is double iniquity. Drunkenness is an egg from which all vices may be hatched. 5. Deliver your words not by number, but by weight. Do nothing you would wish to conceal. Death hath nothing terrible in it but what life has made so. Each day is a new life: regard it, therefore, as an epit'omë" of the whole. Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. Entertain no thoughts which you would blush at in words. Economy is itself a great income. Fortune often makes a feast, and then takes away the appetite. EI 6. Fear not death so much as an evil course of life. Fling him into the Nile, and he will come up with a fish in his mouth. Fortune can take nothing from us but what she gave. Few, that have any merit of their own, envy that of others. Force witnout forecast is little worth. Gaming finds a man a dupe, and leaves him a knave. Gluttony kills more than the sword. Heaven helps him who helps himself. He is the best gentleman who is the son of his own deserts.8 83 He who will not be ruled by the rudder must be ruled by the rock. His is a happy memory which forgets nothing so soon as his injuries. He that shows his passion tells his enemy where to hit him. 7. He is a wise man who is willing to receive instructions from all men. He is a mighty man who subdueth his evil inclinations. He is a rich man who is delighted with his lot. He keeps his road well who gets rid of bad company. He is an ill boy that goes, like a top, no longer than he is whipped. He that "will consider of it" takes time to deny you handsomely. Happy he who happy thinks. He who hath good health is young, and he is rich who owes nothing. He that would know what shall be, must consider what has been. Hungry men call the cook lazy. He who sows brambles must not go barefoot. 8. If the counsel be good, no matter who gave it. Industry is Fortune's right hand, and Frugality her left. If you wish a thing done, go; if not, send. If you would enjoy the fruit, pluck not the blossom. It is easy to go afoot when one leads one's horse by the bridle. In a courtry of blind people the one-eyed is king. It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. If God be with us, who can be against us? Keep good company, and be one of the number. Know thyself. Knowledge is the treasure of the mind, and discretion the key to it. Levity in manner leads to laxity in principles. 9. Learning is wealth to the poor, and an ornament to the rich. Let pleasures be ever so innocent, the excess is criminal. Light griefs are loquacious. Less of your courtesy, and more of your coin. Let not the tongue forerun the thought. Lying rides on debt's back. malady. Men may esteem him. Much coin, much care, much meat, much be pleased with a jester, but they never Many soldiers are brave at table, who are cowards in the field. None but the contemptible are apprehensive of contempt. Never speak to deceive, nor listen to betray. Never despair. Never open the door to a little vice, lest a great one should enter too. 10. Out of debt, out of danger. Peace and Honor are the sheaves of Virtue's harvest. Purchase the next world with this: so shalt thou win both. Perspicuity is the garment which good thoughts should wear. Praise a fair day at night. Pride will have a fall. Do not put your finger in the fire, and say it was your fortune. Punishment is lame, but it comes. Ponder again and again on the divine law; for all things are contained therein. Prayer should be the key of the day, and the lock of the night. Rule the appetite, and temper the tongue. Scholarship, without good breeding, is but tiresome pedantry. Say not, "when I have leisure I will study;" lest thou shouldst not have leisure. Show method in thy study, if thou wilt acquire true wisdom. 11. To profane one's lips with unchaste expressions, is like bringing swine into the sanctuary. The loquacity of fools is a lecture to the wise. The offender never pardons. The shortest answer is doing the thing The sting of a reproach is the truth of it. To err is human; to forgive, divine. The best throw of the dice is to throw them away. There are those who despise pride with a greater pride. The perfection of art is to conceal art. The crime, not the scaffold, makes the shame. The hog never looks up to him that thrashes down the acorns. There is no worse robber than a bad book. The sweetest wine makes the sharpest vinegar. The raven cried to the crow, " Avaunt, blackamoor!" The less wit a man has, the less he knows he wants it. The feet of retribution are shod with wool. The best way to see divine light is to put out thine own candle. 12. Understanding without wealth is like feet without shoes; wealth without understanding is like shoes without feet. Use soft words and hard arguments. Virtue that parleys is near a surrender. Vows made in storms are too often forgotten in calms. When men speak ill of you, live so that nobody will believe them. Want of punctuality is a species of falsehood. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the mind. Wherever there is flattery, there is sure to be a fool. Wit is folly unless a wise man has the keeping of it. When the wine is in, the wit is out. 13. What greater torment than the consciousness of having known the will of our Creator and yet disobeyed it! Wine is a turncoat first a friend, and last an enemy. 99 "Welcome death," quoth the rat, when the trap snapped. When good cheer is lacking, false friends will be packing. Wisdom and virtue go hand in hand. Walk in the way of uprightness, and shun the way of darkness. When a man's coat is threadbare, it is easy to pick a hole in it. Winter discovers what summer conceals. Were98 it not for hope, the heart would break. Who thinks to deceive God, has already deceived himself. 