A certain individual being somewhat short and somewhat dry, walked into a store and purchased three biscuits. Before paying, seeing that the worthy shopkeeper had cider, he came to the conclusion that he was more dry than hungry, and asked permission to swap the biscuits for the cider. Finishing the cider with an appreciatory smack of the lips, he turned on his heel to go out, when the shopkeeper said: "Come, pay me for the cider." "Didn't I swap the biscuits for the cider?" said the other. "Well, then, pay me for the biscuits," said the puzzled trader. "Haven't you got them on the shelf? What are you hindering me for? My time's valuable." And off he went. A young man, with an umbrella, overtook an unprotected lady acquaintance in a rain-storm recently, and extending his umbrella over her, requested the pleasure of acting as her rain-beau. 'Oh," exclaimed the young lady, taking his arm, "you wish me to be your rain-dear!" 66 A lady, engaged to be married, and getting sick of her bargain, applied to a friend to help her untie the knot before it was too late. "Oh, certainly," she replied; “it is very easy to untie it now while it is only a beau knot." "Heroine" is, perhaps, as peculiar a word as any in our language the first two letters of it are male, the first three are female, the first four are a brave man, and the whole word makes a brave woman. A politician who had suddenly become very wealthy, recently attended a dinner-party at which there was the usual fillet of beef with mushrooms. While engaged upon the beef he whispered to his neighbor, “Do you eat the clothespin heads too?" "Oh, Franky," exclaimed a mother who was taking din. ner at a neighbor's, “I never knew you to ask for a second piece of pie at home!" "'Cause I knew 'twas no use,” mumbled Franky as he filled his mouth. 66 "Have you any butter, pure butter, upon your honor?" Well, as you put it to me that way, mem, I'm afraid I must say I haven't. The butter's adulterated with oleomargarine, I'm told." "Then I'll try the oleomargarine alone. They say in the house it's perfectly wholesome." "Well, mem, there you have me again. The oleomargarine would be wholesome, only it's adulterated with butter, you know." "The baby has got a new tooth, but the old lady is laid up with a cold in the head," remarked a gentleman to a defeated candidate. "What do I care?" was the reply. "Well," said the gentleman, "before the election you used to take me aside and ask me how my family was coming on, and I've been hunting you all over town to tell you, and that's the way you talk to me. But it don't make any difference. I voted for the other candidate, anyhow." Columbus made the egg stand, but Italians of less renown have made the peanut stand. Noah Webster was a celebrated author. He was a quick and ready writer, and in one of his inspired moments he dashed off a dictionary. He took it to several publishers, but they shied at it, saying the style was dull, turgid, dry, hard and uninteresting, and besides, that he used too many big words. But at last Noah succeeded, and the immortal work is in daily use, propping up babies at the dinner table. An old lady who had been reading the health-officer's weekly reports thought that "Total" must be an awfully malignant disease, since as many die of it as all the rest put together. "There are too many women in the world; sixty thousand more women than men in Massachusetts," growled the husband. "That is the 'survival of the fittest,' my dear," replied the wife. Some one asked Lord Bacon what he thought of poets?" "Why," said he, "I think them the very best writers next to those who write prosc." SUPPLEMENT TO One Hundred Choice Selections, No. 10 CONTAINING SENTIMENTS For Public Occasions; WITTICISMS For Home Enjoyment; LIFE THOUGHTS For Private Reflection; Divines but peep on undiscovered worlds, But who has e'er returned from those bright regions, Dryden. The man who can be nothing but serious, or nothing but merry, is but half a man. Leigh Hunt. Weary, so weary; oh weary of tears; Weary of heart-aches, and weary of fears; Weary of moaning and weary of pain; Weary, so weary of hoping in vain. Weary, so weary- but sometime I'll rest, Dreamlessly sleeping, hands crossed on my breast, Only to lie down and quietly sleep. Truth is the foundation of all knowledge and the cement of all societies. Dryden Music! oh, how faint, how weak, Language fails before thy spell! Why should feeling ever speak, When thou canst breathe her soul so well? Friendship's balmy words may feign, Love's are e'en more false than they: Oh! 'tis only music's strain Can sweetly soothe, and not betray. Moore. The most delicate, the most sensible of all pleasures, con sists in promoting the pleasure of others. 2GGG* La Bruyere. 181 If the true spark of religious liberty be kindled, it will burn. Human agency cannot extinguish it. Like the earth's central fire, it may be smothered for a time; the ocean may overwhelm it; mountains may press it down; but its inherent and unconquerable force will heave both the ocean and the land, and at some time or another, in some place or another, the volcano will break out and flame to heaven. Webster. Let all your precepts be succinct and clear, Roscommon. Politeness is like great thoughts; it comes from the heart. I would not enter on my list of friends, (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. Teach me to feel another's woe, To hide the fault I see; That mercy I to others show, Couper. Pope. Heroism is simple, and yet it is rare. Every one who does the best he can is a hero. Take heed lest passion sway Thy judgment to do aught which else free will Milton. He that thinks he can afford to be negligent is not far from being poor. But flattery never seems absurd: The flattered always take your word; Impossibilities seem just, They take the strongest praise on trust; Will still come short of self-conceit. Johnson. Gay. The reason why men act in masses as they would not act in units is, that they are not chivalric enough to stand by their own souls. O nature, how in every charm supreme! To sing thy glories with devotion due! Chapin. Beattie. Of all the cants in this canting world, deliver me from the cant of criticism. Sterne. Music, in the best sense, does not require novelty; nay the older it is, and the more we are accustomed to it, the greater its effect. But pleasures are like poppies spread, Goethe. You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; Burns. Virtue consists in doing our duty in the several relations we sustain, in respect to ourselves, to our fellow-men, and to God, as known from reason, conscience, and revelation. Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound; Alexander. Gifford. The strength of a nation, especially of a republican nation, is in the intelligent and well-ordered homes of the people. Mrs. Sigourney. The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one, Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows, Solitude is the audience chamber of God. Owen Meredith. Landon. Time, the prime minister of death, And lays his mischief still. Marvell. Honor is like the eye, which cannot suffer the least injury without damage; it is a precious stone, the price of which is lessened by the least flaw. In every work regard the writer's end; For none can compass more than they intend: Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due. Bossuet. Pope. Canon Dale. It is not death that makes the martyr, but the cause. My mother! at that holy name Of feeling, which no time can tame,- I would not, could not crush. Geo. P. Morris. |