expression. How will the most proud 
 and lofty descend from their high position, and lay aside their 
 ordinary bearing, to earn a suffrage from the meanest kind. 
 And surely those who hang around us in life, those who lean on 
 us, or on whom we lean through our pilgrimage, to whom our 
 accents and our deeds are worlds, to whom a word may shoot a 
 pang worse than the stroke of death, surely I say, if we can do so 
 much for interest, we can do something for goodness and for 
 gratitude. And in all civilized intercourse, how perfectly do we 
 see it ourselves to be the recognized law of decorum, and if we 
 have not universally good feelings, we have generally, at least, 
 good manners. This may be hypocrisy, but it ought to be sin- 
 cerity, and we trust it is. 
 
 If, then, we can make our faces to shine on strangers, why 
 darken them on those who should be dear to us ? Is it that we 
 have so squandered our smiles abroad, that we have only frowns 
 to carry home? Is it that while out in the world, we have been 
 so prodigal of good temper, that we have but our ill humors with 
 which to cloud our firesides ? Is it, that it requires often but a 
 mere passing guest to enter, while we are speaking daggers to 
 beings who are nearest to us in life, to change our tone, to give us 
 perfect self-command, that we cannot do for love, what we do for 
 appearance ? Brethren, we can rule our tempers, and we ought.
 
 51 — 
 
 THE EVILS WHICH FLOW FROM UNRESTRAINED PASSIONS. 
 
 [blair.] 
 
 When man revolted from his Maker, his passions rebelled 
 against himself, and from being originally the ministers of reason, 
 have become the tyrants of the soul. Hence, in treating of this 
 subject, two things may be assumed as principles: first, that, 
 through the present weakness of the understanding, our passions 
 are often directed towards improper objects; and next, that even 
 when their direction is just, and their objects are innocent, they 
 perpetually tend to run into excess; they always hurry us towards 
 their gratification, with a blind and dangerous impetuosity. On 
 these two points, then, turns the whole government of our pas- 
 sions: first, to ascertain the proper object of their pursuit: and 
 next, to restrain them in that pursuit, when they would carry us 
 beyond the bounds of reason. If there is any passion which 
 intrudes itself unseasonably into our mind, which darkens and 
 troubles our judgment, or habitually discomposes our temper, 
 which unfits us for properly discharging the duties, or disqualifies 
 us for cheerfully enjoying the comforts of life, we may certainly 
 conclude it to have gained a dangerous ascendant. The great 
 object w^hich we ought to propose to ourselves is, to acquire a firm 
 and steadfast mind, which the infatuation of passions shall not 
 seduce nor its violence shake; which, resting on fixed principles, 
 shall, in the midst of contending emotions, remain free, and mas- 
 ter of itself; able to listen calmly to the voice of conscience, and 
 prepared to obey its dictates without hesitation. 
 
 To obtain, if possible, such command of passion is one of the 
 highest attainments of the rational nature. Arguments to show 
 its importance crowd upon us from every quarter. If there be 
 any fertile source of mischief to human life, it is, beyond doubt, 
 the misrule of passion. It is this which poisons the enjoyment 
 of individuals, overturns the order of societ}', and strews the path 
 of life with so many miseries, as to render it, indeed, the vale of 
 tears. All those great scenes of public calamity, which we 
 behold with astonishment and horror, have originated from the 
 source of violent passions. These have overspread the earth with 
 bloodshed. These have pointed the assassin's dagger and filled
 
 — 52 — 
 
 tlie poisoned bowls. These, in every age, have furnished too 
 copious materials for the orator's pathetic declamations, and for 
 the poet's tragical song. 
 
 When from public life we descend to private conduct, though 
 passion operates not there in so wide and destructive a sphere, we 
 shall find its influence to be no less baneful. I need not mention 
 the black and fierce passions, such as envy, jealousy, and re- 
 venge, whose effects are obviously noxious, and whose agitations 
 are immediate misery. But take any of the licentious kind. 
 Suppose it to have unlimited scope; trace it through its course; 
 and we shall find that gradually, as it rises, it taints the sound- 
 ness and troubles the peace of his mind over whom it reigns; 
 that, in its progress, it engages him in pursuits which are marked 
 either with danger or with shame; that, in the end, it wastes his 
 fortune, destroys his health, or debases his character; and aggra- 
 vates all the miseries in which it has involved him, with the con- 
 cluding pangs of bitter remorse. Through all the stages of this 
 fatal course, how many have heretofore run? What multitudes 
 do we daily behold pursuing it, with blind and headlong steps. 
 
 TOLERANCE. 
 
 [chesterfield.] 
 
 Remember that errors and mistakes, however gross in matters 
 of opinion, if they are sincere, are to be pitied, but not punished 
 nor laughed at. The blindness of the understanding is as much 
 to be pitied as the blindness of the eyes; and there is neither jest 
 nor guilt in a man losing his way in either case. Charity bids 
 us set him right if we can by arguments and persuasions; but 
 charity, at the same time, forbids either to punish or ridicule his 
 misfortunes. Every man's reason is and must be his guide; and 
 I may as well expect that every man should be of my size and 
 complexion as that he should reason just as I do. 
 
 Every man seeks for truth, but God only knows who has found 
 it. It is, therefore, as unjust to persecute as it is absurd to ridi- 
 cule people for their several opinions, which they cannot help 
 entertaining upon the conviction of their reason. It is the man 
 who tells, or who acts a lie, that is guilty, and not he who hon- 
 estly and sincerely believes the lie.
 
 — 53 - 
 
 GOOD-BREEDING. 
 
 [chesterfield.] 
 
 Civility and good-breeding are generally thought, and often 
 used, as synonymous terms, but are by no means so. 
 
 Good-breeding necessarily implies civility, but ci^dlity does not 
 reciprocally imply good-breeding. The former has its intrinsic 
 weight and value, which the latter always adorns, and often 
 doubles, by its workmanship. To sacrifice one's own self-love to 
 other people's is a short, but I believe, a true definition of civility; 
 to do it with ease, propriety, and grace, is good-breeding. The 
 one is the result of good nature; the other of good sense, joined to 
 experience, observation, and attention. 
 
 A plowman will be civil, if he is good natured, but cannot be 
 well-bred. A courtier will be well-bred, though perhaps without 
 good nature, if he has but good sense. Flattery is the disgrace of 
 good-breeding, as brutality often is of truth and sincerity. Good- 
 breeding is the middle point between these two odious extremes. 
 Ceremony is the superstition of good-breeding, as well as of reli- 
 gion; but yet, being an outwork to both, should not be absolutely 
 demolished. It is always to a certain degree to be complied 
 Avith, though despised, by those who think, because admired and 
 respected by those who do not. 
 
 Good-breeding, like charity, not only covers a multitude of 
 faults, but, to a certain degree, supplies the want of some virtue. 
 In the common intercourse of life, it acts good nature, and often 
 does what good nature will not always do; it keeps both wits and 
 fools within the bounds of decency, which the former are too apt 
 to transgress, and which the latter never know. 
 
 I would not be misapprehended and supposed to recommend 
 good-breeding, thus profaned and prostituted to the purposes of 
 guilt and perfidy; but I think I may justly infer from it, to what 
 a degree the accomplishment of good-breeding must adorn and 
 enforce virtue and truth, when it can thus soften the outrages and 
 deformity of Adce and falsehood. 
 
 I observe with concern, that it is the fashion for our youth of 
 both sexes to brand good-breeding with the name of ceremony 
 and formality. As such, they ridicule and explode it, and adopt
 
 — 54 — 
 
 in its stead an offensive carelessness and inattention, to the dimin- 
 ution, I Avill venture to say, even of their own pleasures, if they 
 know what true pleasures are. 
 
 Love and friendship necessarily produces, and justly authorize 
 familiarity; but then good-breeding must mark out its bounds, 
 and thus far shalt thou go, and no further; for I have known many 
 a passion and many a friendship degraded, weakened, and at last, 
 if I may use the expression, wholly slatterned away, by an un- 
 guarded and illiberal familiarity. Nor is good-breeding less the 
 ornament and cement of common social life; it connects, it 
 endears, and at the same time that it indulges the just liberty, 
 restrains that indecent licentiousness of conversation, which alien- 
 ates and provokes. Great talents make a man famous, great 
 merit makes him respected, and great learning makes him 
 esteemed; but good-breeding alone can make him loved. Upon 
 the whole, though good-breeding cannot, strictly speaking, be 
 called a virtue, yet it is productive of so many good effects, that 
 in my opinion, it may justly be reckoned more than a mere accom- 
 plishment. 
 
 MANNERS AND MORALS. 
 
 [SAMUEL SMILES.] 
 
 Dr. Johnson has said that the habit of looking at the best side 
 of a thing is worth more to a man than a thousand pounds a year. 
 And we possess the power, to a great extent, of so exercising the 
 will as to direct the thought upon objects calculated to yield hap- 
 piness and improvement rather than their opposites. 
 
 In this way the habit of happy thought may be made to spring 
 up like any other habit. 
 
 And to bring up men or women with a genial nature of this 
 sort, a good temper, and a happy frame of mind, is, perhaps, of 
 even more importance in many cases than to perfect them in 
 much knowledge and many accomplishments. 
 
 As daylight can be seen through very small holes, so little 
 things illustrate a person's character. Indeed, character consists 
 in little acts, well and honorably performed; daily life being the 
 (5[uarry from which we build up and rough-hew the habits which 
 form it.
 
 One of the most marked tests of character is the manner in 
 which we conduct ourselves towards others. A graceful behavior 
 towards superiors, inferiors, and equals is a constant source of 
 pleasure. It pleases others because it indicates respect for their 
 personalities, but it gives tenfold more pleasure to ourselves. 
 Every man may, to a large extent, be a self-educator in good 
 behavior, as in everything else; he can be civil and kind, if he 
 will, though he have not a penny in his purse. 
 
