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The room is old—the night is cold,—But night is dearer far than day;For then, in dreams, to him it seemsThat she's returned who's gone away!His tears are pass'd—he clasps her fast,—Again she holds him on her knee;And, in his sleep, he murmurs deep,"Oh! mother, go no more from me!"

Dreams.—Children of night, of indigestion bred.

—Churchill.

We sacrifice to dress, till household joysAnd comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry,And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires,And introduces hunger, frost and woe,Where peace and hospitality might have reign'd.

—Cowper.

Those who think that in order to dress well, it is necessary to dress extravagantly or grandly, make a great mistake. Nothing so well becomes true feminine beauty as simplicity.

No real happiness is foundIn trailing purple o'er the ground.

—Geo. D. Prentice.

Numbers vi, 3.—"He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink."

A heathen king, who had been for years confirmed in the sin of drunkenness by the evil practices of white men on the Sandwich Islands, had been led to forsake the dreadful habit. He said lately to a missionary, "suppose you put four thousand dollars in one hand, and a glass of rum in the other; you say, you drink this rum, I give you four thousand dollars, I no drink it; you say you kill me, I no drink it."

In an address to a temperance society, Admiral Capps told a story which is printed in the New YorkTribune.—A man who had ruined his health with alcohol sat looking sadly at his wife, to whom he had made many promises of reform.

"Jenny," he said, "you are a clever woman, a courageous, good woman. You should have married a better man than I am."

She looked at him, thin-limbed and stoop-shouldered, prematurely old, and answered, quietly, "I did, James."

Genesis ix, 21—"Noah drank of the wine, and was drunken."

A person in Maryland, who was addicted to drunkenness, hearing a considerable uproar in his kitchen one night, felt the curiosity to step without noise to the door, to know what was the matter; when he found his servants indulging in the most unbounded roars of laughter at a couple of negro boys, who were mimicking himself in his drunken fits!—as how he reeled and staggered—how he looked and nodded—and hiccupped and tumbled. The pictures which these children of nature drew of him, and which had filled the rest with such inexhaustible merriment, struck him withso salutary a disgust, that from that night he became a perfectly sober man, to the great joy of his wife and children.

From drink, with its ruin, and sorrow and sin,I surely am safe if I never begin.

Pray tell me whence you derive the origin of the word dun? The true origin of this expression owes its birth to one Joe Dunn, a famous bailiff of the town of Lincoln, England, so extremely active, and so dexterous at the management of his rough business, that it became a proverb, when a man refused to pay his debts, "Why don't you Dun him?" that is, why don't you send Dun to arrest him? Hence it grew a custom, and is now as old as since the days of Henry VII.

—Mulledulcia.

Knowledge is the hill which few may hope to climb;Duty is the path that all may tread.

—Lewis Morris.

When a minister preaches his sermon, he should do so fearlessly, i. e. like a man who cuts up a big log,—let the chips fall where they may.

Do what you ought, come what may.

—French.

Duty:—I hate to see a thing done by halves; if it be right, do it boldly; if wrong, leave it undone.

—Gilpin.

Whosoever contents himself with doing the little duties of the day, great things will, by-and-by, present themselves to him for their fulfilment also.

—Howard Pyle.

We make time for duties we love.

—Unknown.

One should choose a wife with the ears, rather than with the eyes.

—Spanish.

What is told in the ear, is often heard a hundred miles off.

—Chinese.

'Tis easy for any man who has his foot unentangled by sufferings, both to exhort and to admonish him that is in difficulties.

—Aeschylus.

If you take things easy when you ought to be doing your best work, you will probably have to keep hard at work when you might be taking it easy.

Nothing is easy to the unwilling.

—From the German.

He that eats longest lives longest.

Half of what we eat is sufficient to enable us to live, and the other half that we eat enables the doctors to live.

—Dr. Osler.

Economy is the easy chair of old age.

He that will not economize may some day have to agonize.

—Confucius.

Economy is no disgrace; it is better living on a little, than living beyond your means.

In abundance prepare for scarcity.

—Mencius.

Lay up something for a rainy day; it may be needed some day.

Economy is something like a savings-bank, into which we drop pennies and get dollars in return.

—H. W. Shaw.

Take care to be an economist in prosperity: there is no fear of your being one in adversity.

—Zimmerman.

For age and want, save while you may,No morning sun lasts a whole day.

Economy is too late at the bottom of the purse.

Spend not when you must save,Spare not when you must spend.

—Italian.

