Part 41

A coarse-grained powder, used by cross-grained people, playing at cross-grained purposes.--Marryatt.

Gunpowder is the emblem of politic revenge, for it biteth first, and barketh afterwards; the bullet being at the mark before the report is heard, so that it maketh a noise, not by way of warning, but of triumph.--Fuller.

~Habits.~--Habits are soon assumed; but when we strive to strip them off, 'tis being flayed alive.--Cowper.

Vicious habits are so odious and degrading that they transform the individual who practices them into an incarnate demon.--Cicero.

Unless the habit leads to happiness, the best habit is to contract none.--Zimmerman.

The law of the harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.--George D. Boardman.

Habit, if wisely and skillfully formed, becomes truly a second nature, as the common saying is; but unskillfully and unmethodically directed, it will be as it were the ape of nature, which imitates nothing to the life, but only clumsily and awkwardly.--Bacon.

That beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectably and unhappy men to live calmly.--George Eliot.

Habits are the daughters of action, but they nurse their mothers, and give birth to daughters after her image, more lovely and prosperous.--Jeremy Taylor.

~Hair.~--The hair is the finest ornament women have. Of old, virgins used to wear it loose, except when they were in mourning.--Luther.

Her head was bare, but for her native ornament of hair, which in a simple knot was tied above; sweet negligence, unheeded bait of love!--Dryden.

The robe which curious nature weaves to hang upon the head.--Dekker.

Robed in the long night of her deep hair.--Tennyson.

~Hand.~--Other parts of the body assist the speaker, but these speak themselves. By them we ask, we promise, we invoke, we dismiss, we threaten, we entreat, we deprecate; we express fear, joy, grief, our doubts, our assent, our penitence; we show moderation, profusion; we mark number and time.--Quintilian.

The Greeks adored their gods by the simple compliment of kissing their hands; and the Romans were treated as atheists if they would not perform the same act when they entered a temple. This custom, however, as a religious ceremony, declined with Paganism; but was continued as a salutation by inferiors to their superiors, or as a token of esteem among friends. At present it is only practiced as a mark of obedience from the subject to the sovereign, and by lovers, who are solicitous to preserve this ancient usage in its full power.--Disraeli.

~Handsome.~--They are as heaven made them, handsome enough if they be good enough; for handsome is that handsome does.--Goldsmith.

~Happiness.~--The foundation of domestic happiness is faith in the virtue of woman; the foundation of political happiness is confidence in the integrity of man; the foundation of all happiness, temporal and eternal, is reliance on the goodness of God.--Landor.

To remember happiness which cannot be restored is pain, but of a softened kind. Our recollections are unfortunately mingled with much that we deplore, and with many actions that we bitterly repent; still, in the most checkered life, I firmly think there are so many little rays of sunshine to look back upon that I do not believe any mortal would deliberately drain a goblet of the waters of Lethe if he had it in his power.--Dickens.

That man is never happy for the present is so true that all his relief from unhappiness is only forgetting himself for a little while. Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.--Johnson.

It is a lucky eel that escapes skinning. The best happiness will be to escape the worst misery.--George Eliot.

That all who are happy are equally happy is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher.--Johnson.

Happiness doats on her work, and is prodigal to her favorite. As one drop of water hath an attraction for another, so do felicities run into felicities.--Landor.

Sensations sweet, felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.--Wordsworth.

Great happiness is the fire ordeal of mankind, great misfortune only the trial by water; for the former opens a large extent of futurity, whereas the latter circumscribes or closes it.--Richter.

Prospective happiness is perhaps the only real happiness in the world.--Alfred de Musset.

Nature and individuals are generally best when they are happiest, and deserve heaven most when they have learnt rightly to enjoy it. Tears of sorrow are only pearls of inferior value, but tears of joy are pearls or diamonds of the first water.--Richter.

How many people I have seen who would have plucked cannon-balls out of the muzzles of guns with their bare hands, and yet had not courage enough to be happy.--Théophile Gautier.

All mankind are happier for having been happy, so that, if you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it.--Sydney Smith.