More Toasts Part 121

But tell me, do you libr'yites Believe in fairies too?

--_H.I.B. in the Use of Print_.

A certain woman who came in to take out a card, upon being told she must give the name of a friend as reference said, "Why, I have no friends. I was a librarian."

_See also_ Books and reading.

LIBRARIES

_The Power-House_

Every day I go past the Library on Ludlow Street

I look in the open windows and see the great dynamos.

They have power enough to jazz the earth and throw the planets out of step, but they make no sound.

I saw a girl with sh.e.l.l goggles dusting some of them,

Unterrified by her proximity to such dangerous engines.

Look out, child, look out, don't get too near the Bernard Shaw rheostat or the Walt Whitman fly-wheel.--_Christopher Morley_.

"May I take this book home please, or isn't it a _running_ book? Oh, I'm so glad, I thought it might be 'for reference only.'"

MAN--"I'd like a book on dramatic expression."

LIBRARIAN--"Oral, of course?"

MAN--"Yes, I don't like poetry."

LIES

Sin has many tools but a lie is the handle that fits them all.--_O.W.

Holmes_.

LIFE

As viewed by the

OPTIMIST PESSIMIST

Love Lies Independence Ingrat.i.tude Fun Foolishness Endeavor Exertion

In traveling along a road in a motor car, there will be several cars ahead of you going your way, and there will be several cars coming toward you. Also ahead of you, going your way, there may be a hay wagon or a farmer in a buggy. As you speed along, you look ahead and declare to yourself that there is no logical way in which you can get through the s.p.a.ces thus created. Yet the vehicles always form themselves into the right combination, and you pa.s.s through easily.

This is the way with life. There are always obstacles that you do not see how you can pa.s.s without a smash-up. But you always get by.

"Stop, look, listen!"

The reflective man stopped to read the railroad warning.

"Those three words ill.u.s.trate the whole scheme of life," said he.

"How?"

"You see a pretty girl; you stop; you look; after you marry her, and for the rest of your life, you listen."

_The Magician_

Life has such a subtle way Of forming roses out of clay;

Of taking tears that seemed in vain And making of them April rain;

Of getting from a heedless rafter Echoes of dead bits of laughter;

Of welding in a sunset sea Lost loveliness and imagery;

Of making out of crawling things b.u.t.terflies with airy wings.

Life has such a subtle way Of turning darkness into day;

Of bringing music, ocean-old, To newness of a tale untold;

And then, grown jealous of its trust, Of changing roses back to dust.

--_Vivian Yeiser Laramore_.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.

Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, begin it well and serenely, and with too high a spirit to be c.u.mbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.--_Emerson_.