Part 68

~News.~--Give to a gracious message an host of tongues; but let ill tidings tell themselves when they be felt.--Shakespeare.

~Newspapers.~--In these times we fight for ideas, and newspapers are our fortresses.--Heinrich Heine.

Before this century shall run out journalism will be the whole press. Mankind will write their book day by day, hour by hour, page by page. Thought will spread abroad with the rapidity of light; instantly conceived, instantly written, instantly understood at the extremities of the earth; it will spread from Pole to Pole, suddenly burning with the fervor of soul which made it burst forth; it will be the reign of the human mind in all its plenitude; it will not have time to ripen, to accumulate in the form of a book; the book will arrive too late; the only book possible from day to day is a newspaper.--Lamartine.

Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.--Napoleon.

They preach to the people daily, weekly; admonishing kings themselves; advising peace or war with an authority which only the first Reformers and a long-past class of Popes were possessed of; inflicting moral censure; imparting moral encouragement, consolation, edification; in all ways diligently "administering the discipline of the Church." It may be said, too, that in private disposition the new preachers somewhat resemble the mendicant Friars of old times; outwardly, full of holy zeal; inwardly, not without stratagem, and hunger for terrestrial things.--Carlyle.

These papers of the day have uses more adequate to the purposes of common life than more pompous and durable volumes.--Johnson.

~Night.~--Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.--Mrs. Barbauld.

The day is done, and the darkness falls from the wings of night.--Longfellow.

Sable-vested night, eldest of things.--Milton.

O mysterious night! Thou art not silent: many tongues hast thou.--Joanna Baillie.

Night, when deep sleep falleth on men.--Bible.

~No.~--No is a surly, honest fellow, speaks his mind rough and round at once.--Walter Scott.

Learn to say No! and it will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin.--Spurgeon.

The woman who really wishes to refuse contents herself with saying No. She who explains wants to be convinced.--Alfred de Musset.

~Nobility.~--Virtue is the first title of nobility.--Molière.

~Nonsense.~--Nonsense is to sense as shade to light--it heightens effect.--Fred. Saunders.

~Nothing.~--There is nothing useless to men of sense; clever people turn everything to account.--Fontaine.

Variety of mere nothings gives more pleasure than uniformity of something.--Richter.

~Novels.~--Novels are sweet. All people with healthy literary appetites love them--almost all women; a vast number of clever, hard-headed men,--Judges, bishops, chancellors, mathematicians,--are notorious novel readers, as well as young boys and sweet girls, and their kind, tender mothers.--Thackeray.

We must have books for recreation and entertainment, as well as books for instruction and for business; the former are agreeable, the latter useful, and the human mind requires both. The canon law and the codes of Justinian shall have due honor and reign at the universities, but Homer and Virgil need not therefore be banished. We will cultivate the olive and the vine, but without eradicating the myrtle and the rose.--Balzac.

A little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious, and low.--Swift.

~Novelty.~--The enormous influence of novelty--the way in which it quickens observation, sharpens sensation, and exalts sentiment--is not half enough taken note of by us, and is to me a very sorrowful matter. And yet, if we try to obtain perpetual change, change itself will become monotonous; and then we are reduced to that old despair, "If water chokes, what will you drink after it?" The two points of practical wisdom in the matter are, first, to be content with as little novelty as possible at a time; and secondly, to preserve, as as much possible, the sources of novelty.--Ruskin.

Novelty is the great-parent of pleasure.--South.

~Obedience.~--To obey is better than sacrifice.--Bible.

How will you find good? It is not a thing of choice, it is a river that flows from the foot of the Invisible Throne, and flows by the path of obedience.--George Eliot.

~Oblivion.~--Oblivion is the flower that grows best on graves.--George Sand.

The grave of human misery.--Alfred de Musset.

~Observation.~--It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit in life. Human knowledge is but an accumulation of small facts, made by successive generations of men,--the little bits of knowledge and experience carefully treasured up by them growing at length into a mighty pyramid.--Samuel Smiles.