Life and Literature Part 68

--_Robert Louis Stevenson._

936

_Boswell_: "I happened to start a question, whether, when a man knows that some of his intimate friends are invited to the house of another friend with whom they are all equally intimate, he may join them without an invitation." Johnson: "No, sir, he is not to go when he is not invited. They may be invited on purpose to abuse him"--smiling.

937

Houses are built to live in more than to look on; therefore let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had.

--_Bacon._

938

It's an unhappy household where all the smiles are dispensed in society and all the frowns at home.

939

He has no religion who has no humanity.

940

Our humanity were a poor thing, but for the Divinity that stirs within us.

--_Bacon._

941

With the humble there is perpetual peace.

--_Shakespeare._

942

When you see an ear of corn holding itself very high (or a human head) you may be sure there is nothing in it. The full ear is the lowliest; the full head the most humble.

943

Humility is the root, mother, nurse, foundation, and bond of all virtue.

--_Chrysostom._

944

Hunger is the mother of impatience and anger.

--_Zimmerman._

945

They must hunger in frost who spring-time have lost.

--_German._

946

The full stomach cannot comprehend the hungry one.

947

Wait is a hard word to the hungry.

--_From the German._

948

HUSBAND--EXCELLENCIES OF A.

Faithful--as dog, the lonely shepherd's pride; True--as the helm, the bark's protecting guide; Firm--as the shaft that props the towering dome; Sweet--as to shipwreck'd seaman land and home; Lovely--as child, a parent's sole delight; Radiant--as morn, that breaks a stormy night; Grateful--as streams, that, in some deep recess, With rills unhoped the panting traveler bless, Is he that links with mine his chain of life, Names himself lord, and deigns to call me wife.

--_Aeschylus._

949

Between husband and wife there should be no question as to material interests. All things should be in common between them without any distinction or means of distinguishing.

950

WHAT A SONG DID.

A Scottish youth learned, with a pious mother, to sing the old psalms that were then as household words to them in the kirk (church) and by the fireside. When he had grown up he wandered away from his native country, was taken captive by the Turks, and made a slave in one of the Barbary States. But he never forgot the songs of Zion, although he sang them in a strange land and to heathen ears.

One night he was solacing himself in this manner when the attention of some sailors on board of a British man-of-war was directed to the familiar tune of "Old Hundred" as it came floating over the moonlit waves.

At once they surmised the truth that one of their countrymen was languishing away his life as a captive. Quickly arming themselves, they manned a boat and lost no time in effecting his release. What joy to him after eighteen long years pa.s.sed in slavery! Is it strange that he ever afterwards cherished the glorious tune of "Old Hundred?"