THINGS THOUGHTFUL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17410, 12 December 1924, Page 6

THINGS THOUGHTFUL.

Even to smile at the unfortunate is to do an injury.—Cyrus the Great. When necessity ends, curiosity begins ; and no sooner are we supplied with everything that nature can demand that we sit down to contrive artificial appetites.—Johnson. The conscience is the most clastic material in the world. To-day you cannot, stretch it over a mole-liill ; tomorrow it hides a mountain.—-Chinese maxim. * • INFAMOUS . VICE. Vice is infamous, though in a prince; and virtue honourable, though in a peasant. Addison. TRY. TRY, TRY AGAIN. Nothing so difficult but that by diligence and practice it may be overcome. —La ti n Proverb. THE LONELIEST LONELINESS. What loneliness is more lonely than distrust ?—• George Eliot.. W l FE, FIIIENI >. COM PA NI ON. In marriage, prefer the person before wealth, virtue before beauty, and the mind before the body ; and then you have a wife, a friend, and a companion.- -Penn. SUBJECT FOR SUSPICION. As 1 grow older I become more lenient to the sins of frail humanity. The man who loudly denounces another I always suspect. A rightthinking man knows too much of crime t<; denounce a fellow-creature unheard. —Goethe. OUR OWN MAKING. The clouds that intercept the heavens from us come not from the

heavens but from the earth. W. S. Landor. PUFF. NOT A PROP. Conceit may puff a man up, but never prop him up.— Buskin. WHERE SLANDER FAILS. It often happens that those are the best people whose characters have been most injured by slanderers ; as we usually find that to Ik* the sweetest fruit which the birds have been pecking at.--Pope. TN YOUII OWN COIN. The universe pays every man in his own coin; if you smile, it smiles upon you in return ; if you sing, you will he invited into gay company; if you think, you will he entertained by thinkers ; and if you lore the world and earnestly seek for the good that is therein, it will pour into your lap the treasures of the earth. N. W. Zirn% THE ETERNITY OF NATURE. In the eternity of Nature, how recent our antiquities appear! The imagination is impatient of a cycle so short. Who can tell how many thousand years, every day. the clouds have shaded these fields with their purple, awning? The river, by whose banks for ages, has spread its crust of ice over the great, meadows, which, in ages, it had formed. But the little society of men who now. for a few years, fish in this river, plough the fields it washes, mow the grass and reap the corn, shortly shall hurry from, its hanks. as did their forefathers. “ Man s life.” said the Witan to the •Saxon king, “ is the sparrow that enters at a window, flutters round the house, and flies out at another, and none knoweth whence ho came, or whither he goes.” The more reason that wo should ufive to our being wliat permanence we can -that we should recall the past, and expect the future. -Emerson. RESPECT —LOVE. I have found that tihe men who are really the most fond of the ladies--who cherish for them the highest respect are seldom the most popular with the sex. Men of great assurance- - whose tongues arc lightly hung -who make words supply the place of ideas, and place compliment in the room o! sentiment- are their favourites. A due respect for women leads ro r» spectful action towards them ; and respect is mistaken by them for neglect or want of love.—Addison. EFFECTS OF CLEANLINESS. M ith* what care and attention do the feathered race wash themselves, and put their plumage in order ! -and how perfectly neat, clean, and elegant do they appear! Among the beasts of the field, we find that those which are the most cleanly are generally the most gay and cheerful or are distinguished by a certain air of tranquility and contentment, and singing birds are always remarkable for the neatness of their plumage. So great is the effect of cleanliness upon man that it extends even to liis'moral char-, aeter. \ irtue never dwelt long with filth , nor do 1 believe there ever was I a person scrupulously attentive to cleanliness who. was a consummate villain. -Count Rumford. ESCHEW PRIDE AND PRESUMPTION. M hen pride and presumption walk before, shame and loss follow very closely.—Louis XI. MUSK UPON EXPERIENC E. V\e should round every day of stirring action with an evening of thought

Me learn nothing of our experience except we muse upon it. Bovee. GREATEST OF FOOLS. Tile greatest of fools is he who imposes on himself, and thinks certainly he knows that which lie lias least s t u died. —Sha f te sb u r y. JUDGING WELL. Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well. Johnson. COMPANY. In the whole . course of my. life I never knew one man, of whatever condition soever, arrive to any degree of 1 reputation in the world., who made choice of or delighted ' in the. company or conversation of those who, in their qualities, were inferior, or in their I parts not much . .stfperior. to himself—■ Lord Clarendon. A LESSON FOR THE DULL. If those who are the enemies of innocent amusement had the direction of tho world they would take away the spring and youth, the former from the year, and the latter from human life.— Balzac. THOUGHT AND LABOUR. It is only by labour that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labour can be made happy. Rus-