 Gentleness in society is like the silent influence of light, which 
 gives color to all nature; it is far more powerful than loudness or 
 force and far more fruitful. It pushes its way quietly and per- 
 sistently, like the tiniest daffodil in spring, which raises the clod 
 and thrusts it aside by the simple persistency of growing. Even 
 a kind look will give pleasure and confer happiness. In one of 
 Robertson Brighton's letters he tells of a lady who related to him 
 the delight, the tears of gratitude, which she had witnessed in a 
 poor girl to whom, in passing, " I gave a kind look on going out of 
 church on Sunday." What a lesson! How cheaply happiness 
 can be given! What opportunities we miss of doing an angel's 
 work! I remember doing it, full of sad feelings, passing on, and 
 thinking no more about it, and it gave an hour's sunshine to a 
 human life and lightened the load of life to a human heart for a 
 time. 
 
 Morals and manners, which give color to life, are of much 
 greater importance than laws, which are but their manifestations. 
 The law touches us here and there, but manners are about us 
 everywhere, pervading society like the air we breathe. Good man- 
 ners, as we call them, are neither more nor less than good beha- 
 vior; consisting of courtesy and kindness; benevolence being the 
 preponderating element in all kinds of mutually beneficial and 
 pleasant intercourse amongst human beings. 
 
 "Ci^dlity," said Lady Montague, " costs nothing and buys every-* 
 thing." 
 
 The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise requiring the 
 least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. 
 
 " Win hearts," said Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, " and you have 
 all men's hearts and purses." 
 
 If we would only let nature act kindly, free from aflFectation arid
 
 — 56 — 
 
 artifice, the results on social good humor and happiness would "be 
 incalculable. 
 
 The little courtesies which form the small change of life, may 
 separately appear of little intrinsic value, but they acquire their 
 importance from repetition and accumulation. They are like the 
 spare minutes, or the groat a day, which proverbially produce such 
 momentous results in the course of a twelvemonth, or in a life 
 time. 
 
 Manners are the ornament of action, and there is a way of 
 speaking a kind word, or of doing a kind thing, which greatly 
 enhances its value. 
 
 What seems to be done with a grudge, or as an act of conde- 
 scension, is scarcely accepted as a favor. Yet there are men who 
 pride themselves upon their gruffness, and though they may pos- 
 sess \artue and capacity, their manner is often such as to render 
 them almost insupportable. 
 
 It is difficult to like a man who, though he may not pull your 
 nose habituall}', wounds your self-respect, and takes a pride in 
 saying disagreeable things to 3'ou. There are others who are 
 dreadfully condescending, and cannot avoid seizing upon every 
 small opportunity of making their greatness felt. 
 
 When Abernethy was canvassing for the office of Surgeon to 
 St. Bartholomew's Hospital, he called upon such a person — a 
 rich grocer, one of the Governors. The great man behind the 
 counter, seeing the great surgeon enter, immediately assumed the 
 grand air towards the supposed suppliant for his vote. " I pre- 
 sume, sir, you want my vote and interest at this momentous epoch 
 of your life." 
 
 Abernethy, who hated humbugs, and felt nettled at the tone, 
 replied: " No, I don't; I want a pennyworth of figs; come, look 
 sharp, and wrap them up; I want to be off." 
 
 The cultivation of manners — though in excess it is foppish and 
 foolish — is highly necessary in a person who has occasion to nego- 
 tiate with others in matters of business. Affability and good 
 breeding may even be regarded as essential to the success of a 
 man in any eminent station and enlarged sphere of life; for the 
 want of it has not unfrequently been found in a great measure to 
 neutralize the result of much industry, integrity, and honesty of 
 character. There are, no doubt, a few strong tolerant minds
 
 which can bear with defects and angularities of manners, and 
 look only to the more genuine qualities; but the world at large is 
 not so forbearant, and cannot help forming its judgments and 
 likings mainly according to outward conduct. 
 
 Another mode of displaying true politeness is consideration for 
 the opinions of others. It has been said of dogmatism, that it is 
 only puppyism come to its full growth; and certainly the worst 
 form this quality can assume is that of opinionativeness and 
 arrogance. 
 
 Let men agree to differ, and when they do differ, bear and for- 
 bear. Principles and opinions may be maintained with perfect 
 suavity, without coming to blows or uttering hard words; and 
 there are circumstances in which words are blows, and inflict 
 wounds far less easy to heal. As bearing upon this point, we 
 quote an instructive little parable spoken some time since by an 
 itinerant preacher of the Evangelical Alliance on the borders of 
 Wales. '' As I w^as going to the hills," said he, " early one misty 
 morning, I saw something mo^'ing on a mountain side so strange 
 looking that I took it for a monster. When I came nearer to it I 
 found it was a man. When I came up to him I found he was my 
 brother." 
 
 The inbred politeness which springs fromright-heartedness and 
 kindly feelings is of no exclusive rank or station. The mechanic 
 who works at the bench may possess it, as well as the clergyman 
 or the peer. It is by no means a necessary condition of labor 
 that it should, in any respect, be either rough or coarse. The 
 politeness and refinement which distinguish all classes of the 
 people in many continental countries show that those qualities 
 might become ours, too — as doubtless they will become with 
 increased culture and more general social intercourse — without 
 sacrificing any of our more genuine qualities as men. From the 
 highest to the lowest, the richest to the poorest, to no rank or con- 
 dition in life has nature denied her highest boon — the great heart. 
 There never yet existed a gentleman but was lord of a great 
 heart ; and this may exhibit itself under the hodden gray of the 
 peasant as well as under the laced coat of the noble. Robert 
 Burns was once taken to task by a young Edinburgh blood, with 
 whom he was walking, for recognizing an honest farmer in the 
 open street. " Why, you fantastic gomeral," exclaimed Burns,
 
 — 58 — 
 
 " it was not the great coat, the scone bonnet, and the saundersboot 
 hose that I spoke to, but the man that was in them; and the man, 
 sir, for true worth, would weigh down you and me, and ten more 
 such, any day." There may be a homeliness in externals which 
 may seem vulgar to those who cannot discern the heart beneath, 
 but, to the right-minded, character will always have its clear 
 insignia. 
 
 LYING. 
 [chesterfield.] 
 
 There is one vice into which people of good education, and, in 
 the main of good principles, sometimes fall, from mistaken notions 
 of skill, dexterity, and self-defense: I mean lying; though it is 
 inseparably attended with more infamy and loss than any other. 
 The prudence and necessity of concealing the truth, insensibly 
 seduces people to violate it. It is the only art of mean capacities, 
 and the only refuge of mean spirits. Whereas concealing the 
 truth, upon proper occasions, is as prudent and as innocent, as 
 telling a lie, upon any occasion, is infamous and foolish. I will 
 state you a case in your own department: 
 
 Suppose you are employed at a foreign court, and that the 
 Minister of that court is absurd or impertinent enough to ask you 
 what your instructions are; will you tell him a lie, which, as soon 
 as found out (and found out it certainly will be) must destroy 
 your credit, blast your character, and render you useless there? 
 No. Will you tell him the truth then, and betray your trust? 
 As certainly no. But you will answer with firmness, that you 
 are surprised at such a question; that you are persuaded he does 
 not expect an answer to it; but that at all events, he certainly 
 will not have one. Such an answer will give him confidence in 
 you; he will conceive an opinion of your veracity, of which 
 opinion you may afterwards make very honest and fair advan- 
 tages. But if, in negotiations, you are looked upon as a liar and 
 a trickster, no confidence will be placed in you, nothing will be 
 communicated to you, you will be in the situation of a man who 
 has been burnt in the cheek, and who, from that mark, cannot 
 afterwards get an honest livelihood if he would, but must continue 
 a thief.
 
 — 59 — 
 
 Lord Bacon, very justly, makes a distinction between simula- 
 tion and dissimulation; and allows the latter rather than the 
 former, but still observes that they are the weaker sort of politi- 
 cians who have recourse to either. 
 
 A man who has strength of mind, and strength of parts, wants 
 neither of them. "Certainly," says he, "the ablest men that 
 ever were have all had an openness and frankness of dealing, 
 and a name of certainty and veracity; but, then, they were like 
 horses well managed, for they could tell, passing well, when to 
 stop, or turn; and at such times as they thought the case, indeed, 
 required some dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass, 
 that the former opinion spread abroad of their good faith and 
 clearness of dealing made them almost invisible." 
 
 There are people who indulge themselves in a sort of Ij^ng, 
 which they reckon innocent, and which in one sense is so; for it 
 hurts nobody but themselves. 
 
 This sort of lying is the spurious offspring of vanity, begotten 
 upon folly; these people deal in the marvelous; they have seen 
 other things which they really never saw, though they did exist, 
 only because they were thought worth seeing. Has anything 
 remarkable been said or done in any place, or in any company, 
 they immediately present and declare themselves eye or ear- 
 witness of it. They have done feats themselves, unattempted, or 
 at least unperformed, by others. They are always the heroes of 
 their own fables, and think that they gain consideration, at least 
 attract attention, by it. Whereas, in truth, all they get is ridicule 
 and contempt, not without a good degree of distrust; for one must 
 naturally conclude, that he who will tell any lie from idle vanity 
 will not scruple telling a greater for interest. 
 
 Had I really seen anything so very extraordinary as to be 
 almost incredible, I would keep it to myself, rather than, by telling 
 it, give any one body room to doubt for one minute of my veracity. 
 
 It is most certain, that the reputation of chastity is not so nec- 
 essary for a woman, as that of veracity is for a man, and with 
 reason; for it is possible for a woman to be virtuous, though not 
 strictly chaste, but it is not possible for a man to be virtuous with- 
 out strict veracity. The slips of the poor women are sometimes 
 mere bodily frailties; but a lie in a man is a vice of the mind and 
 of the heart. For God's sake, be scrupulously jealous of the pu-
 
 — 60 — 
 
 rity of your moral character! Keep it immaculate, unblemished, 
 unsullied; and it will be unsuspected. 
 