Every man must educate himself. His books and teacher are but helps; the work is his.

—Webster.

Scottish Education. "A boy was compelled by the poverty of his parents to leave school and take temporary work as an assistant to Lady Abercombie's gardener. When his services were no longer required, the lady gave him a guinea and said, 'Well, Jack, how are you going to spend your guinea?' 'Oh my lady,' he replied, 'I've just made up my mind to tak' a quarter o' Greek, for I hadna got beyond Latin when I left school."

—Dr. J. Herr.

Nearly all things are difficult before they are easy.

—From the French.

There is as much eloquence in the tone of voice, in the eyes, and in the air of a speaker, as in his choice of words.

—Rochefoucauld.

One would not imagine who has not given particular attention, that the body should be susceptible to such variety of attitudes and emotions, as readily to accompany every different emotion with a corresponding expression. Humility for example, is expressed naturally by hanging the head; arrogance, by its elevation; and languor or despondence, by reclining it to one side. The expressions of the hands are manifold by different attitudes and motions; they express desire, hope, fear; they assist us in promising, in inviting, in keeping one at a distance; they are made instruments of threatening, of supplication, of praise, and of horror; they are employed in approving, in refusing, in questioning; in showing our joy, our sorrow, our doubts, our regret, and our admiration.

—Lord Hames.

The evil one does not tempt people whom he finds suitably employed.

—Jeremy Taylor.

To be employed is to be happy.

—Gray.

Do good to thy friend, that he may be more thy friend; and unto thy enemy, that he may become thy friend.

He who has a thousand friends,Has never a one to spare,And he who has one enemy,Will be apt to meet him everywhere.

Boswell said of Dr. Johnson—"Though a stern true-born Englishman, and fully prejudiced against all other nations, he had discernment enough to see, and candour enough to censure, the cold reserve too common among Englishmen towards strangers.'Sir,' said he, (Johnson) 'two men of any other nation who are shown into a room together, at a house where they are both visitors, will immediately find some conversation. But two Englishmen will probably go each to a different window, and remain in obstinate silence. Sir, we as yet do not enough understand the common rights of humanity.'"

Rochefoucauldsaid, "The truest mark of being born with great qualities is being born without envy."

If we did but know how little some enjoy the great things they possess, there would not be so much envy in the world.

All matches, friendships, and societies are dangerous and inconvenient, where the contractors are not equal.

—Estrange.

Equivocation is first cousin to a lie.

—From the French.

What has been done amiss should be undone as quickly as possible.

Beware of errors of the mouth.

—Hindu.

The man who never makes any blunders, seldom makes any good hits.

Etiquette.—Good taste rejects excessive nicety; it treats little things as little things, and is not hurt by them.

Certain signs precede certain events.

—Cicero.

Sir Peter Lely made it a rule never to look at a bad picture, having found by experience that whenever he did so, his pencil took a tint from it. Bishop Home said of the above: "Apply this to bad books and bad company."

I am endowed by God with power to conquer all evil.

Ursula.

How quickly and quietly the eye opens and closes, revealing and concealing a world!

Achilles:This is not strange, Ulysses,The beauty that is borne here in the faceThe bearer knows not, but commends itselfTo other's eyes: nor doth the eye itself,That most pure spirit of sense behold itself,Not going from itself, but eye to eye oppos'dSalutes each other.

—Shakespeare.

The silent upbraiding of the eye is the very poetry of reproach; it speaks at once to the imagination.

—Mrs. Balfour.

Eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears.

—Plautus.

Old men's eyes are like old men's memories; they are strongest for things a long way off.

The eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us. If all but myself were blind, I should never want a fine house nor fine furniture.

—Franklin.

The eyes are the windows of the soul.

—Hiram Powers.

We always weaken whatever we exaggerate.

—La Harpe.

He who has seen much of the world, is very prone to exaggeration.

Every man is bound to tolerate the act of which he has himself given the example.

—Phaedrus.

Noble examples excite us to noble deeds.

He who makes excuses, himself accuses.

A man must often exercise, or fast, or take physic, or be sick.

—Sir W. Temple.

I am no longer the fool I was, I have learned by experience.

All is but lip-wisdom, which wants experience.

—Sir Philip Sidney.

Among all classes of society we see extravagance keeping pace with prosperity, and indeed outstripping it, realizing Archbishop Whately's paradox: "The larger the income, the harder it is to live within it."

—Hugh S. Brown.

A clouded faceStrikes deeper than an angry blow.

