NOBILITY. foul horror, and eke hellish dreriment.Spenser. How sweet and soothing is this hour of calm! I thank thee, night! for thou hast chased away these horrid bodements which, amidst the throng, I could not dissipate : and with the blessing of thy benign and quiet influence now will I to my couch, although to rest is almost wronging such a night as this.-Byron. The worm of conscience is the companion of the owl.-The light is shunned by sinners and evil spirits only.-Schiller. NOBILITY. (See "RANK.") The original of all men is the same, and virtue is the only nobility.-Seneca. Nature's noblemen are everywhere, in town and out of town, gloved and roughhanded, rich and poor.-Prejudice against a lord because he is a lord, is losing the chance of finding a good fellow, as much as prejudice against a ploughman because he is a ploughman.-N. P. Willis. Nobility should be elective, not hereditary.-Zimmermann. Talent and worth are the only eternal grounds of distinction. To these the Almighty has affixed his everlasting patent of nobility. Knowledge and goodnessthese make degrees in heaven, and they must be the graduating scale of a true democracy.-Miss Sedgwick. Nobility, without virtue, is a fine setting without a gem.-Jane Porter. Whoe'er amid the sons of reason, valor, liberty, and virtue, displays distinguished merit, is a noble of nature's own creating. -Thomson. All nobility, in its beginnings, was somebody's natural superiority.-Emerson. I can make a lord, but only the Almighty can make a gentleman.-James I. Titles of honor add not to his worth, who is an honor to his title.-Ford. 377 If a man be endued with a generous mind, this is the best kind of nobility.Plato. Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society. It is indeed one sign of a liberal and benevolent mind to incline to it with some sort of partial propensity.Burke. Fishwomen cry noble oysters. They certainly are full as noble as any family blazoned out in Collins's peerage. If not of as ancient an house, of as old a bed at least. And to show their richness too, pearls and they are congenial.-Sterne. NOISE. He who is lord of himself, and exists upon his own resources, is a noble but a rare being.-Brydges. It is better to be nobly remembered, than nobly born.-Ruskin. No man can ever be noble who thinks meanly or contemptuously of himself, and no man can ever be noble who thinks first and only of himself.-W. H. Dollinger. The best school of nobility is the imitation of Christ.-F. D. Huntington. We must have kings, we must have nobles; nature is always providing such in every society, only let us have the real instead of the titular. In every society, some are born to rule, and some to advise. The chief is the chief, all the world over, only not his cap and plume. It is only dislike of the pretender which makes men sometimes unjust to the true and finished man.-Emerson. Nobility is a river that sets with a constant and undeviating current directly into the great Pacific Ocean of time; but, unlike all other rivers, it is more grand at its source than at its termination.-Colton. Virtue is the first title of nobility.Molière. True nobility is derived from virtue, not from birth.-Title may be purchased, but virtue is the only coin that makes the bargain valid.-Burton. It seems to me 'tis only noble to be good. - Tennyson. It is not wealth, nor ancestry, but honorable conduct and a noble disposition that make men great.-Ovid. A fool, indeed, has great need of a title ; it teaches men to call him count or duke, and thus forget his proper name of fool.J. Crown. NOISE. (See "LOQUACITY" and "SPEECH.") It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked bottles; the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.-Pope. Those orators who give us much noise and many words, but little argument, and less sense, and who are most loud when least lucid, should take a lesson from nature. She often gives us lightning without thunder, but never thunder without lightning. When I was a child I used to think it was the thunder that killed people; as I grew older I found it was only the lightning that struck, and the noise of thunder was only noise.-Anon. NONSENSE. NONSENSE.-I find that nonsense, at times, is singularly refreshing.—Talleyrand. Nonsense is to sense, as shade to light; it heightens effect.-F. Saunders. A little nonsense, now and then, is relished by the wisest men.-Anon. A careless song, with a little nonsense in it, now and then, does not misbecome a monarch.-Horace Walpole. Nonsense and noise will oft prevail, when honor and affection fail.-Lloyd. Hudibras has defined nonsense, as Cowley does wit, by negatives. Nonsense says he, is that which is neither true nor false. These two great properties of nonsense, which are essential to it, give it such a peculiar advantage over all other writings, that it is incapable of being either answered or contradicted. If it attirms anything, you cannot lay hold of it; or if it denies, you cannot refute it. In a word, there are greater depths and obscurities, greater intricacies and perplexities in an elaborate and wellwritten piece of nonsense, than in the most abstruse and profound tract of school divinity. Addison. To write or talk concerning any subject, without having previously taken the pains to understand it, is a breach of the duty which we owe to ourselves, though it may be no offence against the laws of the land. The privilege of talking and even publishing nonsense is necessary in a free state; but the more sparingly we make use of it the better.