Part 19

BRANDER MATTHEWS.

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"We are all dissatisfied. The only difference is that some of us sit down in the squalor of our dissatisfaction, while others make a ladder of it."

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Mrs. Julia Ward Howe said, in speaking of Longfellow, that "his personal charm was in a delicateness of mind that was truly cosmopolitan; he had a vivid appreciation of what was beautiful and noble, and he represented the purest taste and the most perfect feeling." Was there ever given a finer definition of a gentleman?

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"Set a watch over thy mouth, and keep the door of thy lips, for a tale-bearer is worse than a thief."

THE BIBLE.

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"He submits to be seen through a microscope who suffers himself to be caught in a passion."

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"It isn't what you wear in this life, gentlemen; it is how you wear it. It isn't so much what you do; it is how you do it. There are people who do tasteful things vulgarly, and vulgar things tastefully. Who was it that

'Kicked them downstairs with such very fine grace, They thought he was handing them up'?

"A sense of humor is one of the most precious gifts that can be vouchsafed to a human being. He is not necessarily a better man for having it, but he is a happier one. It renders him indifferent to good or bad fortune. It enables him to enjoy his own discomfiture. Blessed with this sense, he is never unduly elated or cast down. No one can ruffle his temper. No abuse disturbs his equanimity. Bores do not bore him. Humbugs do not humbug him. Solemn airs do not impose on him. Sentimental gush does not influence him. The follies of the moment have no hold on him."

Boston Journal.

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There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be but to boil an egg. Manners are the happy way of doing things; each one the stroke of genius or of love--now repeated and hardened into usage. Your manners are always under examination, and by committees little suspected--a police in citizen's clothes--but are awarding or denying you very high prizes when you least think of it.

EMERSON.

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My experience of life makes me sure of one truth, which I do not try to explain; that the sweetest happiness we ever know, the very wine of human life, comes not from love, but from sacrifice--from the effort to make others happy. This is as true to me as that my flesh will burn if I touch red-hot metal.

JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY.

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"A wise man will turn adverse criticism and malicious attacks to good account. He will consider carefully whether there is not in him some weakness or fault which, although he never discovered, was plain to the eye of his enemy. Many men profit more by the assaults of foes than by the kindness of friends."

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"Politeness is like an air cushion: there may be nothing in it, but it eases our jolts wonderfully."

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Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant truths from his enemies: they are ready enough to tell them. Good breeding never forgets that amour-propre is universal.

O. W. HOLMES.