We write our lives upon our faces, deep,An autograph which they will always keep.Thoughts cannot come and leave behind no traceOf good or ill; they quickly find a placeWhere they who will may read as in a book,The hidden meaning of our slightest look.

Nature has written a letter of credit on some men's faces which is honored wherever it is presented.

—Thackeray.

The surest way not to fail, is to determine to succeed.

—Sheridan.

In Ross-shire, Scotland, there is an immense mountain gorge. The rocks have been rent in twain, and set apart twenty feet, forming two perpendicular walls two hundred feet in height. On either side of these natural walls, in crevices where earth has collected, grow wild flowers of rare quality and beauty. A company of tourists visiting that part of the country were desirous to possess themselves of specimens of these beautiful mountain flowers; but how to obtain them they knew not. At length they thought they might be gathered by suspending a person over the cliff by a rope. They offered a Highland boy, who was near by, a handsome sum of money to undertake the difficult and dangerous task. The boy looked down into the awful abyss that yawned below, and shrunk from the undertaking; but the money was tempting. Could he confide in the strangers? Could he venture his life in their hands? He felt that he could not; but he thought of his father, and, looking once more at the cliff, and then at the proffered reward, his eyes brightened, and he exclaimed: "I'll go if my father holds the rope." Beautiful illustration of the nature of faith.

Faith builds a bridge from this world to the next.

—Dr. Young.

To be trusted is perhaps a greater compliment than to be loved.

He who believes in nobody knows that he himself is not to be trusted.

—Auerbach.

Trust not him that hath once broken faith.

—Shakespeare.

It goes a great way toward making a man faithful, to let him understand that you think him so.

—Seneca.

All that a man gets by being untruthful is, that he is not believed when he speaks the truth.

Telling an untruth is like leaving the highway and going into a tangled forest. You know not how long it will take you to get back, or how much you will suffer from the thorns and briers in the wild woods.

There is no greater mistake in social life than indulging in over-familiarity. Intercourse, even between intimate friends, should have some dignity about it.

A family is a little world within doors; the miniature resemblance of the great world without.

—J. A. James.

Where can one be happier than in the bosom of his family?

—Young.

We are all here—Father, mother, sister, brother,All who hold each other dear.Each chair is filled, we're all at home;To-night let no stranger come.It is not often thus aroundOur old, familiar hearth we're foundBlessed, then, the meeting and the spot:For once be every care forgot;Let gentle peace assert her power,And kind affection rule the hour:We're all, all here.

—Charles Sprague.

Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been—A sound which makes us linger;—yet—farewell.

—Byron.

If thou dost bid thy friend farewell,But for one night though that farewell may be,Press thou his hand in thine.How canst thou tell how far from theeFate or caprice may lead his steps ere that to-morrow comes?Men have been known lightly to turn the corner of a street,And days have grown to months,And months to lagging years, ere theyHave looked in loving eyes again....Yea, find thou always time to say some earnest wordBetween the idle talk, lest with thee henceforth,Night and day, regret should walk.

—Unknown.

It is a common complaint that the farm and farm life are not appreciated by our people. We long for the more elegant pursuits, or the ways and fashions, of the town. But the farmer has the most sane and natural occupation, and ought to find it sweeter, if less highly seasoned, than any other. He alone, strictly speaking, has a home. How many ties, how many resources, he has!—his friendship with his cattle, his team, his dog, his trees; the satisfaction in his growing crops, in his improved fields; his intimacy with nature, with bird and beast, and with the quickening elemental forces; his co-operations with the cloud, the sun, the seasons, heat, wind, rain, frost. It humbles him, teaches him patience and reverence. Cling to the farm, make much of it, put yourself into it, bestow your heart and brain upon it.

—John Burroughs.

Shun thou seats in the shade, nor sleep till the dawn! in the seasonWhen it is harvest-time, and your skin is parched in the sunshine.

How beautiful is the following picture by Caroline Anne Bowles, only child of Captain Charles Bowles, of Blackland, England. Born 1787:

My father loved the patient angler's art,And many a summer's day, from early mornTo latest evening, by some streamlet's side,We two have tarried; strange companionship!A sad and silent man; a joyous child!Yet those were days as I recall them nowSupremely happy. Silent though he was,My father's eyes were often on his childTenderly eloquent—and his few wordsWere kind and gentle. Never angry toneRepulsed me if I broke upon his thoughtsWith childish question. But I learned at last,Learned intuitively to hold my peace.When the dark hour was on him, and deep sighsSpoke the perturbed spirit—only thenI crept a little closer to his side,And stole my hand in his, or on his armLaid my cheek softly: till the simple wileWon on his sad abstraction, and he turnedWith a faint smile, and sighed and shook his head,Stooping toward me; so I reached at lastMine arm about his neck and clasped it close,Printing his pale brow with a silent kiss.

