Part 24

What we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.--George Eliot.

~Despotism.~--It is difficult for power to avoid despotism. The possessors of rude health; the individualities cut out by a few strokes, solid for the very reason that they are all of a piece; the complete characters whose fibres have never been strained by a doubt; the minds that no questions disturb and no aspirations put out of breath,--these, the strong, are also the tyrants.--Countess de Gasparin.

There is something among men more capable of shaking despotic power than lightning, whirlwind, or earthquake; that is, the threatened indignation of the whole civilized world.--Daniel Webster.

~Destiny.~--The scape-goat which we make responsible for all our crimes and follies; a necessity which we set down for invincible, when we have no wish to strive against it.--Mrs. Balfour.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.--George Eliot.

~Detention.~--Never hold any one by the button or the hand, in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.--Chesterfield.

~Detraction.~--Happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending.--Shakespeare.

In some unlucky dispositions there is such an envious kind of pride that they cannot endure that any but themselves should be set forth for excellent; so that when they hear one justly praised they will either seek to dismount his virtues, or, if they be like a clear light, they will stab him with a but of detraction; as if there were something yet so foul as did obnubilate even his brightest glory. When their tongue cannot justly condemn him, they will leave him suspected by their silence.--Feltham.

~Dew.~--That same dew, which sometimes withers buds, was wont to swell, like round and orient pearls, stood now within the pretty flow'rets' eyes, like tears, that did their own disgrace bewail.--Shakespeare.

Earth's liquid jewelry, wrought of air.--P. J. Bailey.

~Diet.~--Regimen is better than physic. Every one should be his own physician. We ought to assist, and not to force nature: but more especially we should learn to suffer, grow old, and die. Some things are salutary, and others hurtful. Eat with moderation what you know by experience agrees with your constitution. Nothing is good for the body but what we can digest. What medicine can procure digestion? Exercise. What will recruit strength? Sleep. What will alleviate incurable evils? Patience.--Voltaire.

Free-livers on a small scale, who are prodigal within the compass of a guinea.--Washington Irving.

~Difficulties.~--The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.--Goethe.

The weak sinews become strong by their conflict with difficulties. Hope is born in the long night of watching and tears. Faith visits us in defeat and disappointment, amid the consciousness of earthly frailty and the crumbling tombstones of mortality.--Chapin.

How strangely easy difficult things are!--Charles Buxton.

~Diffidence.~--Nothing sinks a young man into low company, both of women and men, so surely as timidity and diffidence of himself. If he thinks that he shall not, he may depend upon it he will not, please. But with proper endeavors to please, and a degree of persuasion that he shall, it is almost certain that he will.--Chesterfield.

No congress, nor mob, nor guillotine, nor fire, nor all together, can avail, to cut out, burn, or destroy the offense of superiority in persons. The superiority in him is inferiority in me.--Emerson.

~Dignity.~--It is at once the thinnest and most effective of all the coverings under which duncedom sneaks and skulks. Most of the men of dignity, who awe or bore their more genial brethren, are simply men who possess the art of passing off their insensibility for wisdom, their dullness for depth, and of concealing imbecility of intellect under haughtiness of manner.--Whipple.

~Dirt.~--"Ignorance," says Ajax, "is a painless evil;" so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it.--George Eliot.

Martin, if dirt was trumps, what hands you would hold.--Lamb.

~Disappointment.~--Life often seems like a long shipwreck, of which the débris are friendship, glory, and love: the shores of existence are strewn with them.--Mme. de Staël.

O world! how many hopes thou dost engulf!--Alfred de Musset.

Thirsting for the golden fountain of the fable, from how many streams have we turned away, weary and in disgust!--Bulwer-Lytton.

We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts--not to hurt others.--George Eliot.

Ah! what seeds for a paradise I bore in my heart, of which birds of prey have robbed me.--Richter.

~Discourtesy.~--Discourtesy does not spring merely from one bad quality, but from several,--from foolish vanity, from ignorance of what is due to others, from indolence, from stupidity, from distraction of thought, from contempt of others, from jealousy.--La Bruyère.

~Discovery.~--Through every rift of discovery some seeming anomaly drops out of the darkness, and falls as a golden link in the great chain of order.--Chapin.

~Discretion.~--Be discreet in all things, and go render it unnecessary to be mysterious about any.--Wellington.