 Defamation and calumny never attack, where there is no 
 weak place; they magnify, but they do not create. * * * I 
 really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridic- 
 ulous, than lying. It is the production either of malice, or cow- 
 ardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of 
 these views; for lies are always detected sooner or later. If I tell 
 a malicious lie, in order to affect any man's fortune or character, 
 I may indeed injure him for some time; but I shall be sure to be 
 the greatest sufferer myself at last; for as soon as ever I am 
 detected (and detected I most certainly shall be), I am blasted 
 for the infamous attempt; and whatever is said afterwards to the 
 disadvantage of that person, however true, passes for calumny. 
 If I lie or equivocate (for it is the same thing), in order to excuse 
 myself for something I have said or done, and to avoid the dan- 
 ger or shame that I apprehend from it, I discover at once my fear, 
 as well as my falsehood; and only increase instead of avoiding 
 the danger and the shame; I show myself to be the lowest and 
 the meanest of mankind, and am sure to be always treated as 
 such. 
 
 Fear, instead of avoiding invites danger; for concealed cowards 
 will insult known ones. 
 
 If one has had the misfortune to be in the wrong, there is some- 
 thing noble in frankly owning it. It is the only way of atoning 
 for it, and the only way of being forgiven. 
 
 Equivocating, evading, or shuffling, in order to remove a present 
 danger or inconvenience, is something so mean, and betrays so 
 much fear, that whoever practices them always deserves to be and 
 often will be kicked. There is another sort of lies, inoffensive 
 enough in themselves but wonderfully ridiculous; I mean those 
 lies which a mistaken vanity suggests, that defeat the very end 
 for which they are calculated, and terminate in the humiliation 
 and confusion of their author, who is sure to be detected. These 
 are chiefly narrative and historical lies, all intended to do infinite 
 honor to their author. 
 
 He is always the hero of his own romances; he has been in 
 dangers from which nobody but himself ever escapes; he has 
 seen with his own eyes, whatever other people have heard or read
 
 — 61 — 
 
 of; he has had more bonnes fortunes than any one else, and has 
 ridden by more mile-posts in one day than ever courier went in 
 two. 
 
 He is soon discovered, and as soon becomes the object of uni- 
 versal contempt and ridicule. 
 
 Remember, then, as long as you Hve, that nothing but strict 
 truth can carry you through the world, mth either your confi- 
 dence or your honor unwounded. 
 
 It is not only your duty, but your interest; as a proof of which 
 you may always observe, that the greatest fools are the greatest 
 liars. 
 
 For my own part, I judge of every man's truth by his degree of 
 understanding. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 [chesterfield.] 
 
 People of your age have, commonly, an unguarded frankness 
 about them, which makes them the easy prey and bubbles of the 
 artful and the experienced; they look upon every knave or fool 
 who tells them that he is their friend, to be really so; and pay 
 that profession of simulated friendship, with an indiscreet and 
 unbounded confidence, always to their loss, often to their ruin. 
 Beware, therefore, now that you are coming into the world, of these 
 proffered friendships. Receive them with great civility, but with 
 great incredulity too, and pay them with compliments but not with 
 confidence. 
 
 Do not let your vanity and self-love make you suppose that peo- 
 ple become your friends at first sight, or even upon a short acquaint- 
 ance. Real friendship is a slow grower, and never thrives, unless 
 ingrafted upon a stock of known and reciprocal merit. 
 
 There is another kind of nominal friendship among young peo- 
 ple, which is warm for the time, but, by good luck, of short dura- 
 tion. 
 
 This friendship is hastily produced, by their being accidentally 
 thrown together, and pursuing the same course of riot and de- 
 bauchery. A fine friendship, truly! and well cemented by drunk- 
 enness and lewdness. It should rather be called a conspiracy
 
 — 62 — 
 
 against morals and good manners, and be punished as such by the 
 civil magistrate. 
 
 However, they have the impudence and the folly to call this 
 confederacy a friendship. 
 
 Remember to make a great difference between companions and 
 friends; for a very complaisant and agreeable companion may, 
 and often does, prove a very improper and a very dangerous friend. 
 People will in a great degree, and not without reason, form their 
 opinion of you upon that which they have of your friends; and 
 there is a Spanish proverb, which says very justly, " Tell me whom 
 you live with, and I will tell you who you are." 
 
 One may fairly suppose that a man who makes a knave or a 
 fool his friend has something very bad to do or conceal. But at 
 the same time that you carefully decline the friendship of knaves 
 and fools, if it can be called friendship, there is no occasion to 
 make either of them your enemies, wantonly and unprovoked, 
 for they are numerous bodies, and I would rather choose a secure 
 neutrality than alliance or war with either of them. You may 
 be a declared enemy to their views and follies without being 
 marked out by them as a personal one. Their enmity is the next 
 dangerous thing to their friendship. 
 
 Have a real reserve with almost everybody, and have a seeming 
 reserve with almost nobody; for it is very disagreeable to seem 
 reserved, and very dangerous not to be so. Few people find the 
 medium; many are ridiculously mysterious and reserved upon 
 trifles, and many imprudently communicative of all they know. 
 * * * I must be first well acquainted with my folks; I will 
 have no friend who is void of sentiment merely because he has 
 wit, nor will I have a sentimental friend who wants common 
 sense. There must be sentiment on both sides to form a friend- 
 ship, but there must be sense on both sides to carry it on.
 
 63 — 
 
 RESISTANCE TO TEMPTATION. 
 
 [sAMUEL SMILES.] 
 
 The young man, as he passes through life, advances through a 
 long line of tempters ranged on either side of him ; and the inevit- 
 able effect of yielding is degradation in a greater or less degree. 
 Contact with them tends insensibly to draw away from him some 
 portion of the divine electric element with which his nature is 
 charged; and his only mode of resisting them is to utter and to 
 act out his " No," manfully and resolutely. He must decide at 
 once, not waiting to deliberate and balance reasons; for the youth, 
 like "the woman who deliberates is lost." Many deliberate with- 
 out deciding, but " not to resolve is to resolve." A perfect knowl- 
 edge of man is in the prayer" Lead us not into temptation." But 
 temptation will come to try the young man's strength; and once 
 yielded to, the power to resist grows weaker and weaker. Yield 
 once, and a portion of virtue has gone. Resist manfully, and the 
 first decision will give strength for life; repeated, it will become 
 a habit. It is in the outworks of the habits formed in early life 
 that the real strength of the defense must lie; for it has been 
 wisely ordained that the machinery of moral existence should be 
 carried on principally through the medium of the habits, so as to 
 save the wear and tear of the great principles within. It is good 
 habits, which insinuate themselves into the thousand inconsider- 
 able acts of life, that really constitute by far the part of man's 
 moral conduct. 
 
 Hugh Miller has told how by an act of youthful decision he 
 saved himself from one of the strong temptations so peculiar to a 
 life of toil. 
 
 When employed as a mason, it was usual for his fellow work- 
 men to have an occasional treat of drink, and one day two glasses 
 of whisky fell to his share, which he swallowed. 
 
 When he reached home he found, on opening his favorite book — 
 " Bacon's Essays " — that the letters danced before his eyes, and 
 that he could no longer master the sense. "The condition," he 
 says, "into which I had brought myself was, I felt, one of degra- 
 dation. I had sunk, by my own act, to a lower level of intelligence 
 than that on which it was my privilege to be placed: and though
 
 — 64 — 
 
 the state could have been no very favorable one for forming a 
 very favorable resolution, I in that hour determined that I should 
 never sacrifice my capacity of intellectual enjoyment to a drink- 
 ing usage; and, with God's help, I was enabled to hold by the 
 determination." 
 
 It is such decisions as this that often form the turning points 
 in a man's life, and furnish the foundation of his future character. 
 
 And this rock, on which Hugh Miller might have been wrecked, 
 if he had not at the right moment put forth his moral strength to 
 strike away from it, is one that youth and manhood alike need to 
 be constantly on their guard against. It is about one of the worst 
 and most deadly as well as extravagant temptations which lie in 
 the way of youth. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott used to say that, " Of all vices, drinking is the 
 most incompatible with greatness." Not only so, but it is incom- 
 patible vnih. economy, decenc}', health, and honest li\dng. When 
 a youth cannot restrain, he must abstain. 
 
 Dr. Johnson's case is the case of many. He said, referring to 
 his own habits: "Sir, I can abstain; but I can't be moderate." 
 Permit me to add, in connection with the above, that all our dan- 
 ger lies in the first drink. And for the reason that, just in pro- 
 portion to our indulgence, just in proportion will our appetites for 
 strong liquor increase, and our power of resistance weaken. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 " Put not your faith in Princes," or in the man who " stoops to 
 conquer;" or in the man who says yes merely to accommodate 
 you, or in the man who " has a hand for everybody, and a heart 
 for nobody." 
 
 Watch the man who treats you well, and see in what manner 
 he treats others; as it is possible he may have a selfish motive in 
 treating you kindly. But when you see that he is as true to oth- 
 ers as he is to yourself, then give him your entire confidence, and 
 be as true to him as the " needle is to the pole." — Ed. 
 
 Be careful what you read, and how you read. A New York 
 journalist says: " I am paid $10,000 a year for keeping the truth
 
 — 65 — 
 
 out of the journal upon which I am employed." And Professor 
 Mathews says, " Mr. Froude confesses that in historical inquiries 
 the most instructed thinkers have but a limited advantage over 
 the most illiterate." 
 
 Those who know the most, whose investigations are the pro- 
 foundest, approach least to agreement. 
 