-Coleridge. Those who best know human nature will acknowledge most fully what a strength light hearted nonsense gives to a hard working man. NOVELS. The habitual indulgence in such reading, is a silent, ruining mischief. -Hannah More. 378 Three-fourths of the popular novels of the day enfeeble the intellect, impoverish the imagination, vulgarize the taste and style, give false or distorted views of life and human nature, and, which is worst of all, waste that precious time which should be given to solid mental improvement.Greyson Letters. Above all things, never let your son touch a novel or romance. How delusive, how destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss! They teach the, youthful to sigh after beauty and happiness that never existed; to despise the little good that fortune has mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she ever gave; and in generaltake the word of a man who has seen the NOVELS. world, and studied it more by experience than by precept-take my word for it, I say, that such books teach us very little of the world.-Goldsmith. To the composition of novels and romances, nothing is necessary but paper, pens, and ink, with the manual capacity of using them.-Fielding. Novels are sweet. All people with healthy literary appetites love them-almost all women and a vast number of clever, hardheaded men. Judges, bishops, chancellors, mathematicians are notorious novel readers, as well as young boys and sweet girls, and their kind and tender mothers. -Thackeray. A little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious, and low.-Swift. Fiction is a potent agent for good in the hands of the good; and so it may be a potent agent for evil, according to its character and the character of its readers. We must have books for recreation and entertainment, as well as for instruction and for business; the former are agreeable, the latter useful, and the human mind requires both. The canon law and the codes of Justinian shall have due honor and reign at the universities, but Homer and Virgil need not therefore be banished. We will cultivate the olive and the vine, but without eradicating the myrtle and the rose.Balzac. A good novel should be, and generally is, a magnifying or diminishing glass of life. It may lessen or enlarge what it reflects, but the general features of society are faithfully reproduced by it. If a man reads such works with intelligent interest, he may learn almost as much of the world from his library as from the clubs and drawingrooms of St. James.-Bulwer. The novel, in its best form, I regard as one of the most powerful engines of civilization ever invented.-Sir J. Herschel. It cannot but be injurious to the human mind never to be called into effort; the habit of receiving pleasure without any exertion of thought, by the mere excitement of curiosity and sensibility, may be justly ranked among the worst effects of habitual novel reading. Like idle morning visitors, the brisk and breathless periods hurry in and hurry off in quick and profitless succession-each, indeed, for the moment of its stay preventing the pain of vacancy, while it indulges the love of sloth; but, altogether, they leave the NOVELS. mistress of the house-the soul-flat and exhausted, incapable of attending to her own concerns, and unfitted for the conversation of more rational guests.- Coleridge. The importance of the romantic element does not rest upon conjecture. Pleasing testimonies abound. Hannah More traced her earliest impressions of virtue to works of fiction; and Adam Clarke gives a list of tales that won his boyish admiration. Books of entertainment led him to believe in a spiritual world; and he felt sure that he would have been a coward, but for roHe declared that he had learned more of his duty to God, his neighbor, and himself, from Robinson Crusoe than from all the books, except the Bible, that were known to his youth.- Willmott. mances. Novels may teach us as wholesome a moral as the pulpit. There are "sermons in stones," in healthy books, and "good in everything."-Colton. Writers of novels and romances in general bring a double loss on their readers,they rob them both of their time and money; representing men, manners, and things, that never have been, nor are likely to be; either confounding or perverting history and truth, inflating the mind, or committing violence upon the understanding.-Mary Wortley Montague. Lessons of wisdom have never such power over us as when they are wrought into the heart through the groundwork of a story which engages the passions. Is it that we are like iron, and must first be heated before we can be wrought upon? Or is the heart so in love with deceit, that where a true report will not reach it, we must cheat it with a fable in order to come at the truth?-Sterne. 118 Legitimately produced, and truly inspired, fiction interprets humanity, informis the understanding, and quickens the affecIt reflects ourselves, warns tions. against prevailing social follies, adds rich specimens to our cabinets of character, dramatizes life for the unimaginative, daguerreotypes it for the unobservant, multiplies experience for the isolated or inactive, and cheers age, retirement, and invalidism with an available and harmless solace.