Part 22

That golden key that opes the palace of eternity.--Milton.

When death gives us a long lease of life, it takes as hostages all those whom we have loved.--Madame Necker.

Man makes a death which nature never made.--Young.

The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion--Death! Oh, thank God, all who see it, for that older fashion yet--of Immortality!--Dickens.

God's finger touched him, and he slept.--Tennyson.

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.--Bible.

Nature intends that, at fixed periods, men should succeed each other by the instrumentality of death. We shall never outwit Nature; we shall die as usual.--Fontenelle.

After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.--Shakespeare.

Flesh is but the glass which holds the dust that measures all our time, which also shall be crumbled into dust.--George Herbert.

Death expecteth thee everywhere; be wise, therefore, and expect death everywhere.--Quarles.

The world. Oh, the world is so sweet to the dying!--Schiller.

The world is full of resurrections. Every night that folds us up in darkness is a death; and those of you that have been out early, and have seen the first of the dawn, will know it,--the day rises out of the night like a being that has burst its tomb and escaped into life.--George MacDonald.

The dissolution of forms is no loss in the mass of matter.--Pliny.

Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of death.--Young.

~Debt.~--He that dies pays all debts.--Shakespeare.

Poverty is hard, but debt is horrible; a man might as well have a smoky house and a scolding wife, which are said to be the two worst evils of our life.--Spurgeon.

The first step in debt is like the first step in falsehood, almost involving the necessity of proceeding in the same course, debt following debt as lie follows lie. Haydon, the painter, dated his decline from the day on which he first borrowed money.--Samuel Smiles.

Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity.--Johnson.

That swamp [of debt] which tempts men towards it with such a pretty covering of flowers and verdure. It is wonderful how soon a man gets up to his chin there,--in a condition in which, spite of himself, he is forced to think chiefly of release, though he had a scheme of the universe in his soul.--George Eliot.

Youth is in danger until it learns to look upon debts as furies.--Bulwer-Lytton.

~Deceit.~--No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.--Hawthorne.

Idiots only may be cozened twice.--Dryden.

It is a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.--Fontaine.

There is less misery in being cheated than in that kind of wisdom which perceives, or thinks it perceives, that all mankind are cheats.--Chapin.

Like unto golden hooks that from the foolish fish their baits do hide.--Spenser.

Libertines are hideous spiders that often catch pretty butterflies.--Diderot.

~Decency.~--As beauty of body, with an agreeable carriage, pleases the eye, and that pleasure consists in that we observe all the parts with a certain elegance are proportioned to each other; so does decency of behavior which appears in our lives obtain the approbation of all with whom we converse, from the order, consistency, and moderation of our words and actions.--Steele.

Virtue and decency are so nearly related that it is difficult to separate them from each other but in our imagination.--Tully.