 ''It is probable," says an able Scottish writer, " that 7iof one fact 
 in the whole range of history original and derived is truly stated." 
 
 Read not to contradict and confute, nor to beheve and take for 
 granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. 
 
 This is the great secret both of reading to profit and of making 
 the best choice of what we read. 
 
 If books were more commonly judged by their real weight, how 
 many popular works would sink into insignificance! It is melan- 
 choly to think of the millions of immortal minds, that accustom 
 themselves to reading, which when weighed in the balance is 
 found to contain little less than the lightness of vanity. How 
 many that might have attained the stature of full grown man, 
 have thus become enervated, dwarfish, deformed, or crippled. 
 With desires formed for the highest enjoyments and understand- 
 ings, capable of the noblest improvement, the reading of trifling 
 and pernicious books, the habit of mental association with low, 
 mean, and unworthy thoughts, has prostrated the energies of 
 thousands, and debased them below themselves. — Lord Bacon. 
 
 Those who have read everything are thought to understand 
 everything too; but it is not always so. 
 
 Reading furnishes the mind with only materials of knowledge; 
 it is thinking that makes what we read ours. 
 
 We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram 
 ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them 
 over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment. — 
 John Locke. 
 
 The Indian "sees God in clouds and hears Him in the wind," 
 
 and civilized man, when in a demoralized condition, oftentimes 
 
 is struck with the divine attributes of his Maker, b}' looking upon 
 
 a simple flower. And I was forcibly reminded of the fact a few 
 
 5
 
 — 66 — 
 
 days since, by hearing one of your fellow-prisoners exclaim, upon 
 seeing a bouquet of flowers upon the desk in the Prison Library, 
 " If there is one thing more than another which brings me near to 
 God, it is flowers."— £cL 
 
 Dick Fellows, one of your fellow-prisoners, says, " The Devil 
 oftentimes appears to us in the most attractive form; he appeared 
 to our Saviour on the Mount, in the form of a beautiful woman; 
 and he appeared to me in the form of Wells and Fargo's treasure 
 box."— ^d. 
 
 " In seasons of distress or difficulty, to abandon ourselves to 
 dejection, carries no mark of a great or a worthy mind. Instead 
 of sinking under trouble, and declaring, ' that his soul is weary 
 of life,' it becomes a wise and a good man, in the evil day, with 
 firmness to maintain his post; to bear up against the storm; to 
 have recourse to those advantages which in the worst of times 
 are always left to integrity and virtue; and never to give up the 
 hope that better days may yet arrive." 
 
 Henry Giles, in his essay on "The Weariness of Life," says: 
 " Much of dissatisfaction with life arises from a doubly false esti- 
 mate of life. We underrate our own position in it; we overrate 
 the position of others. Out of this doubly false estimate spring 
 correspondent false contrasts and desires. 
 
 "The man of bodily labor, longs for mental labor; and con- 
 trasted with his own condition, he thinks it one of perfect ease. 
 
 "And yet with this wish much is often connected that is strange 
 and inconsistent. 
 
 " You will sometimes hear a man whose toil is physical, expa- 
 tiate, with emphasis, upon the comparative idleness which the 
 man enjoys whose avocation is intellectual. Yet the man who 
 tlius expatiates on the scholar's indolence, finds it a painful task 
 to write a sin^ple letter on the plainest incidents of domestic his- 
 tory; not because he wants ability or intelligence, but because 
 the use of his mind in this way is unfamiliar to him". 
 
 " The fact is, the scholar would have as much reason to dwell 
 on the ease of the farmer, as the farmer on the ease of the 
 scholar; and so he constantly does, and with just as much of 
 falsehood.
 
 — 67 — 
 
 " The scholar contrasts his position falsely with the farmer's by 
 looking from his own confinement to the farmer's exercise. 
 
 "The farmer contrasts his position falsely with that of the 
 scholar, by looking from his own muscular exertion to the 
 scholar's muscular repose. But he heeds not the paleness of the 
 student's cheek, or the glisten of his eye, which shows that his 
 retreat has been no fair elysian bower. 
 
 "He heeds not the anxieties, the fears, the leaden hours of 
 prolonged exertion which the library door shuts in. 
 
 " The man of private life desires the distinctions of public office; 
 but he thinks of its power separate from its toil; of its splendor, 
 separate from its danger; of the glory of success, separate from 
 the shame of defeat; and of the brilliancy of its outward show, 
 separate from the gnawings of its concealed vexations. 
 
 " He sees not these agitated hours that are hidden from the 
 world; and he feels not these troubles that, though never uttered, 
 cause the sick heart to heave with uneasy palpitations. 
 
 " He does not consider that to widen a man's relations is fre- 
 quently to multiply his enemies; that to place him in a state 
 which many desire to obtain, is to place him in a position which 
 many will endeavor to embarrass, which many will endeavor to 
 render miserable; that is to place him in a position exposed to 
 envy, jealousy, misrepresentation, and strife; and that all the tor- 
 ments will haunt it which it is in the power of ambitious rivalry 
 or disappointed competition to invoke. 
 
 " These things, I am aware, have been said thousands of times 
 before; they will be said thousands of times again; for though 
 life changes in many things as man grows older in history, yet, 
 n many things, life is but the repetition of itself. 
 
 " These things, it may be said, are truisms, an old story; and so 
 they are; but life also is a truism, an old story. 
 
 " The statement of these mistakes is old, but they are in individ- 
 uals the occasion of a practical Ufe that is ever varied and is ever 
 new. By underrating, for instance, our own position, we want 
 that spring of hope which is the inspiration of success, and we 
 work in it with feeble and despondent souls. 
 
 " We never come to understand the resources it contained, and 
 therefore we never draw out from them the riches which they 
 might have yielded.
 
 — 68 — 
 
 " By overrating the position that is not ours, our thoughts are 
 divided and our efforts are unsteady. We do not labor with all 
 our heart and strength in our assigned vocation, and frequently 
 we are induced to leave it, to lose all the power which we ex- 
 pended in it. to begin awkwardly in a new direction, to compete 
 with rivalry in ways for which we are not trained; and thus, 
 doubly wasted, doubly impoverished. Ave fail of all, and in the 
 end grumble with our lot and quarrel with our life." 
 
 Putting on Good Manners with Sunday Clothes. 
 
 Whilst it is the duty of every man in civilized society to pay a 
 proper regard to his personal appearance, it is the height of folly 
 for one to think that gentility can be put on or off with our Sun- 
 day clothes. As well might the ape attempt to assume the digni- 
 fied appearance of the philosopher, or the San Francisco hoodlum 
 to put on good clothes with the view of the clothes covering from 
 sight his uncouth and disgusting manners, as for us to suppose 
 for a moment that we can play the part of blackguard six days 
 in the week and appear like a gentleman on the seventh. — Ed. 
 
 HE'S LOST HIS GRIP. 
 
 The following sketch, from the pen of Prentice Mulford, will be 
 read with deep interest by those who have given up all hope of 
 being able to improve their condition: 
 
 " It used to be said of a man in the mines, when he became 
 discouraged, downcast, and disinclined to labor, plan, or project, 
 and very much inclined to get drunk whenever he had a chance, 
 ' he lost his grip.' 
 
 "There seems a great deal of hidden meaning and force in 
 many of these phases which are evolved, not of dictionaries or the 
 closets of pedants, but from the situations, necessities, emergen- 
 cies, and results of every-day life. 
 
 " Because a hopeful or energetic man or woman, full of enter- 
 prise and plan, takes a firmer hold or grip on life. You may see 
 it in their resolute walk and carriage, by the manner in Avhich
 
 — 69 — 
 
 each footstep is planted, and when they shake hands with you 
 they take your hand as if they meant something by it. 
 
 " It seems to me that getting this ' grip ' on life is yet an un- 
 taught science; that there is a quality of the mind born of resolu- 
 tion and decision, whereby this grip is maintained; that it is of 
 vast importance it should be better understood and comprehended ; 
 that disease and weakness, first mental, next physical, comes of 
 losing this grip, and that is a matter to be considered, both with 
 reference to the ' here ' and the hereafter. 
 
 "I think a good 'grip' on life will help to cure almost any fail- 
 ing and any disease. Doctors will tell you, and many of us know 
 of people, who ought to have died, according to all the rules of 
 medical science, long ago, but who wouldn't die because they said 
 they wouldn't, and they didn't. They never let go their ' grip ' on 
 life. 
 
 "It is wonderful what a strengthening effect a word may have 
 on a person's mind as regards holding his ' grip.' You say to your- 
 self in times of difficulty, doubt, and discouragement, ' I will,' ' I 
 will,' ' I will ' do thus and so, and keep on from time to time 
 repeating these words, and you seem to call into yourself at last 
 a power — a power of which helps remove the trouble. You laugh, 
 of course, at this, and say, ' that's all imagination.' Of course. 
 Laugh away. It will do you good. But try the recipe the next 
 time you want to climb out of the dumps. Say, ' I will climb out 
 of this mire.' Keep on saying it. See if it does not help you to 
 climb. 
 
 " You need so to climb, perhaps, for your heart is heavy, your 
 body weak, your will ditto, your appetite gone, the world a vale of 
 tears, and life a burden. A ' heavy heart ' means literally and 
 physically, a heavy and cast-down heart, for if you could exam- 
 ine that useful organ at such times, you might find it below its 
 proper place; that it was not pumping blood with its accustomed 
 energy, and that the blood about it was more or less congested and 
 of sluggish motion, all of which causes give that peculiar pain 
 and heaviness, known as a 'headache.' Of course, if the heart 
 does not work properly neither will the stomach, and if the stom- 
 ach does not work, what will work inside of us? Our organs are 
 much like a row of bricks — upset one and the rest follow suit.
 
 — 70 — 
 
 " It is very important that things do work properly inside of us, 
 in order that we may properly work things outside. 
 