-Tuckerman. Novels do not force their readers to sin, but only instruct them how to sin.-Zim mermann. We gild our medicines with sweets; why not clothe truth and morals in pleasant garments as well?-Chamfort. To the romance writers of his time, Nicole gave the title of public poisoners, and the same title might well be applied to Novel reading tends to destroy a relish No habitual reader of the common run of novels can love the Bible or any other book that demands thought, or inculcates the serious duties of life. He dwells in a region of imagination, where he is disgusted with the plainness and simplicity of truth, and with the sober realities that demand his attention as a rational and immortal being, and an accountable subject of God's government. Novels are mean imitations of literature, and usually the poorest part of it. They deyour much precious time, and, what is have a bad effect upon mind and worse, morals. Their fanciful, distorted, and exaggerated sketches of life tend to vitiate and corrupt the taste, and to excite expectations that can never be fulfilled.- Varle. NOVELTY.-Novelty is the great parent of pleasure.-South. It is not only old and early impressions that deceive us; the charms of novelty have the same power.-Pascal. The earth was made so various, that the mind of desultory man, studious of change, and pleased with novelty, might be indulged.-Couper. The enormous influence of novelty-the way in which it quickens observation, sharpens sensation, and exalts sentimentAnd is not half enough taken note of by us, and is to me a very sorrowful matter. yet, if we try to obtain perpetual change, change itself will become monotonous; and then we are reduced to that old despair, "If water chokes, what will you drink after it?" The two points of practical wisdom in the matter are, first, to be content with as little novelty as possible at a time; and secondly, to preserve, as much as possible, the sources of novelty.-Ruskin. Such is the nature of novelty that where anything pleases it becomes doubly agreeable if new; but if it displeases, it is doubly displeasing on that very account.-Hume. Novelty has charms thut our minds can The most valuable hardly withstand. things, if they have for a long while appeared among us, do not make any impression as they are good, but give us a distaste as they are old. But when the influence of this fantastical humor is over, the same men or things will come to be admired OATHS. again, by a happy return of our good taste. -Thackeray. All, with one consent, praise new-born gauds, though they are made and molded of things past.-Shakespeare. New customs, though they be never so ridiculous, nay, let them be unmanly, yet are followed.-Shakespeare. Curiosity, from its nature, is a very active principle; it quickly runs over the greatest part of its objects, and soon exhausts the variety common to be met with in nature. Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in almost every instrument which works upon the mind; and curiosity blends itself, more or less, with all our pleasures.-Burke. Of all the passions that possess mankind, the love of novelty rules most the mind; in search of this from realm to realm we roam, our fleets come fraught with every folly home.-Foote. In science, as in common life, we frequently see that a novelty in system, or in practise, cannot be duly appreciated till time has sobered the enthusiasm of its advocates.-Maud. Before I translated the New Testament out of the Greek, all longed after it; when it was done, their longing lasted scarce four weeks. Then they desired the books of Moses; when I had translated these, they had enough thereof in a short time. After that, they would have the Psalms; of these they were soon weary, and desired other books. So it will be with the book of Ecclesiastes, which they now long for, and about which I have taken great pains. All is acceptable until our giddy brains be satisfied; afterwards we let familiar things lie, and seek after new.-Luther. O. OATHS.-Nay, but weigh well what you presume to swear.-Oaths are of dreadful weight; and if they are false, draw down damnation.-Overbury. Rash oaths, whether kept or broken, frequently lead to guilt.-Johnson. Recognized probity is the surest of all oaths.-Mad. Necker. It is a great sin to swear unto a sin, but greater sin to keep a sinful oath.--Shakespeare. Of all men, a philosopher should be no swearer for an oath, which is the end of controversies in law, cannot determine any here, where reason only must decide.-Sir Thomas Browne. Not for all the sun sees, or the close earth wombs, or the profound sea hides in unknown fathoms, break thou thine oath.Shakespeare. OBEDIENCE.-The first law that ever God gave to man, was a law of obedience; it was a commandment pure and simple, wherein man had nothing to inquire after or to dispute, for as much as to obey is the proper office of a rational soul acknowledging a heavenly superior and benefactor. -From obedience and submission spring all other virtues, as all sin does from selfopinion and self-will.-Montaigne. No principle is more noble, as there is none more holy, than that of a true obedience.-H. Giles. No man doth safely rule but he that hath learned gladly to obey.