STYLE.

Style is only the frame to hold our thoughts. It is like the sash of a window, if heavy it will obscure the light. The object is to have as little sash as will hold the light, that we may not think of the former, but have the latter.-Emmons.

Obscurity in writing is commonly a proof of darkness in the mind; the greatest learning is to be seen in the greatest plainness.- Wilkins.

A sentence well couched takes both the sense and the understanding.-Feltham.

If a man really has an idea he can communicate it; and if he has a clear one, he will communicate it clearly.-Emmons.

With many readers, brilliancy of style passes for affluence of thought; they mistake buttercups in the grass for immeasurable gold mines under ground.—Longfellow.

Generally speaking, an author's style is a faithful copy of his mind. If you would write a lucid style, let there first be light in your own mind; and if you would write a grand style, you ought to have a grand character.-Goethe.

If I am ever obscure in my expressions, do not fancy that therefore I am deep. If I were really deep, all the world would understand, though they might not appreciate. The perfectly popular style is the perfectly scientific one. To me an obscurity is a reason for suspecting a fallacy.Charles Kingsley.

Style is the gossamer on which the seeds of truth float through the world.-Bancroft. The lively phraseology of Montesquieu was the result of long meditation.~ His words, as light as wings, bear on them grave reflections.-Joubert.

Style is a man's. own; it is a part of his nature.—Buffon.

Intense study of the Bible will keep any man from being vulgar in point of style.— Coleridge.

Style is the intimate and inseparable fact of the personality of the writer-it is the verbal body of the man's moral and mental life—it holds his emotions and experiences, is charged with his sensations, and is, in simplest words, his manifestations refined and polished by his artistic faculty. Only men of peculiar or strong personality attain a style which distinguishes them, and imposes itself as a model upon the groping and undecided or formless writers whose work does not make models, but only imitates them.

Any style formed in imitation of some

model must be affected and straight-laced. -E. P. Whipple.

A man's style is nearly as much a part of himself as his face, or figure, or the throbbing of his pulse; in short, as any part of his being which is subjected to the action of his will.-Fénelon.

A pure style in writing results from the rejection of everything superfluous.-Mad. Necker.

He who thinks much says but little in proportion to his thoughts. He selects that language which will convey his ideas in the most explicit and direct manner. He tries to compress as much thought as possible into a few words. On the contrary, the man who talks everlastingly and promiscuously, who seems to have an exhaustless magazine of sound, crowds so many words into his thoughts that he always obscures, and very frequently conceals them.- Washington Irving.

Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.Johnson.

The least degree of ambiguity, which leaves the mind in suspense as to the meaning, ought to be avoided with the greatest care.-Blair.

In composing, think much more of your matter than your manner. Spirit, grace, and dignity of manner are of great importance, both to the speaker and writer; but of infinitely more importance are the weight and worth of matter.-W. Wirt.

The obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity.-Quintilian.

The unaffected of every country nearly resemble each other, and a page of Confucius and Tillotson have scarce any material difference: Paltry affectation, strained allusions, and disgusting finery are easily attained by those who choose to wear them; they are but too frequently the badges of ignorance or of stupidity, whenever it would endeavor to please. Goldsmith.

A copious manner of expression gives strength and weight to our ideas, which frequently make impression upon the mind, as iron does upon solid bodies, rather by repeated strokes than a single blow.-Melmoth.

Those who make antitheses by forcing the sense are like men who make false windows for the sake of symmetry. Their rule is not to speak justly, but to make accurate figures.-Pascal.

STYLE.

Whatever is pure is also simple; it does not keep the eye on itself. The observer forgets the window in the landscape it displays. A fine style gives the view of fancy-of its figures, its trees, its palaces without a spot.— Willmot.

Clear writers, like clear fountains, do not seem so deep as they are; the turbid looks most profound.-Landor.

An era is fast approaching when no writer will be read by the majority, except those that can effect that for bales of manuscript that the hydrostatic screw performs for bales of cotton, by condensing into a period what before occupied a page.Cotta.

A great writer possesses, so to speak, an individual and unchangeable style, which does not permit him easily to preserve the anonymous.- Voltaire.

There is a certain majesty in plainness as the proclamation of a prince never frisks it in tropes or fine conceits, in numerous and well-turned periods, but commands in sober natural expressions.-South.