 " What is grip? Call it will. What is will? I do not know. 
 It is a quality of which each person has more or less. It is a very 
 desirable quality. A person having it in plenty and knowing it, 
 and knowing the necessity for its use, can do a great deal in the 
 world. The will is put in as a power, and there is good reason to 
 believe that it may be increased by cultivation, or by willing to 
 have more will. There is reason to believe that its capacity for 
 increase is illimitable. Whether it so grows inside of us, or 
 whether it is an element we draw to us from the outside, I cannot 
 say and never found anybody who could. But if it can be culti- 
 vated and increased by so easy and simple a process as wishing 
 for more of it, asking for it, praying for it, demanding it and say- 
 ing ' I will,' it is a very important thing for people to know. 
 
 " Please do not be too ready to ' despise the day of small things.' 
 We know really very little of these thinking mysteries we call our 
 minds. If you declared to another your belief that a thought was 
 a thing — an invisible thing, to be sure, but none the less a thing — 
 an element or combination of elements coming out of your brain 
 maybe, you would be met with a howl of derision. The idea that 
 thoughts are things — are anything! Thought, the mind, pictures, 
 plans, opinions, wishes, lies, half-lies, and all the product of our 
 minds are only myths — nothings — of course. We can't see them; 
 hence, they are nothings or next to it. So we reason in this 
 matter. 
 
 " Yet it's the thought that does it all. You plan — you think out 
 your undertaking, first, and then put it in practice afterwards. 
 You plan, first, every physical act, even to each step made in walk- 
 ing. When you say, ' I will,' or ' I won't,' and put your mental foot 
 down with energy and decision on this ' say so ' you do create 
 something about you which seems to make more energy, decision, 
 and resolution — more power to perform the ' I will,' or ' I won't.' 
 
 " Why, the lack of ' grip ' will write itself all over people's forms 
 and faces. You know the man who has ' lost his grip ' by the 
 pursed lips, the drooping lower jaw, the downcast eye, the bent 
 form, the slouching shoulders, the irresolute, halting, shambling 
 gait — no purpose, no aim, no end in view — only to live on and 
 endure life from day to day, and growl and grumble. Surely
 
 thought, or the lack of it, has been here an active agent in accom- 
 pHshing sad results. 
 
 " I shall now become more or less visionary in my opinion and 
 then stop. I believe that thoughts are things — intangible and 
 invisible things, but none the less things — the finest and possibly 
 the most powerful product of what we call ' matter.' 
 
 " For the sake of making an amusing theory I will assume that 
 a person builds up a sort of thought structure all about them — an 
 invisible envelope or garment of their ideas; that this thought 
 envelope affects others coming near them, pleasantly or otherwise, 
 according to its character; that the finer your organization the 
 more sensitive your brain-threads, called nerves, the easier do 
 you feel this thought coming from another, and this may account 
 for your ' first impressions ' of people, which time so often verifies 
 as correct. If you build up the ' I will ' structure, you draw the 
 more will power to you and become the stronger continually. If 
 you will even build up the 'I can't,' and 'it's no use trying,' 
 and ' what's the use of living anyway ? ' garment, you drive off 
 the will element and become the weaker and worse; you drive off 
 eventually the people of will who might help you, but who are 
 repelled by any one who is in a chronic state of ' flop.' " 
 
 A COLLOQUY BETWEEN LOCKE AND BAYLE. 
 
 [lord lyttleton.] 
 Locke. — An enthusiast, who advanced doctrines prejudicial to 
 society, or opposes any that are useful to it, has the strength of 
 opinion, and the heat of a disturbed imagination to plead in alle- 
 viation of his fault. But your cool head and sound judgment can 
 have no such excuse. I know very well there are passages in all 
 your works, and those not few, where you talk like a rigid moral- 
 ist. I have also heard that your character was irreproachable, 
 good. But when, in the most labored parts of your writing, you 
 sap the surest foundations of all moral duties, what avails it that 
 in others, or in the conduct of your life, you appeared to respect 
 them. How many, who have stronger passions than you had, and 
 are desirous to get rid of the curb that restrains them, will lay
 
 — 72 — 
 
 liold of your scepticism to set themselves loose from all obligations 
 of virtue. A\'hat a misfortune is it to have made such a use of 
 such talents; it would have been better for you and for mankind, 
 if you had been one of the dullest of Dutch theologians, or the 
 most credulous monk in a Portuguese convent. The riches of the 
 mind, like those of fortune, may be employed so perversely as to 
 become a nuisance and pest, instead of an ornament and support 
 to society. 
 
 Bayle. — You are ver}^ severe upon me. But do you count it no 
 merit, no service to mankind to deliver them from the frauds and 
 fetters of priestcraft; from the deliriums of fanaticism, and from 
 the terrors and follies of superstition. Consider how much mis- 
 chief these have done in the world; even in the last age, what 
 massacres; what civil wars; what convulsions of government; 
 what confusion in societ}'^ did they produce. Nay, in that we both 
 lived in, though much more enlightened than the former. Did I 
 not see them occasion a violent persecution in my own country; 
 and can you blame me for striking at the root of these evils ? 
 
 Locke. — The root of these evils, you well know, was false reli- 
 gion, but you struck at the true. Heaven and hell are not more 
 different than the system of faith I defended, and that which pro- 
 duced the horrors of which you speak. Why would you so falla- 
 ciously confound them together in some of your writings that it 
 requires much more judgment, and a more diligent attention than 
 ordinary readers have, to separate them again, and to make the 
 proper distinctions? This, indeed, is the great art of the most 
 celebrated free-thinkers. They recommend themselves to warm 
 and ingenuous minds, by lively strokes of wit, and by arguments 
 really strong, against superstition, enthusiasm, and priestcraft. 
 But, at the same time, they insidiously throw the colors of these 
 upon the fair face of true religion, and dress her out in their garb, 
 with a malignant intention to render her odious or despicable, to 
 those who have not penetration enough to discover the impious 
 fraud. Some of them may have thus deceived themselves, as 
 well as others. Yet it is certain no book that ever was written 
 by the most acute of these gentlemen is so repugnant to priest- 
 craft, to spiritual tyranny, to all absurd superstitions, to all that 
 can tend to disturb or injure society, as that gospel they so much 
 affect to despise.
 
 — 73 — 
 
 Bayle. — Mankind are so made that, when they have been over- 
 heated, they cannot be brought to a proper temper again till they 
 have been over-cooled. My scepticism might be necessary to 
 abate the fear and frenzy of false religion. 
 
 Locke. — A wise prescription, indeed, to bring on a paralytical 
 state of the mind (for such a skepticism as yours is a palsy, ' 
 which deprives the mind of all vigor and deadens its natural and 
 vital powers) in order to take off a fever, which temperance and 
 the milk of the evangelical doctrines would probably cure. 
 
 Bayle. — I acknowledge that those medicines have a great 
 power. But few doctors apply them untainted with the mixture 
 of some harsher drugs, or some unsafe and ridiculous nostrums of 
 their own. 
 
 Locke. — What you now say is too true. God has given us a 
 most excellent physic for the soul in all its diseases; but bad and 
 interested physicians, or ignorant and conceited quacks, adminis- 
 ter it so ill to the rest of mankind that much of the benefit of it 
 is unhappily lost. 
 
 ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 [lord bacon.] 
 
 I was yesterday walking alone, in one of my friend's woods, and 
 lost myself in it very agreeably, as I was running over in mind 
 the several arguments that established this great point, which is 
 the basis of morality, and the source of all the pleasing hopes and 
 secret joys that can arise in the heart of a reasonable creature. 
 
 I consider these several proofs drawn: First, from the nature 
 of the soul itself, and particularly its innate vitality; which though 
 not absolutely necessary to the eternity of its dui*ation, has, I think, 
 been evinced to almost a demonstration. 
 
 Secondly, from its passions and sentiments; as, particularly, 
 from its love of existence; its horror of annihilation; and its hopes 
 of immortality; with that secret satisfaction which it finds in the 
 practice of virtue; and that uneasiness which follows upon the 
 commission of vice. 
 
 Thirdly, from the nature of the Supreme Being, whose justice, 
 goodness, wisdom, and veracity are all concerned in this point.
 
 — 74 — 
 
 But among these and other excellent arguments for the immor- 
 tality of the soul, there is one drawn from the perpetual progress 
 of the soul to its perfection, without a possibility of ever arriving 
 at it; which is a hint that I do not remember to have seen opened 
 and improved by others, who have written on this subject, though 
 it seems to me to carry a very great weight with it. How can it 
 enter into the thoughts of man, that the soul, which is capable of 
 immense perfections, and of receiving new improvements to all 
 eternity, shall fall away into nothing almost as soon as it is created. 
 Are such abilities made for no purpose ? A brute arrives at a point 
 of perfection that he can never pass; in a few years he has all the 
 endowments he is capable of, and were he to live ten thousand 
 years more, would be the same thing he is at present. Were a 
 human soul thus at a stand in her accomplishments; were her 
 faculties to be full blown, and incapable of farther enlargement; I 
 could imagine she might fall away insensibly, and drop at once 
 into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being 
 that is in a perpetual progress of improvement, and traveling on 
 from perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works 
 of her Creator, and made a few discoveries of His infinite good- 
 ness, wisdom, and power, must perish at her first setting out, and 
 in the very beginning of her inquiries. Man, considered only in 
 his present state, seems sent into the world merely to propagate 
 his kind. He provides himself with a successor, and immediately 
 quits his post to make room for him. He does not seem born to 
 enjoy life, but to deliver it down to others. 
 
 This is not surprising to consider in animals, which are formed 
 for our use, and which can finish their business in a short life. 
 
 The silkworm after having spun her task lays her eggs and 
 dies. But a man cannot take in his full measure of knowledge, 
 has not time to subdue his passion, establish his soul in virtue, 
 and come up to the perfection of his nature, before he is hurried 
 off the stage. 
 
