EDGE-TOOLS OF SPEECH SELECTED AND ARRANGED INDIANA UNIVERSITY BY MATURIN M. BALLOU Nor do apothegms only serve for ornament and delight, but also for action Copyright, 1886, BY MATURIN M. BALlou. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 1-5-42 A book which hath been culled from the flowers of all books.-GEORGE ELIOT. Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. Many will read the book before one thinks of quoting a passage. As soon as he has done this, that line will be quoted east and west. Then there are great ways of borrowing. Genius borrows nobly. - EMERSON. I would fain coin wisdom,— mould it, I mean, into maxims, proverbs, sentences, that can easily be retained and transmitted. — Joubert. PREFA CЕ. "EDGE-TOOLS OF SPEECH," like other books of quotation which the author has compiled for publication during the last twenty years, is the result of a nevervarying habit of appropriating pertinent and significant periods wherever found. Ancient and modern languages teem with happily expressed sentiments of more or less force and beauty, sufficiently individualized and excellent to warrant their reproduction and classification. It would seem that thoughts, like history, repeat themselves; and the Latin poet who declared there was no pithy saying which had not already been uttered, was not far wrong. "It is delightful," says Goethe, "to transport one's self into the spirit of the past, to see how a wise man has thought before us." It should be a pleasure to the appreciative reader, while recognizing their beauty, to cull these flowers of thought for the benefit of those who, less fortunate than himself, have not the time to indulge in literary pleasEmerson and Thackeray both asserted that there was nearly as much ability in making a happy application of another's thought as in its first conception. To be of greatest value quotations must be accurately given; but the readiest memory seldom retains more than the aggregated sense of an aphoristic utterance. To be able, therefore, to turn at once to a desired axiom or familiar thought and to give it verbatim, is an undoubted benefit to the student and littérateur. According to Dean Swift, abstracts, abridgments, summaries, etc., have the same use as burning-glasses, to collect the diffused rays of wit and learning, and make them point with warmth and quickness upon the reader's imagination. ures. The manner of expressing important truths in the form of striking utterances by brilliant authors, as adopted in the present volume, is such as most readily to secure both attention and conviction. It not only stimulates to reflection, but |