To have good sense and ability to express it are the most essential and necessary qualities in companions. When thoughts rise in us fit to utter among familiar friends, there needs but very little care in clothing them.-Steele.

Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity and affectation are the two greatest faults of style.-Macaulay.

He who would reproach an author for obscurity should look into his own mind to see whether it is quite clear there. In the dusk the plainest writing is illegible.Goethe.

Words in prose ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault; in the very best styles you read page after page without noticing the medium.-Coleridge.

Long sentences in a short composition are like large rooms in a little house.Shenstone.

In what he leaves unsaid I discover a master of style.-Schiller.

Perspicuity is the frame-work of profound thoughts.- Vauvenargues.

When we meet with a natural style we are surprised and delighted, for we expected to find an author, and have found a man.-Pascal.

When you doubt between words, use the plainest, the commonest, the most idiomatic. Eschew fine words as you would

rouge, and love simple ones as you would native roses on your cheek.—Hare.

Every good writer has much idiom; it is the life and spirit of language.-Landor.

I hate a style that is wholly flat and regular, that slides along like an eel, and never rises to what one can call an inequality.-Shenstone.

The old prose writers wrote as if they were speaking to an audience; among us, prose is invariably written for the eye alone.-Niebuhr.

Nothing is so difficult as the apparent ease of a clear and flowing style. Those graces which, from their presumed facility, encourage all to attempt to imitate them, are usually the most inimitable.- Colton.

Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk, and truth the root.-Colton.

If the way in which men express their thoughts is slipshod and mean, it will be very difficult for their thoughts themselves to escape being the same.-Alford.

To write in a genuine familiar or truly English style is to write as any one would speak in common conversation, who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes.-Hazlitt.

It is equally true of the pen as the pencil, that what is drawn from life and the heart alone bears the impress of immortality.Tuckerman.

Obscurity and affectation are the two great faults of style. Obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas; and the same wish to dazzle, at any cost, which produces affectation in the manner of a writer, is likely to produce sophistry in his reasoning.-Macaulay.

Perhaps that is nearly the perfection of good writing which effects that for knowledge which the lense effects for the sunbeam when it condenses its brightness in order to increase its force.- Colton.

SUBLIMITY.-Sublimity is Hebrew by

birth.-Coleridge.

The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.―Thomas Paine.

The sublimest thoughts are conceived by the intellect when it is excited by pious emotion.-W. Nevins..

SUBMISSION.

One source of sublimity is infinity.Burke.

The sublime is the temple-step of religion, as the stars are of immeasurable space. When what is mighty appears in nature, -a storm, thunder, the starry firmament, death,-then utter the word "God" before the child. A great misfortune, a great blessing, a great crime, a noble action are building sites for a child's church.-Richter.

From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step.-Napoleon.

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"The sublime," says Longinus, "is often nothing but the echo or image of magnanimity ; and where this quality appears in any one, even though a syllable be not uttered, it excites our applause and admiration.-Hume.

Nothing so effectually deadens the taste of the sublime as that which is light and radiant.-Burke.

The sublime, when it is introduced at a seasonable moment, has often carried all before it with the rapidity of lightning, and shown at a glance the mighty power of genius.-Longinus.

The truly sublime is always easy, and always natural.—Burke.

SUBMISSION.-To will what God doth will, that is the only science that gives us any rest.-Malesherbes.

As thou wilt; what thou wilt; when thou wilt.-Thomas à Kempis.

Submission is the footprint of faith in the pathway of sorrow.

To-morrow!—I dare not ask; Iknow not what is best: God hath already said what shall betide.—Longfellow.

Study the singular benefits and advantages of a will resigned and melted into the will of God. Such a spirit hath a continual Sabbath within itself, and its thoughts are established and at rest.-Flavel.

That is best which God sends; it was his will; it is mine.—0. Meredith.

Give what thou canst, without thee we are poor, and with thee rich, take what thou wilt away.- Cowper.

God of the just, Thou gav'st the bitter cup. I bow to thy behest, and drink it up. -H. K. White.

To do or not to do; to have, or not to have, I leave to thee; thy only will be done in me; all my requests are lost in one, "Father, thy will be done!"-C. Wesley.

In the many adversities and trials of life it is often hard to say. "Thy will be done."