—From Littell's Living Age.

Love for a Father.—In the year 1773, a gentleman in England, whose health was rapidly declining, was advised by his physicians to go to Spa for the recovery of his health. Hisdaughters feared that those who had only motives entirely mercenary would not pay him that attention which he might expect from those who, from duty and affection united, would feel the greatest pleasure in ministering to his ease and comfort; they, therefore, resolved to accompany him. They proved that it was not a spirit of dissipation and gaiety that led them to the springs, for they were not to be seen in any of the gay and fashionable circles; they were never out of their father's company, and never stirred from home, except to attend him, either to take the air or drink the waters; in a word, they lived a most recluse life in the midst of a town then the resort of the most illustrious and fashionable personages of Europe. This exemplary attention to their father procured these three amiable sisters the admiration of all the visitors at Spa, and was the cause of their elevation to that rank in life to which their merits gave them so just a title. They were all married to noblemen: one to the Earl of Beverly, another to the Duke of Hamilton, and a third to the Duke of Northumberland. And it is justice to them to say that they reflected honor on their rank, rather than derived any from it.

—Arvine.

I have a Father!It needeth not that I should see His face,When each new day brings token of His grace.Who can deny the Power that brings to passThe yearly miracle of springing grass?Who can withhold allegiance, that seesThe harvest glory of the fruited trees?

Confessing a fault makes half amends.Denying one doubles it.

Not to repent of a fault, is to justify it.

—Pliny.

Whoever thinks a faultless one to seeThinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er will be.

—Pope.

Faults.—Every man has a bag hanging before him, in which he puts his neighbors' faults, and another behind him in which he stows his own.

—Shakespeare.

Better find one of our own faults,Than tenOf our neighbor's.

Lord Bolingbroke was one evening at a large party. Political subjects were talked of, and the conversation finally turned on the famous Duke of Marlborough. Every one had something to say against him, many blaming his avarice. Bolingbroke was silent. One of the company inquired, "How is it that you say nothing? You knew him better than all of us, and could tell us a good deal about him." Bolingbroke replied, "He was a great man, and I have forgotten all his faults."

Each should be sure of an untarnished name,Before he ventures others' faults to blame.

The greatest of faults, is to be conscious of none.

Wink at wee (little) faults; Your ain are muckle.

—Scotch.

He who asks timidly courts a refusal.

There is pleasure in meeting the eyes of one on whom you are going to confer a favor.

—La Bruyere.

A little figure glided through the hall."Is that you, Pet?" the words came tenderly.A sob—suppressed to let the answer fall,—"It isn't Pet, mama, it's only me."The quivering baby-lips! They had not meantTo utter any word that could plant a sting,But to that mother-heart a strange pang went;She heard, and stood like a convicted thing.One instant, and a happy little faceThrilled 'neath unwonted kisses rained above;And from that moment "Only Me" had placeAnd part with Pet in tender mother-love.

A little figure glided through the hall."Is that you, Pet?" the words came tenderly.A sob—suppressed to let the answer fall,—"It isn't Pet, mama, it's only me."

The quivering baby-lips! They had not meantTo utter any word that could plant a sting,But to that mother-heart a strange pang went;She heard, and stood like a convicted thing.

One instant, and a happy little faceThrilled 'neath unwonted kisses rained above;And from that moment "Only Me" had placeAnd part with Pet in tender mother-love.

We like better to see those on whom we confer benefits, than those, alas! from whom we receive them.

It is not the quantity of the meat but the cheerfulness of the guests, which makes the feast.

—Lord Clarendon.

Feast to-day with many makes fast to-morrow.

—Plautus.

Accustom early in your youthTo lay embargo on your mouth;And let no rarities inviteTo pall and glut your appetite;But check it always, and give o'erWith a desire of eating more;For where one dies by inanition,A thousand perish by repletion:To miss a meal sometimes is good,—It ventilates and cools the blood.

—Raynard.

Every young man has a fine season in his life when he will accept no office, and every young woman has the same in hers, when she will accept no husband; by and by they both change, and often take one another into the bargain.

—Richter.

He was—True as the needle to the pole,Or as the dial to the sun.

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