 Would an infinitely wise Being make such glorious creatures 
 for so mean a purpose ? Can he delight in the production of such 
 abortive intelligence, such short-lived, reasonable beings ? Would 
 he give us talents that are not to be exerted ? Capacities that are 
 never to be gratified ? 
 
 How can Ave find that wisdom which shines through all His
 
 works in the formation of man without looking on this world as 
 only a nursery for the next; and without believing that the sev- 
 eral generations of rational creatures, which rise up and disappear 
 in such quick succession, are only to receive their first rudiments 
 of existence here, and afterwards to be transplanted into a more 
 friendly climate, where they may spread and flourish to all eter- 
 nity? 
 
 There is not, in my opinion, a more pleasing and triumphant 
 consideration in religion, than this of the perpetual progress, 
 which the soul makes towards the perfection of its nature, with- 
 out ever arriving at a period in it. To look upon the soul as going 
 on from strength to strength; to consider she is to shine forever 
 with new accessions of glory, and brighten to all eternity; that 
 she will be still adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowl- 
 edge; carries in it something wonderfully agreeable to that ambi- 
 tion which is natural to the mind of man. Xay, it must be a 
 prospect pleasing to God himself, to see his creation for ever beau- 
 tifying in His eyes; and drawing nearer to Him, by greater degrees 
 of resemblance. 
 
 Methinks this single consideration, of the progress of a finite 
 spirit to perfection, will be sufficient to extinguish all envy in 
 inferior natures, and all contempt in superior. That cherub, 
 which now appears as a god to a human soul, knows very well 
 that the period will come about in eternity, when the human soul 
 shall be as perfect as he himself now is ; nay, when she shall look 
 down upon that degree of perfection as much as she now falls 
 short of it. 
 
 It is true, the higher nature still advances, and by that means 
 preserves his distance and superiority in the scale of being; but 
 he knows that, how high soever the station is of which he stands 
 possessed at present, the inferior nature will, at length, mount up 
 to it, and shine forth in the same degree of glory. With what 
 astonishment and veneration may we look into our own soiils, 
 where there are such hidden stores of virtue and knowledge, such 
 unexhausted sources of perfection! We know not yet what we 
 shall be: nor will it ever enter into the heart of man to conceive 
 the glory that will be always in reserve for him. The soul, con- 
 sidered vnih its Creator, is like one of those mathematical lines, 
 that may draw nearer to another for all eternity, without a possi-
 
 — 76 — 
 
 bility of touching it; and can there be a thought so transporting, 
 as to consider ourselves in these perpetual approaches to Him, 
 who is the standard, not only of perfection, but happiness. 
 
 A FATHER'S PATHETIC APPEAL. 
 
 The following letter taken from the Covington " Common- 
 wealth," was written by a father to a son of dissipated habits: 
 
 My Dear Sox: What would you think of yourself if you should 
 come to our bedside every night, and, waking us up, tell us you 
 would not allow us to sleep any more ? 
 
 This is what you are doing; and that is why I am up. 
 
 Your mother is nearly w^orn out with turning from side to side, 
 and with sighing because you won't let her sleep. 
 
 That mother who nursed you in your infancy, toiled for you in 
 childhood, and watched with pride and joy upon you as you were 
 growing up to manhood, as she counted upon the comfort and 
 support you would give her in her declining years. We read of 
 the barbarous manner in which one of the Oriental nations pun- 
 ishes some of its criminals. It is by cutting the flesh slowly from 
 the body in small pieces — slowly cutting ofiF the limbs, beginning 
 with the fingers and toes — until the wretched victim dies. 
 
 That is just what you are doing. You are killing your mother 
 by inches. 
 
 You have planted many of the white hairs that have appeared 
 in her head before their time. Your cruel hand is drawing the 
 lines of sorrow on her dear face, making her look prematurely 
 old. You might as well stick your knife in her, every time you 
 come near her, for your conduct is stabbing her to the heart. 
 You might as well bring her coffin and force her into it, for you 
 are pressing her towards it with ver}'- rapid steps. 
 
 Would you tread on her body if prostrate on the floor? And 
 yet with ungrateful steps you are treading on her heart and crush- 
 ing out life and joy. No, I need not say joy, for that is a thing 
 we have long ago ceased to see, because you have taken it away 
 from us. Of course we have to meet many of our friends with 
 smiles, but they little know the bitterness within.
 
 You have taken the roses out of your sister's pathway and scat- 
 tered thorns instead, and from the pain they inflict scalding tears 
 are seen coursing down, her cheeks. Thus you are blotting out 
 her life as well as ours. And what can you promise yourself for 
 the future ? 
 
 Look at the miserable, bloated, ragged wretches whom you meet 
 every day, and see in them an exact picture of w'hat you are com- 
 ing to and will be in a few years. Then in the end a drunkard's 
 grave and a drunkard's doom! For the Bible says: " No drunk- 
 ard shall inherit the kingdom." Where, then, will you be? If 
 not in the Kingdom of God you must be somewhere else. Will 
 not these considerations induce you to quit at once and for all 
 time? And may God help you, for He can and will if you ear- 
 nestly ask it. 
 
 Your affectionate but sorrow-stricken 
 
 FATHER. 
 
 THE OPIUM HABIT. 
 
 fjIATHEWS.] 
 
 0, thou invisible spirit of opium, if thou hast no other name 
 to be known by, let us call thee de^dl. (Shakespeare para- 
 phrased.) — Ed. 
 
 It was in 1804, at the age of 19, that De Quincey first began tak- 
 ing opium to ease rheumatic pains in the face and head. This 
 dangerous remedy ha\ang been recommended to him by a fellow 
 student at Oxford, he entered a druggist's shop, and, like Tha- 
 laba in the witches' lair, wound about himself the first threads 
 of a coil, which after the most gigantic efforts, he was never able 
 wholly to shake off". 
 
 Using opium at first to quiet pain, he quickly found that it had 
 mightier and more magical eft'ects, and went on increasing the 
 doses till in 1816 he was taking three hundred and twenty grains 
 or eight thousand drops of laudanum a day. What a picture he 
 has given us of the discovery he made! What a revelation the 
 dark but subtle drug made to his spiritual eyes! What an agent 
 of immortal and exalted pleasures! What an apocalypse of the 
 world within him!
 
 — 78 — 
 
 Here was a panacea for sorrow and suffering for tlie brain- 
 ache and heart-ache — immunity from pain, and care, and all 
 human woes. He swallowed a bit of the drug, and lo! the inner 
 spirit's eyes were opened — a fairy ministrant had burst into wings, 
 weaving a wondrous wand — a fresh tree of knowledge had yielded 
 its fruit, and it seemed as good as it was beautiful. Happiness 
 might now be bought for a penny and carried in the waistcoat 
 pocket; portable ecstacies might now be had, corked up in a pint 
 bottle, and peace of mind sent down in gallons by mail. 
 
 Here we may observe that De Quincey contradicts the state- 
 ments which are usually made regarding opium. He denies that 
 it intoxicates, and shows that there is such an insidiousness 
 about it that it scarcely seems to be a qualification of the senses. 
 The pleasure of wine is one that rises to a certain pitch, and then 
 degenerates into a stupidity, while that of opium remains station- 
 ary for eight or ten hours. 
 
 Again, the influence of wine tends to disorder the mind, while 
 opium tends to exalt the ideas, and yet to contribute to harmony 
 and order in their arrangement. "The opium-eater feels that the 
 diviner part of his nature is uppermost; that is, the moral affec- 
 tions are in a state of cloudless serenity, and over all is the great 
 light of the majestic intellect." Alas ! that this blissful state 
 could not continue. But the very drug which had revealed to 
 him such an abyss of divine enjoyment — which had given to him 
 the keys of paradise, causing to pass before his spirit's eyes a never- 
 ending succession of splendid imagery, the gorgeous coloring of sky 
 and cloud, the pomp of woods and forests, the majesty of bound- 
 less oceans, and the grandeur of imperial cities, while to the ear, 
 cleansed from their mortal infirmities, were borne the sublime 
 anthem of the winds and waves, and a sevenfold chorus of halle- 
 lujahs and harping symphonies — this very power became eventu- 
 ally its own avenging nenia, and inflicted torments compared with 
 which those of Prometheus were as the bites of a gnat. 
 
 Of all the torments which opium inflicts upon its votary, per- 
 haps there is no one more destructive of his peace than the sense 
 of incapacity and feebleness — of inability to perform duties which 
 conscience tells him he nuist not neglect. The opium-eater, De 
 Quincey tells us, loses none of his moral sensibilities or aspirations: 
 he wishes and longs as earnestly as ever to realize what he believes
 
 — 79 — 
 
 possible and feels to be exacted by duty; but the springs of his 
 will are all broken, and his intellectual apprehension of what is 
 possible infinitely outruns his power, not of execution only, but 
 even of power to attempt. 
 
 He lies under the weight of incubus and nightmare; he lies in 
 sight of all that he would fain perform; just a man forcibly con- 
 fined to his bed by the mortal languor of a relaxing disease, who 
 is compelled to witness injury or outrage offered to some object of 
 his tenderest love. He curses the spells which chain him down 
 from motion ; he would lay down his life if he might but get up and 
 walk; but he is as powerless as an infant, and cannot even attempt 
 to rise. Of the cup of horrors which opium finally presents to its 
 devotees De Quincey drank to the dregs, especially in his dreams 
 at night, when the fearful and shadowy phantoms that flitted by 
 his bedside made his sleep insufferable by the terror and anguish 
 they occasioned. 
 