But why not say it? God ever does only what is right and wise and best; what is prompted by a father's love, and what to his children will work out their highest good.-Payson.

"O father! not my will, but thine be done"; be this our charm, mellowing earth's griefs and joys, that we may cling forever to thy heart, in perfect rest. Keble.

God is too great to be withstood, too just to do wrong, too good to delight in any one's misery. We ought, therefore, quietly to submit to his dispensations as the very best.-Bp. Wilson.

The strength of a man consists in finding out the way God is going, and going in that way too.-H. W. Beecher.

But peace! I must not quarrel with the will of highest dispensation, which, haply, hath ends above my reach to know. Milton.

Submission to God is the only balm that can heal the wounds he gives us.-Em

mons.

The highest attainment, as well as enjoyment of the spiritual life, is to be able at all times and in all things to say, "Thy will be done."-Tryon Edwards.

Patience, says another, is an excellent remedy for grief, but submission to the hand of him that sends it is a far better. C. Simmons.

SUBTLETY.-(See "CUNNING.") Subtlety may deceive you; integrity never will.-Cromwell.

Subtlety will sometimes give safety, no less than strength; and minuteness has sometimes escaped, where magnitude would have been crushed. The little animal that kills, the boa is formidable chiefly from its insignificance, which is incompressible by the folds of its antagonist.-Colton.

This is the fruit of craft, that he that shoots up high, looks for the shaft, and finds it in his own forehead:-Middleton.

Cunning is the.dwarf of wisdom.— W. R. Alger.

Cunning pays no regard to virtue, and is but the low mimic of wisdom.-Bolingbroke.

SUCCESS.-Success in life is a matter not so much of talent or opportunity as of concentration and perseverance. C. W. Wendte.

Mere success is one of the worst arguments in the world of a good cause, and the most improper to satisfy conscience and

SUCCESS.

yet in the issue it is the most successful of all other arguments, and does in a very odd, but effectual, way, satisfy the consciences of a great many men, by showing them their interest.—Tillotson.

Moderation is commonly firm, and firmness is commonly successful.-Johnson.

The road to success is not to be run upon by seven-leagued boots. Step by step, little by little, bit by bit-that is the way to wealth, that is the way to wisdom, that is the way to glory. Pounds are the sons, not of pounds, but of pence.-Charles Buxton.

He that would make sure of success should keep his passion cool, and his expectation low.-Jeremy Collier.

The man who succeeds above his fellows is the one who, early in life, clearly discerns his object, and towards that object habitually directs his powers. Even genius itself is but fine observation strengthened by fixity of purpose. Every man who observes vigilantly and resolves steadfastly grows unconsciously into genius.-Bulwer.

Nothing can seem foul to those that win. -Shakespeare.

All the proud virtue of this vaunting world fawns on success and power, however acquired.-Thomson.

Success is full of promise till men get it, and then it is as a last year's nest, from which the bird has flown.-H. W. Beecher.

In most things success depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.-Montesquieu.

Everybody finds out, sooner or later, that all success worth having is founded on Christian rules of conduct.-H. M. Field.

Success soon palls. The joyous time is when the breeze first strikes your sails, and the waters rustle under your bows.— Charles Buxton.

Success at first doth many times undo men at last. Venning.

Success has a great tendency to conceal and throw a veil over the evil deeds of men. -Demosthenes.

The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means and the exercise of ordinary qualities. These may for the 'most part be summed in these two-common sense and perseverance.-Feltham.

To know a man, observe how he wins his object, rather than how he loses it; for when we fail, our pride supports; when we succeed, it betrays us.- -Colton.

The surest way not to fail is to determine to succeed.-Sheridan.

To become an able and successful man in any profession, three things are necessary, nature, study, and practice.

Not what men do worthily, but what they do successfully, is what history makes haste to record.-H. W. Beecher.

The great high-road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast welldoing; and they who are the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most successful; success treads on the heels of every right effort.S. Smiles.

He that has never known adversity, is but half acquainted with others, or with himself. Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For, as it surrounds us with friends, who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects.-Colton.

It is success that colors all in life: suc-. cess makes fools admired, makes villains honest all the proud virtue of this vaunting world fawns on success and power, howe'er acquired.-Thomson.

