Subjects for Thought

Tuapeka Times, Volume XX, Issue 1428, 11 February 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

Subjects for Thought

A large part of the failures, the disappointments, tbe inferior work, the poor thinking, the shallow rcascning, the lack of kindly feeling and sympathetic action which afflict mankind is due to the lack of nourishment afforded to the faculties. They are starved, consequently feeble and inefficient. Men plead the lack of time to enrich their minds, to stimulate their powers, to feed their moral natures. As well might the bird with drooping wing and declining strength plead that he had so many flights to take in mid-air that he had no time to pick the corn from the field or the fruit from the tree to sustain him to those flights. Education gives feitility of thought, copiousness of illustration, quickness, vigor, fancy, words, images, and illustrations ; it decorates every common thing, and gives the power of trifling without being undignified and absurd.

Wisdom, courage, honesly, and zeal are demanded of everyone on whom the burden of government Tests, whether separately or in conjunction with others. To fail in either of those requirements i 3 to fail in all.

Without art, a nation is a soulless body ; without science, a straying wanderer. Without warmth and light, nature cannot thrive nor humanity increase : the light and warmth of humanity is ;: art and science." Judge every man by what he cannot do, and you will find no man of ability. Judge every man by what he ha 3 accomplished in the fields with which he is familiar, and you gs! at bis real size.

It is an impressive trntb that sometimes in the very lowest forms of duty, les3 than which would rank a man as a villain, there is, nevertheless, the sublimest ascent of selfsacrifice.

The desire of fame betrays an ambitious man into indecencies that lessen his reputation ; he is still afraid lest any of his actions should bo thrown away in private. Cautiously avoid talking of the domestic affairs either of yourselves or of other people. Yours are nothing to them but tedious gossip ; theirs are nothing to you. One means very effectual for the preservation of health is a quiet and cheerful mind, not aO.licted with violent passions or distracted with immoderate farces.

Every man who can be a first-rate something has no right to be a fifth-rate something ; for a fifth-rate something is no better than a first-rate nothing.

Oh, glorious thought ! that lifts me above the power of time and chance, and tolls me that I cannot pass away, and leave no mark of my existence.

The glory of ancestors sheds a light around posterity ; it allows neither their good nor bad qualities to remain in obscinity.

Uss not evasions when called upon to do a good tliiqg, nor use excuses when you are reproached for doing a bad one. Thrift of time will repay you in afterlife with a usury of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams. He that does a bad thing in zeal for hi 3 friend burns the golden thread that ties their hearts.

In this world of change, naught which comes stars. and naught which goes is lost.

If you would not have affliction visit you twice listen at once to what it teaches.

The thorough-paced politician must laugh at the squeam'sbness of his conscience 3 and read it another lecture.

A present good maybe reasonably parted with upon a probable expectation ef a future good which is more excellent.

General, abstract truth is the most precious of all blessings ; without it man is blind, it is the eve of reason.

What is birth to a man if itshall be a stain to his dead ancestois to have left such an offspring.

Faith takes up the cross, love bends it to the soul, patience bears it to the end. Troops of furies marcb in the drunkard's triumphs.

Charles Reade.

There was really nothing difficult of comprehension in Charles Reade's nature. Those whose intercourse with him was closest were quick to discern the idiosyncrasies which hy at the bottom of bis wild flights of temper, his fierce aversions and belligerent demeanor toward all whom he conceived to bo his enemies. His most striking characteristic was an. utter inability to conceal his emotions, or restrain himself from the commission of any act to which these emotions prompted him. no could not, in fact, be brought to see tbe need of concealement or repression, lie totally failed to understand that any feeling required to be hidden, any thought left unspoken, or any impulse held in check. In these respects he remained a froward child to the end of his days. Tb.3 censures to which he consequentl} r exposed himself were inevitable, though often unjust. He was stigmatised as the embodiment of morbid and fatuous vanity. In truth, he was not a particle more vain than men of his position are ant to be. Reputations for modesty and humility may be conveniently earned by keeping one's self esteem in careful suppression. Reade had positive opinions as to his own merits, and did not hesitate to proclaim them. If other people's views clashed with his, it generally seemed desireable to him that they should be put down. But his vanity was by no means inordinate. His idea of the rank to which be was entitled was not materially different from that of the literary world at large. He took more than common pleasure in extolling thoso whom he recognised at his masters or his peers. He never dreamed of placing himself on a level with Dickens, to whom he accorded higher horn' 3 than later authorities are disposed to grant; and while he was opposed to Thackeray's processes, which he declared were not those of the true story teller, his esteem for the author of " Vanity Fair" was profound and outspoken. The writes of these pages stood beside him, in the common room at Maedaien College, on the morning when Thackeray's death was announced. Reade was deeply moved, although there had been virtually no acquaintance between the two men. " Now," he exclaimed, "I shall never ba able to tell him what I thought of him." Not long after, in the Garrick Club, he pointed out the place where Thackeray had been accustomed to sit of evenings. " I fancy he had a poor opinion of my work," said tho younger novelist, " but no matter. I half made up my mind, more than once, to go over and tell him what I felt and what we all owed him. But it would not have been understood. You can do such things in America ; we can't here— worse luck!" It must be admitted that he could not tolerate any comparison between himself — much less Dickens or Thackeray— and George Eliot, and that he invariably contested her right to even the third or fourth place among romance writere ; but bis dislike was primarily owing to what he considered her systematic violation of the laws of fiction. He insisted that whoever had a tale to tell should tell it with a straightforward directness and with strict avoidance of didactic digression. He had held the purely narrative faculty in such favor that he was incline'! to over-rate many who had no other posse ssion to boast of. In his estimation Wilkie Collins was without a rival as a weaver of plots, and 1113 voice was loud in laudation oC Biilwor's constructive ingenuity-. fie expressed the conviction that one or two of Miss Braddon's earliest works were thoroughly worthy to be classed with his own —a declaration which ought, by itself alone, to relieve him from the imputation of overweening conceit. No one could fairly accuse him of seeking to exalt himself at the expense of others -not even when he remonstrated asrainst the galling suggestions of George Eliot's superiority — but any attempt to depreciate him, or to eject Mm from the place he hal fought for and conquered, stuug him to fury.