 Of these dreams, as portrayed in the " Confessions," and some 
 of his other writings, we doubt if it would be possible to find a 
 parallel in any literature, ancient or modern. Sometimes they are 
 blended with appalling associations, encompassed with the power 
 of darkness, or shrouded with the mysteries of death and the gloom 
 of the grave. Now they are pervaded with unimaginable horrors 
 of oriental imagery and mythological tortures; the dreamer is 
 oppressed with tropical heat and vertical sunlight, and brings 
 together all the physical prodigies of China and Hindostan. 
 
 He runs into pagodas, and is fixed for centuries at the summit, 
 or in secret rooms; he flies from the wrath of Brahma through all 
 the forests of Asia; Kishnu hates him; Seeba lays wait for him; 
 he comes suddenly on Isis and Osiris; he has done a deed, they 
 say, at which the fleis and the crocodile tremble; he is buried for 
 a thousand years in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, 
 ill narrow chambers at the heart of the eternal pyramids. He is 
 kissed with cancerous kisses by crocodiles, and laid confounded 
 with all unutterable, slimy things, amongst reeds and niletic mud. 
 
 Over every form, and threat, and punishment, and dim, sight- 
 less incarceration, brooded a sense of eternity and infinity that 
 drove me into an oppression of madness. Into these dreams only, 
 it was, with one or two slight exceptions, that any circumstances 
 of physical horror entered. All before had been moral and spirit-
 
 — 80 — 
 
 nal terrors. But here the main agents were ugly birds, or snakes, 
 or crocodiles, especially the last. The cursed crocodile became to 
 me the object of more horrors than almost all the rest. I was 
 compelled to live with him; and (as was always the case, almost 
 in my dreams), for centuries. 
 
 I escaped sometimes, and found myself in Chinese houses, with 
 cane tables, etc. All the feet of the tables, sofas, etc., soon became 
 instinct with life; the abominable head of the crocodile, and his 
 leering eyes, looked out at me, multiplied into a thousand repeti- 
 tions; and I stood loathing and fascinated. And so often did this 
 hideous reptile haunt my dreams, that many times the very same 
 dream was broken up in the very same way. I heard gentle voices 
 speaking to me (I hear everything Avhen I am sleeping), and in- 
 stantly I awoke; it was broad noon, and my children were stand- 
 ing, hand in hand, at my bedside; come to show me their colored 
 shoes, or new frocks, or to let me see them dressed for going out. 
 I protest that so awful was the transition from the damned croco- 
 dile, and the other unutterable monsters and abortions of my 
 dreams, to the sight of innocent human nature and infancy, 
 that in the mighty and sudden revulsion of mind, I wept, and 
 could not forbear it, as I kissed their faces. 
 
 Anon, there would come suddenly a dream of a far different 
 character — a tumultuous dream — commencing with music, and a 
 multitudinous movement of infinite cavalcades filing off, and the 
 tread of innumerable armies. The morning was come of a mighty 
 day — a day of crisis and of ultimate hope for human nature, then 
 suffering mysterious eclipse, and laboring in some dread extrem- 
 ity. 
 
 Somewhere, but I know not where — somehow, by some beings, 
 I know not by whom — a battle, a strife, an agony was traveling 
 through all its stages, was evolving itself like the catastrophe of 
 some mighty drama, with which my sympathy was the more in- 
 supportable, from deepening confusion as to its local scene, its 
 cause, its nature, and its undecipherable issue. 
 
 I (as is usual in dreams, where of necessity we make our- 
 selves central to every movement), had the power, and yet had 
 not the power, to decide it. I had the power, if I could raise my- 
 self to will it; and yet again had not the power, for the weight of
 
 — 81 — 
 
 twenty Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable 
 guilt. 
 
 "Deeper than ever plummet," I lay inactive. Then like a 
 chorus the passion deepened. Some greater interest was at stake, 
 some mightier cause, than ever yet the sword had pleaded, or 
 trumpet had proclaimed. Then came sudden alarms, hurryings 
 to and fro, trepidations of innumerable fugitives — I know not 
 whether from the good cause or the bad — darkness and light; 
 tempest and human faces; and, at last, with the sense that all 
 was lost, female forms, and the features that were worth all the 
 world to me, and but a moment allowed, and clasped hands, with 
 heart-breaking partings, and then everlasting farewells; and with 
 a sigh such as the caves of hell sighed, when the incestuous 
 mother uttered the abhored name of death, the sound was rever- 
 berated everlasing farewells! and again, and yet again reverber- 
 ated everlasting farewells! 
 
 HORATIO SEYMOUR'S ADDRESS. 
 
 The following admirable address, delivered before the inmates 
 in Auburn Prison, N. Y., will be read with great interest, as it 
 contains such grand ideas as can only emanate from a great 
 mind Uke Horatio Seymour's. — Ed. 
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 I have declined all invitations this year to make public ad- 
 dresses, but when your Warden asked me to speak to you to-day 
 I made up my mind to do so, although at the hazard of my 
 health. My interest in the inmates of this and other prisons 
 grows out of official duties, as I have had to act on many cases, of 
 applications for pardons. I have learned, from a long experience 
 with men in all conditions of life, that none are without faults 
 and none without virtues. I have studied characters with care. 
 I have had to deal with Presidents and with prisoners. I have 
 associated with those held in high honor by the American people. 
 On the other hand, the laws of our State have placed the lives of 
 criminal men in my hands, and it has been my duty to decide if 
 6
 
 — 82 — 
 
 they should hve or die. The period in which I took the most 
 active part in pubhc affairs was one of great excitement, when 
 passions and prejudices were aroused; and, in common with all 
 others engaged in the controversies of the day, I have felt the 
 bitterness of partisan strife; nevertheless, experience has taught 
 me to think kindly of my fellow-men. The longer I live the 
 better I think of their hearts and the less of their heads. Every- 
 where, from the President's mansion to the prisoner's cell, I have 
 learned the wisdom of that prayer which begs that we may be 
 delivered from temptation. 
 
 Another great truth is taught by experience: hope is the great 
 reformer. We must instill this in men's minds if we wish to cul- 
 tivate their virtues or enable them to overcome their vices. It 
 has been said that despair is the unpardonable sin; for it para- 
 lyzes every sentiment that leads to virtue or happiness. To help 
 us do our duty, we must cherish hope, which gives us courage 
 and charity, which gives us hopes for others. For this reason, 
 when Governor of this State, I did all I could to gain the passage 
 of laws which enable each one of you, by good conduct, to shorten 
 the term of your imprisonment; and if I had my Avay, you would 
 have a share in the profits of your labor. But I stand before you 
 to-day to speak of another ground of hope, of a higher and more 
 lasting character than mere gain or shortened terms of punish- 
 ment; and what I have to say does not point to you alone, but to 
 men of all conditions. I do not mean to take the place of those 
 who teach you your religious duties. They are far more able 
 than I am to make these clear to your minds; yet it is sometimes 
 the case that we see things in lights in which they are not usually 
 placed before us, and some thoughts which have occurred to me, 
 in a»review of my life, may be of interest and value to you. 
 When we grow old, we are struck with the fleetness of time; our 
 lives seem to be compassed into one brief period; we suddenly 
 find that pursuits we have followed are closed, and we are con- 
 fronted with the question, not what we have gained, nor what 
 positions we have held, but what we are in ourselves. AVe know 
 it is our duty to do what is right, and to avoid doing wrong, but 
 when we look back, if we add up all of our good deeds on the 
 one hand, and our bad acts on the other, we find a startling 
 balance against us. When men reach my time of life, their
 
 — 83 — 
 
 minds turn toward the past, and they travel backward the paths 
 they have followed. They see things from the opposite side from 
 which they were "vdewed in youth onward, and are struck by 
 truths which never break upon their minds until they look back 
 upon them. 
 
 Sitting before my fire on a winter evening, and musing, as old 
 men are apt to do, about their acts, their errors, their successes, 
 or their failures, it occurred to me what I would do if I had the 
 power, and was compelled to wipe out twenty acts of my life. At 
 first it seemed as if this was an easy thing to do. I had done 
 more than twenty wrong things for which I had always felt 
 regret, and was about to seize my imaginary sponge and rub 
 them out at once, but I thought it best to move with care, to do 
 as I had done to others, lay my character out upon the dissecting 
 table and trace all influences which had made or marred it. I 
 found, to my surprise, if there were any golden threads running 
 through it, they were wrought out by the regrets felt at wrongs; 
 that these regrets had run through the course of my life, guiding 
 my footsteps through all its intricacies and problems; and if I 
 should obliterate all of these acts, to which these golden threads 
 were attached, whose lengthening lines w'ere woven into my very 
 nature, I should destroy what little there was of virtue in my 
 moral make-up. Then I learned that the wrong act, followed by 
 the just regret, and by thoughtful caution to avoid like errors, 
 made me a better man than I should have been if I had never 
 fallen. In this, I found hope for myself and hope for others, and 
 I tell you who sit before me, as I say to all in every condition, 
 that if you ^vill you can make yourselves better men than if you 
 had never fallen into errors or crimes. A man's destiny does not 
 turn upon the fact of his doing or not doing wrong — for all men 
 will do it — but of how he bears himself, w'hat he does and what 
 he thinks, after the wrong act. It was well said by Confucius, 
 that a man's character is decided, not b}' the number of times he 
 falls, but by the number of tinies he lifts himself up. I do not 
 know why evil is permitted in this world, but I do know that 
 each one of us has the magical power to transmute it into good. 
 Every one before me can, if he will, make his past errors sources 
 of moral elevation. Is this not a grand thought, which should 
 not only give us hope, but which should inspire us with firm
 
 — 84 — 
 
 purposes to exercise this power which makes us akin to the 
 Almighty; for He has given it to us and has pointed out in His 
 words how we sliall use it. The prohlem meets us at every step. 
 There is nothing v/e do which will not make us better or worse. 
 I do not speak merely of great events, but of the thoughts upon 
 our beds, the toil in the workshop, and the little duties which 
 attend every hour. God, in His goodness, does not judge us so 
 much b}'^ what we do; but when we have done things, right or 
 wrong, our destiny mainly turns upon what we think and do after 
 their occurrence. It is then we decide if they shall lift us up to 
 a higher level, or bear us down to a lower grade of morals. Our 
 acts mainh'- spring from impulses or accidents — the sudden temp- 
 tation, imperfect knowledge, or erring judgment. It is the after- 
 thought that gives them their hue. The world may not see this; 
 it may frown upon the deed and upon the man. who, nevertheless, 
 by his regrets, makes it one which shall minister to purity and 
 ^drtue in all his after-life. You, who sit before me, in some ways 
 have advantages over other men whose minds are agitated by 
 the hopes and fears of active pursuits, who find no time for 
 thoughts which tend to virtue and to happiness. AVith each of 
 you, in a little time, the great question will be — not if you are to 
 be set free, not what the world thinks of you, not what 3'ou have — 
 but what you are ; for death often knocks at the door of your cells, 
 and some of your number are carried from their narrow walls to 
 the more narrow walls of the grave. 
 
