call them trials; when to persons neither way distinguished, we are content to impute them to the settled course of things. MISER, THE. Shenstone. How wretched is the man who craves for more, Yet suffers want, when he has gold in store; Pinches his guts, and shames himself with rags, To please his greedy soul with useless bags. MELANCHOLY, I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the ladies, which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these: but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples extracted from many objects: and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me, is a most humourous sadness. Shakespeare. MEMORY. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument, than the bell rings, and the widow weeps. Shakespeare. MURDER. Other sins only speak: murder shrieks out. A little fire is quickly trodden out, Which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench. NATURE. Shakespeare. How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature. NIGHT. Shakespeare. The drowsy night grows on the world, and now The busy craftsmen and o'erladen hind Forget the travail of the day in sleep: LD AGE. The more we sink into the infirmities of age, the nearer we are to immortal youth. All people are young in the other world. That state is an eternal spring, ever fresh and flourishing. Now to pass from midnight into noon on the sudden; to be decrepit one minute, and all spirit and activity the next, must be a desirable change. To call this dying is an abuse of language. Jeremy Collier. Do you set your name down in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg ? an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken? your wind short? your chin double? your wit single; and every part about you blasted with antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Shakespeare. OPINION, Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing, settled in the imagination, but never arriving at the understanding, there to obtain the tincture of reason. Ben Jonson. A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin. Shakespeare. Social opinion is like a sharp knife. There are foolish people who regard it only with terror, and dare not touch or meddle with it. There are more foolish people, who, in rashness and defiance, seize it by the blade, and get cut and mangled for their pains. And there are wise people who grasp it discreetly and boldly by the handle, and use it to carve out their own pur poses. Jameson. Public opinion is the powerful lever which in these days moves a people for good or for evil; and to public opinion we must therefore appeal, if we would achieve any lasting and beneficial results. Prince Albert. Looking where others look, and conversing with the same things, we catch the charm which lured them. Napoleon said, "You must not 99 fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.' Talk much with any man of vigorous mind, and we acquire very fast the habit of looking at things in the same light, and on each occurrence we anticipate his thought. Emerson. OFFENCE. All's not offence that indiscretion finds, OBEDIENCE. Shakespeare. A harsh father is like the law-though severe, must be obeyed. Shelley. Henceforth I learn, that to obey is best, Accomplishing great things, by things deem'd weak Subverting worldly strong, and worldly wise And, to the faithful, death the gate of life; Milton's "Paradise Lost." |