People judge, for the most part, by the success. Let a man show all the good conduct that is possible, if the event does not answer, ill fortune passes for a fault, and is justified by a very few persons.-Evremond.

Success serves men as a pedestal; it makes them look larger, if reflection does not measure them.-Joubert.

Had I miscarried, I had been a villain; for men judge actions always by events; but when we manage by a just foresight, success is prudence, and possession right. -Higgons.

Nothing succeeds so well as success.Talleyrand.

Success produces confidence; confidence relaxes industry, and negligence ruins the reputation which accuracy had raised.Jonson.

Let them call it mischief; when it is past and prospered, it will be virtue.-Ben Jonson.

It is not in mortals to command success, but we will do more, we will deserve it.Addison.

Had I succeeded well, I had been reckoned among the wise; our minds are so disposed to judge from the event.-Euripides.

Few things are impracticable in themselves, and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail of success.-Rochefoucauld.

SUCCESS.

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counsellor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.Addison.

The men who are always fortunate cannot easily have a great reverence for virtue.-Cicero.

The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do without a thought of fame. If it comes at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after.-Longfellow.

Success makes success, as money makes money.-Chamfort.

The thinking part of mankind do not form their judgment from events; and their estimate will ever attach equal glory to those actions which deserve success and those which have been crowned with it.-Washington.

Didst thou never hear that things ill got had ever bad success ?-Shakespeare.

To character and success, two things, contradictory as they may seem, must go together-humble dependence and manly independence; humble dependence on God, and manly reliance on self.- Wordsworth.

The path of success in business is invariably the path of common-sense. Notwithstanding all that is said about "lucky hits," the best kind of success in every man's life is not that which comes by accident. The only "good time coming" we are justified in hoping for is that which we are capable of making for ourselves.-S. Smiles.

One line, a line fraught with instruction, includes the secret of Lord Kenyon's final success he was prudent, he was patient, and he persevered.-G. Townsend.

"I confess," says a thoughtful writer, "that increasing years bring with them an increasing respect for men who do not succeed in life, as those words are commonly used." Ill success sometimes arises from a conscience too sensitive, a taste too fastidious, a self-forgetfulness too romantic, a modesty too retiring.-G. A. Sala.

There is a glare about worldly success, which is very apt to dazzle men's eyes.Hare.

The secret of success lies in embracing every opportunity of seeking high and right ends, and in never forgetting that golden rule of the catechism, "of doing your duty in that station of life to which it shall please God to call you.”— ."- Wellington.

Who shall tax successful villainy, or call the rising traitor to account?-Havard.

Applause waits on success; the fickle multitude, like the light straw that floats along the stream, glide with the current still, and follow fortune.-Franklin.

SUFFERING. - (See "AFFLICTION," "SORROW.")

Suffering comes to us through and from our whole nature. It cannot be winked out of sight or be thrust into a subordinate place in the picture of human life. It is the chief burden of history; the solemn theme of one of the highest departments of literature-the tragic drama. It gives to fictions their deep interest; it wails through much of our poetry. A large part of human vocations are intended to shut up some of its avenues. It has left traces on every human countenance. over which years have passed. It is to not a few the most vivid recollection of life.- Channing.

Suffering well borne is better than suffering removed. No flower can bloom in paradise which is not transplanted from Gethsemane.-H. W. Beecher.

The light of the world would go out, and despair would darken every home if it were not for some who have learned to suffer and be strong.—D. March.

There is no good accomplished but through the medium of somebody's suffering. No great thought was ever born, no great principle wrought out, but by toil and trouble and suffering.-No great truth was ever applied to the cause of morals in the world, but through suffering proportionate to the good that it effected.-God measures the magnitude of blessings by the sufferings we are willing to bear for the sake of obtaining them.-H. W. Beecher.

Not being untutored in suffering, .I learn to pity those in affliction.— Virgil.

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls.-The most massive characters are seamed with scars.-Martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire; and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gate of heaven. -E. H. Chapin.

To love all mankind a cheerful state of being is required; but to see into mankind, into life, and still more into ourselves, suffering is requisite.-Richter.

Know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong.-Longfellow.

Suffering is the surest means of making us truthful to ourselves.-Sismondi.

God washes the eyes by tears until they can behold the invisible land where tears shall come no more.-H. W. Beecher.