 Let it not be thought that I prove wrong may be done so that 
 good may follow. With Saint Paul, I protest against such infer- 
 ence from the truth that men are saved by repentance of their 
 sins. 
 
 But let us look farther into this subject, for it deeply concerns 
 us. Though we are unable to recall the errors of the past, we 
 may so deal with them that they may promote our virtue, our 
 wisdom, and happiness. Upon this point I am not theorizing. 
 Whoever thinks, will learn that human experience proves this. 
 Let us take the case of our errors. We should find, if we could 
 rub them all out, that we should destroy the wisdom they have 
 given us, if we have taken care to make our errors teach us wis- 
 dom. Who could spare their sorrows? How much that is kind 
 and sympathetic in our natures, which leads us to minister to the
 
 — 85 — 
 
 griefs of others, and thus to gain consolations for ourselves, grow 
 out of what are felt as keen calamities when they befall us. 
 
 Following out the line of my thoughts, when I assumed that I 
 had the power and was compelled to drown in Lethean waters 
 certain acts, I found I could not spare errors which call forth 
 regrets, mistakes which teach us wisdom, or the sorrows which 
 soften character and make us sensible of the sympathies which 
 give beauty to the intercourse of life. As I had to obliterate 
 twenty events, I found I could best spare the successes or triumphs 
 which had only served to impart courage in the battle of life and 
 had but little influence in forming character. It is true, that 
 wherever and whatever we are, we can so deal with the past, that 
 we can make it give up to us ^^rtue and wisdom. We can, by 
 our regrets, do more than the alchemist aims at when he seeks to 
 transmute base metals into gold, for we can make wrong the seed 
 of right and righteousness; we can transmute error into wisdom; 
 we can make sorrow bloom into a thousand forms like fragrant 
 flowers. These great truths should not only give us contentment 
 with our positions, but hope for the future. The great question, 
 what are we, presses itself upon us as we grow old, or flashes upon 
 us when our lives are cut short by accident or disease. Within 
 these walls, but few days pass without that question being forced 
 upon the minds of some who have reached the end of life's jour- 
 ney. Surely, it should give hope and consolation to all to feel 
 that they can, in the solitude of the cell, or in the gloom of the 
 prison, by thought, by self-examination, make the past, with its 
 crimes, its errors, and its sorrows, the very means by which they 
 can lift themselves into higher and happier conditions. This 
 work of transmuting evil into good, is a duty to be done by all 
 conditions of men, and it can be wrought out as well in the pris- 
 oner's cell, as in the highest and most honorable position, for 
 when you do this, you work by the side of the Almighty. All 
 human experience accords with the higher teachings of religion, 
 that holds out hope to men who feel regret for every e\dl act. I 
 wish to call your minds to that amazing truth, that there is a 
 Being who rules the world with such benevolence, that He 
 enables weak and erring mortals, if the}^ will, to turn their very 
 sorrows and errors into sources of happiness. 
 
 We have many theories in these days in which men try to tell
 
 — 86 — 
 
 us how the world, acting upon certain fixed laws, has made itself; 
 that it goes on by a progress that regards nothing but certain 
 rules of advancement, regardless of all other considerations save 
 their own irresistible self-compelling principles. But here we 
 have a truth not only given us in Holy Writ, but proved by our 
 experience, that mental regret will convert a material wrong into 
 a blessing, or, if the offender wills it, will make the same a hun- 
 dredfold more hurtful if he rejoices in his wrong-doing, or 
 hardens his heart against regret. Materialism, evolution, pan- 
 theism, or any of the theories which deny the government of an 
 intelligent God, are all phases of fatalism, and are confuted by 
 this truth, that we can, by conforming to His laws, which demand 
 repentance, convert evil into good, or by violating them make evil 
 tenfold more deadly and destructive. We can, by our own minds 
 and sentiments, change the influence of material events, and vary 
 the action of laws which govern the world. If man, with all his 
 weakness, can do this, it can only be by the aid of a higher power 
 which shapes, directs, and regulates. 
 
 I know that what I have said is but an imperfect statement of 
 great truths, compared with the teachings of the pulpit which 
 you hear every Sunday. As my purpose is merely to speak to you 
 of what I have learned in the walks of life, I can give you from 
 this narrow field but partial views of great truths. They may be 
 of no value to you, yet I trust you will accept them at least as 
 proof of my sympathies with your condition and sorrows, for if 
 any ambition lingers in the breast of him who speaks to you now, 
 it is that he may be the friend and adviser of the erring and 
 wrong-doer. He has been taught by self-examination and the 
 study of others, that we all belong to that class, and that we owe 
 to one another any aid we can give to our fellows when they fall 
 by the wayside.
 
 87 — 
 
 BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY. 
 
 In speaking of a person's faults, 
 
 Pray don't forget your own; 
 Remember those with homes of glass, 
 
 Should seldom throw a stone; 
 If we have nothing else to do 
 
 But talk of those who sin, 
 'Tis better we commence at home, 
 
 And from that point begin. 
 
 We have no right to judge a man, 
 
 Until he's fairly tried; 
 Should we not like his company. 
 
 We know the world is wide. 
 Some may have faults— and who has not?- 
 
 The old as well as young; 
 Perhaps we may, for aught we know, 
 
 Have fifty to their one. 
 
 I'll tell you of a better plan, 
 
 And find it works full w^ell; 
 To try my own defects to cure 
 
 Before of others' tell; 
 And though I sometimes hope to be 
 
 No worse than some I know, 
 My own shortcomings bid me let 
 
 The faults of others go. 
 
 Then let us all, when we commence 
 
 To slander friend or foe, 
 Think of the harm one word would do 
 
 To those we little know. 
 Remember curses, sometimes, hke 
 
 Our chickens, " roost at home;" 
 Don't speak of others' faults until 
 
 We have none of our own.
 
 — 88 — 
 
 THE PRISON BELL.* 
 
 It was night, and in my lonely ceil, 
 
 The pale moon's playful shadows fell 
 
 So bright, I dreamt that all on earth 
 
 Was changed once more to smiles and mirth. 
 
 The morning dawned, the rising sun 
 His glorious course through heaven begun, 
 When honest man, with heartfelt strides, 
 Goes whistling by the prison sides. 
 
 While I, in bonds, with heart downcast, 
 Deep grieving present and the past. 
 Lay half unconscious in my cell, 
 'Till summoned by the prison bell. 
 
 Day passed; and when all days are passed. 
 
 And I on death's waves am cast, 
 
 May I a pitying Savior see, 
 
 To let this captive prisoner free ! 
 
 To see the joys that heart can't tell. 
 
 To hear no more the prison bell. 
 
 *Deae Brothers: This was written by one who was a thief for forty-six 
 years, and was a prisoner thirty-five years in eleven different prisons, but who 
 has found out, by the grace of God, through the blood of Christ, that honest 
 labor has its reward.
 
 — 89 — 
 
 IN PRISON. 
 
 God pity the wretched prisoner, 
 
 In his lonely cell to-day, 
 Whatever the sin that tripped him, 
 
 God pity him still I pray. 
 Only a glimpse of sunshine, 
 
 Through the walls of stone, 
 Only a patch of azure 
 
 To starve his hopes upon: 
 Only surging memories 
 
 Of "a past that is better gone ; 
 Only scorn from woman, 
 
 Only hate from men; 
 Only remorse to whisper 
 
 Of a life that might have been ! 
 Once we were little children. 
 
 And then our unstained feet 
 Were led by a gentle mother. 
 
 Towards the golden street. 
 Therefore if in life's forest 
 
 We since have lost our way. 
 For the sake of her who loved us, 
 
 God pity us still I pray. 
 Mother, gone to heaven! 
 
 With earnest prayer I ask 
 That your eye may not look earthward 
 
 On the failure of your task! 
 For even in those mansions. 
 
 The choking tears would rise, 
 Though the fairest hand in heaven 
 
 Should wipe them from your eyes. 
 And you who judge us harshly — 
 
 Are you sure the stumbling stone. 
 That tripped the feet of others, 
 
 INIight not have bruised your own?
 
 — 90 — 
 
 Are you sure the sad-faced angel 
 
 Who writes our errors down, 
 Will ascribe to you more honor. 
 
 Than him on whom you frown ? 
 Or if a steadier purpose 
 
 Unto your life be given, 
 A stronger will to conquer, 
 
 A smoother path to heaven — 
 If when temptations meet you, 
 
 You crush them with a smile. 
 If you can chain pale Passion, 
 
 And keep your lips from guile- 
 Then bless the hand that crowned 3^ou! 
 
 Remembering as you go, 
 It was not your own endeavor 
 
 That shaped your nature so; 
 And sneer not at the weakness 
 
 Which made a brother fail. 
 For the hand that lifts the fallen, 
 God loves the best of all.