-Thomas à Kempis. It is a vain thought to flee from the work that God appoints us, for the sake of finding a greater blessing, instead of seeking it where alone it is to be found-in loving obedience.-George Eliot. Thirty years of our Lord's life are hidden in these words of the gospel: "He was subject unto them."-Bossuet. Let the ground of all religious actions be obedience; examine not why it is commanded, but observe it because it is commanded. True obedience neither procrastinates nor questions.-Quarles. Obedience to truth known, is the king's highway to that which is still beyond us. Obedience is the mother of success, and is wedded to safety.-Eschylus. Let them obey that know not how to rule. -Shakespeare. Let thy child's first lesson be obedience, and the second may be what thou wilt.Fuller. Filial obedience is the first and greatest requisite of a state; by this we become good subjects to our rulers, capable of behaving with just subordination to our superiors, and grateful dependants on heaven. By this we become good magistrates; for early submission is the truest lesson to those who would learn to rule. By this the whole state may be said to resemble one family, of which the monarch is the protector, father, and friend.-Goldsmith. Obedience to God is the most infallible evidence of sincere and supreme love to him.-Emmons. We are born subjects, and to obey God is perfect liberty. He that does this shall be free, safe, and happy.-Seneca. OBLIGATION. Wicked men obey from fear; good men, from love.-Aristotle. To obey God in some things, and not in others, shows an unsound heart.-Childlike obedience moves toward every command of God, as the needle points where the loadstone draws.-T. Watson. Doing the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about his plans.-G. Macdonald. Obedience is not truly performed by the body, if the heart is dissatisfied.-Saadi. One very common error misleads the opinion of mankind, that authority is pleasant, and submission painful. In the general course of human affairs the very reverse of this is nearer to the truth.Command is anxiety; obedience is ease.--Paley. How will you find good? It is not a thing of choice; it is a river that flow from the foot of the invisible throne, and flows by the path of obedience.-George Eliot. OBLIGATION.-What do I owe to my times, to my country, to my neighbors, to my friends?-Such are the questions which a virtuous man ought often to ask himself. -Lavater. Man owes not only his services, but himself to God.-Secker. To owe an obligation to a worthy friend, is a happiness, and can be no disparagement.-Charron. Obligation is thraldom, and thraldom is hateful.-Hobbes. To feel oppressed by obligation is only to prove that we are incapable of a proper sentiment of gratitude.-To receive favors from the unworthy is to admit that our selfishness is superior to our pride.-Simms. We are always much better pleased to see those whom we have obliged, than those who have obliged us.-Rochefoucauld. It is safer to affront some people than to oblige them; for the better a man deserves, the worse they will speak of him; as if the professing of open hatred to their benefactors were an argument that they lie under no obligation to him.-Seneca, Most men remember obligations, but not often to be grateful; the proud are made sour by the remembrance and the vain silent.-Simms. We are under solemn obligations to the children of those who have loved us.Poincelot. It is well known to all great men, that by conferring an obligation they do not always procure a friend, but are certain of creating many enemies.-Fielding. An extraordinary haste to discharge an obligation, is a sort of ingratitude.-Rochefoucauld. In some there is a kind of graceless modesty that makes a man ashamed of requiting an obligation, because it is a confession that he has received one. -Seneca. OBLIVION.-What's past, and what's to come, is strewed with husks and formless ruin of oblivion.-Shakespeare. Oblivion is the flower that grows best on graves.-George Sand. In the swallowing gulf of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion.-Shakespeare. Oblivion is a second death, which great minds dread more than the first.-De Boufflers. Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; riches take wings; the only certainty is oblivion.-Horace Greeley. Oblivion is the rule, and fame the exception of humanity.— Rivarol. How soon men and events are forgotten! Each generation lives in a different world. The oblivions of time will be the reminiscences of eternity.-C. Simmons. OBSCURITY.—(See “STYLE.”) The obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity.-Quintilian. How many people make themselves abstract to appear profound!-The greatest part of abstract terms are shadows that hide a vacuum.-Joubert. Objects imperfectly discerned take forms from the hope or fear of the beholder.Johnson. Unintelligible language is a lantern without a light. Blindness of heart beclouds the understanding, conscience, memory, and indeed all the intellectual powers, and throws a mischievous obscurity over theological, moral, and even classical science.-C. Sim mons. There is no defence against reproach but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.-Addi son. Lost in the dreary shades of dull obscurity.-Shenstone. Obscurity and innocence, twin sisters, escape temptations which would pierce their gossamer armor in contact with the world.-Chamfort. |