Life and Literature Part 83

As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.

--_Froude._

1151

Be ready at all times to listen to others.

1152

A man with an empty stomach is a poor listener.

1153

The only thing certain about litigation is it's uncertainty.

--_Bovee._

1154

Little by little added, if oft done, In small time makes a good possession.

--_Hesiod, a Greek, 850 B. C._

1155

What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?

1156

THE THREE LOOKS.

The old man looks down, and thinks of the past.

The young man looks up, and thinks of the future.

The child looks everywhere, and thinks of nothing.

1157

For 'tis a truth well known to most, That whatsoever thing is lost, We seek it, ere it come to light, In every cranny but the right.

--_Cowper._

1158

Where you are not appreciated, you cannot be loved.

1159

When people fall in love at first sight, they often live to regret that they didn't take another look.

1160

"I'm sorry that I spelt the word, I hate to go above you; Because"--the brown eyes lower fell-- "Because, you see, I love you!"

--_John Greenleaf Whittier._

1161

Where there is love, all things interest; where there is indifference, minute details are tedious, disbelief is cherished, and trifles are apt to be thought contemptible.

1162

If he loves me, the merit is not mine; my fault will be if he ceases.

1163

LOVE.

To a man, the disappointment of love may occasion some bitter pangs: it wounds some feelings of tenderness--it blasts some prospects of felicity; but he is an active being; he may dissipate his thoughts in the whirl of varied occupation, or may plunge into the tide of pleasure; or, if the scene of disappointment be too full of painful a.s.sociations, he can shift his abode at will, and taking, as it were, the wings of the morning, can "fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, and be at rest."

But woman's is comparatively a fixed, a secluded and a meditative life.

She is more the companion of her own thoughts and feelings; and if they are turned to ministers of sorrow, where shall she look for consolation?

Her lot is to be wooed and won; and if unhappy in her love, her heart is her world--is like some fortress that has been captured, and sacked, and abandoned, and left desolate.

Shall I confess it?--I believe in broken hearts, and the possibility of dying of disappointed love! I do not, however, consider it a malady often fatal to my own s.e.x; but I firmly believe that it withers down many a lovely woman into an early grave. So is it the nature of woman to hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection.

--_Washington Irving._

1164

To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.

1165

WHAT!