14. A bad workman quarrels with his tools. A creaking door hangs long on its hinges. A fault confessed is half redressed. An evil lesson is soon learned. Be slow to promise, and quick to perform. Don't measure other people's corn by your bushel. Catch the bear before you sell his skin. First deserve, and then desire. He lacks most that longs most. He liveth long who liveth well. He that reckons without his host must reckon again. In a calm sea every man is a pilot. Live not to eat, but eat to live. Many go out for wool and come home shorn. The best physicians are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merryman. Man proposes, God disposes. VIII. THE LIGHT-HOUSE. THE scene was more beautiful far to my eye The land-breeze blew mild, and the azure-arched sky The murmur rose soft as I silently gazed From the dim distant hill, till the light-house fire blazed No longer the joy of the sailor-boy's breast The sea-bird had flown to her wave-girdled nest, One moment I looked from the hill's gentle slɔpe, - And I thought that the light-house looked lovely as hope, The time is long past, and the scene is afar, Will memory sometimes rekindle the star In life's closing hour, when the trembling soul flies, O, then may the seraph of mercy arise, ANON. IX. A VOLUNTEERE BULL-FIGHT. -- 1. I REMEMBER once seeing, when a lad at school, a fight between two bulls. Although I could not have been more than eight years of age at the time, I shall never forget the spectacle. It happened in this wise. Close by the school-house-a very unpretending edifice it was * ran a deep and rapid river. Across it had been thrown a high wooden bridge, the hand-railing of which time and the winds and the weather had entirely destroyed. The land on opposite sides of the stream was owned by different persons, and farmed by them respectively. One bright summer day, I remember it as it were yesterday, – the hour of noon had arrived, and a frolicsome, fun-seeking troop of school-boys were let loose for an hour's recreation. 2. All at once, the bellowing and roaring of two bulls, that had broken out of their enclosures on each side of the river, attracted our attention. The animals were not yet in sight of each other, but were approaching along the highway at a rate of speed which would cause them to meet near the centre of the high bridge which I have described, and beneath which, at some thirty feet, ran the river between steep banks. The more daring of us gathered near the bridge, lining it, to see the anticipated fight. We were not disappointed. Nearer and nearer to each other approached the proud, pawing combatants.90 Ba'shan never produced two brutes of fiercer aspect. They lashed their sides with their tails; they tore the ground with their feet. Occasionally they knelt down, trying to gore the earth with their horns. And as yet they were concealed, each from the other, by the ascent towards the bridge at either end. 3. Presently, as they simultaneously ascended the respective abutments, they came full in sight of each other. The roar was mutual, and actually tremendous. Every urchin of us sprang into the fields and ran. Finding, however, that we were not pursued, we as hastily retraced our steps. There they were, the ferocious duellists, quite as sensibly employed as some of their human imitators! Front to front, their horns locked, every muscle strained, they were fighting as only bulls can fight. It seemed an even match. Nowls one would press back his opponent a few paces, and presently you would hear quick, sharp, short steps, and his adversary would be pressed back in return. The struggling was hard, was long, was savage: For a while neither obtained an advantage. Bear in mind that the dash is sometimes used by modern writers in place of the marks of Parenthesis. See TT 140, 165, Part I. 4. Hitherto they had been pushing each other lengthwise of the bridge; suddenly they began to wheel,103 and, in a moment were facing each other breadthwise. Thus they were at right angles with the length of the old bridge, which shook, and creaked, and rocked again, with their tramping and their terrible strife. It was the work of a single moment: one of the beasts, - I never could tell which, -one of them, however, as if conscious of his position, made a violent, a desperate lunge forward, and pressed his antagonist back-back — back till there was but another step of plank behind him, — between him and nothing! The moment was one of intense interest to us juvenile spectators. Never was the amphitheatre of Rome the scene of a more exciting combat. Another step backward, yes, the unfortunate bull has been forced to take it! Back he is pressed, and over he goes. 5. Such a sight I never saw, I probably shall never see again. Imagine a bull pitched backward from a bridge, and falling, at least thirty feet, over and over! He turned once or twice, probably, I thought he turned over fifty times, there seemed such a confusion of horns and feet, revolving, flying through the air! But down he went; the water was deep, and he disappeared, leaving a whirlpool of foam behind him, and making the river undulate far and wide with the concussion of his ponderous bulk. 6. The other bull did not laugh— merely because bulls, as I supposed, could not. But we laughed and shouted our applause. There stood the victor, looking directly down into the abyss below, into which he had hurled his unlucky foe. He stood however, but a moment; and then, as if frightened at the prospect, began to snort and step backward. Back, back he retreated, with his head in the same pugnacious attitude as when in combat, - back · still another step back and over he too went on the opposite side of the bridge, performing just as many and as ludicrous somersets as his adversary had done a minute before. EI 7. It was a scene to remember; and the performance ca.led forth immense applause from the group of juvenile amateurs'¤I who witnessed it. In about five minutes both bulls might be seen, well sobered by their ducking, dripping wet, scratching up the steep, gravelly banks, each on his own side of the river. "Those bulls will never fight any more," said a boy behind me. His prediction turned out correct; for two more peaceably dis posed bulls than they were, ever afterwards, could not have been found. |