RUINED BY GOOD FORTUNE. "The fact is, I was ruined by having money left me," said the cobbler. "I only wish," observed Sam, "that some rich enemy 'ud try to vork my destruction that ere vay. let him?" HOW OPINION IS BIASSED. Wouldn't I Looking where others look, and conversing with the same things, we catch the charm which lured them. Napoleon said, "You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war." Talk much with any man of vigorous mind, and we acquire very fast the habit of looking at things in the same light, and on each occurrence we anticipate his thought. Emerson. THE ADVANTAGES OF SOCIAL CONVERSE. If men would permit their minds, like their children, to associate freely together-if they could agree to meet one another with smiles and frankness, instead of suspicion and defiance -the common stock of wisdom and happiness would be centupled. Landor. F A GOOD WIFE. The good wife is none of our dainty dames who love to appear in a variety of suits every day new, as if a good gown, like a stratagem in war, were to be used but once. But our good, wife sets up a sail according to the keel of her husband's estate; and if of high parentage, she doth not so remember what she was by birth, that she forgets what she is by match. A MAN OF PRINCIPLE. Fuller. He was one of the precise and tidy sort as puts their feet in little India rubber fire buckets, and never has no other bosom friend but hare skins; he saved up his money on principle, vore a clean shirt every other day on principle, and never spoke to any of his relations on principle, fear they should want to borrow money of him. THE RIGHT OF QUOTATION. Dickens. Of all the many, and, thanks to a free press, the ever-multiplying blessings attendant upon the " 'glorious constitution" of literature, not the least precious and profitable is the right of quotation. Blanchard. THE MARCH OF INTELLECT. What a world we live in! We are indeed a happy, elegant, moral, transcendent people. We have no masters, they are all principals; no shopmen, they are all assistants; no shops, they are all establishments; no gaolers, they are all governors; nobody is flogged in Bridewell, he merely receives the correction of the house; nobody is ever unable to pay his debts, he is only unable to meet his engagements; nobody is angry, he is only excited; nobody is cross, he is only nervous; lastly, nobody is drunk, the very utmost you can assert is, that he has taken his wine. Palgrave. APOPLEXY. A slight touch of apoplexy may be called a retaining fee on the part of death. Menage. THE INFLUENCE OF ENTHUSIASM. Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm ; it is the real allegory of the tale of Orpheus: it moves stones, it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it. Bulwer. TEMPERANCE. Temperance is reason's girdle and passion's bridle, the strength of the soul and the foundation of virtue. Jeremy Taylor. ERRARE EST HUMANUM. The best of us are but human-that is not a new truth, I confess, but yet people forget it every day of their lives-and I daresay there are many who are charitably thinking at this very moment that my parson ought not be playing at whist. All I can say to those rigid disciplinarians is," 'Every man has his favourite sin whist was Parson Dale's! ladies and gentlemen, what is yours?" Bulwer. MICAWBER'S HOUSEHOLD ECONOMY. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and—in short you are for ever floored. As I am! Dickens. CEREMONY NO COMPLIMENT. To dispense with ceremony is the most delicate mode of conferring a compliment. TIMBER. Bulwer. An excrescence on the face of the earth, placed there by Providence for the payment of debts. Orford. PRUDENCE IN CONVERSATION. He that cannot refrain from much speaking is like a city without walls, and less pains in the world a man cannot take, than to hold his tongue therefore if thou observest this rule in all assemblies, thou shalt seldom err: restrain thy choler, hearken much, and speak little; for the tongue is the instrument of the greatest good and greatest evil that is done in the world. Raleigh. VARIED FORMS OF ASCETICISM. Three principal forms of asceticism have existed in this weak world. Religious asceticism, being the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the sake (as supposed) of religion; seen chiefly in the middle ages. Military asceticism, being the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the |