Part 100

~Usefulness.~--Nothing in this world is so good as usefulness. It binds your fellow-creatures to you, and you to them; it tends to the improvement of your own character; and it gives you a real importance in society, much beyond what any artificial station can bestow.--Sir B. C. Brodie.

On the day of his death, in his eightieth year, Elliott, "the Apostle of the Indians," was found teaching an Indian child at his bed-side. "Why not rest from your labors now?" asked a friend. "Because," replied the venerable man, "I have prayed God to render me useful in my sphere, and He has heard my prayers; for now that I can no longer preach, He leaves me strength enough to teach this poor child the alphabet."--Rev. J. Chaplin.

There is but one virtue--the eternal sacrifice of self.--George Sand.

~Valentine.~--Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine! Great is thy name in the rubric. Like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other mitred father in the calendar.--Charles Lamb.

The fourteenth of February is a day sacred to St. Valentine! It was a very odd notion, alluded to by Shakespeare, that on this day birds begin to couple; hence, perhaps, arose the custom of sending on this day letters containing professions of love and affection.--Noah Webster.

~Valor.~--Valor gives awe, and promises protection to those who want heart or strength to defend themselves. This makes the authority of men among women, and that of a master buck in a numerous herd.--Sir W. Temple.

How strangely high endeavors may be blessed, where piety and valor jointly go.--Dryden.

Those who believe that the praises which arise from valor are superior to those which proceed from any other virtues have not considered.--Dryden.

~Vanity.~--Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity.--Bible.

Our vanities differ as our noses do: all conceit is not the same conceit, but varies in correspondence with the minutiæ of mental make in which one of us differs from another.--George Eliot.

One of the few things I have always most wondered at is, that there should be any such thing as human vanity. If I had any, I had enough to mortify it a few days ago; for I lost my mind for a whole day.--Pope.

Greater mischiefs happen often from folly, meanness, and vanity than from the greater sins of avarice and ambition.--Burke.

It is vanity which makes the rake at twenty, the worldly man at forty, and the retired man at sixty. We are apt to think that best in general for which we find ourselves best fitted in particular.--Pope.

O frail estate of human things.--Dryden.

The vainest woman is never thoroughly conscious of her beauty till she is loved by the man who sets her own passion vibrating in return.--George Eliot.

Vanity is the quicksand of reason.--George Sand.

To be vain is rather a mark of humility than pride. Vain men delight in telling what honors have been done them, what great company they have kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess that these honors were more than their due and such as their friends would not believe if they had not been told. Whereas a man truly proud thinks the greatest honors below his merits, and consequently scorns to boast. I, therefore, deliver it as a maxim, that whoever desires the character of a proud man ought to conceal his vanity.--Swift.

~Vexations.~--Petty vexations may at times be petty, but still they are vexations. The smallest and most inconsiderable annoyances are the most piercing. As small letters weary the eye most, so also the smallest affairs disturb us most.--Montaigne.

~Vice.~--As to the general design of providence, the two extremes of vice may serve (like two opposite biases) to keep up the balance of things. When we speak against one capital vice, we ought to speak against its opposite; the middle betwixt both is the point for virtue.--Pope.

This is the essential evil of vice; it debases a man.--Chapin.

It is only in some corner of the brain which we leave empty that Vice can obtain a lodging. When she knocks at your door be able to say: "No room for your ladyship: pass on."--Bulwer-Lytton.

I ne'er heard yet that any of these bolder vices wanted less impudence to gainsay what they did, than to perform it first.--Shakespeare.

Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not the occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear.--Burke.

One vice worn out makes us wiser than fifty tutors.--Bulwer-Lytton.

~Vicissitudes.~--We do not marvel at the sunrise of a joy, only at its sunset! Then, on the other hand, we are amazed at the commencement of a sorrow-storm; but that it should go off in gentle showers we think quite natural.--Richter.

Who ordered toil as the condition of life, ordered weariness, ordered sickness, ordered poverty, failure, success,--to this man a foremost place, to the other a nameless struggle with the crowd; to that a shameful fall, or paralyzed limb, or sudden accident; to each some work upon the ground he stands on, until he is laid beneath it.--Thackeray.

~Victory.~--Victory or Westminster Abbey.--Nelson.

Victory may be honorable to the arms, but shameful to the counsels, of a nation.--Bolingbroke.