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CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE 
 
 Joseph Whitmore Barry 
 dramatic library 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 TWO FRIENDS 
 
 OF Cornell University 
 
 1934 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 2679.R6Z4 
 
 Glimpses and epigrams of Opie Read, 
 
 3 1924 022 499 739 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022499739 
 
GLIMPSES AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 OF 
 
 OPIE READ 
 
Opie Read 
 
GLIMPSES AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 OPIE READ 
 
 COMPILED BY 
 
 MARION LOWELL 
 
 **To he a wetl-favored man is the gift of fortune ^ hut to 
 write and read comes by nature." — Shakespeare. 
 
 George M. Hill Company 
 
 Chicago • - New Yprk 
 
 ^ 
 
 /^^ 
 
Copyright by 
 
 George M. Hill Company 
 
 January, 1902 
 
pretace 
 
 In the heart of the American con- 
 tinent, where a half century ago the 
 pioneer was the hero of the scene and 
 his brave axe, raised against the wilder- 
 ness, was the symbol of his mighty 
 purpose of conquest, has grown and 
 flourished and now stands before the 
 world's admiring recognition a school 
 of literary workers, unique in its char- 
 acteristics, surprising in its success and 
 startling in its promise for the future. 
 No longer do the old communities, in 
 the dignity of their ancient culture, 
 affect disdain of the thinkers and writ- 
 ers of the Great West, cynically prate 
 of their assumed crudities, or treat 
 them with indifference. These are not 
 now ignored in any land of Christen- 
 dom; they are recognized, at last, as 
 vii 
 
IPrefacc 
 
 constituting a remarkable school of lit- 
 erary productiveness — original, power- 
 ful, permanent. The materialism of 
 this new region of America has taken 
 to itself the comradeship of culture-, its 
 enterprise is supplemented by enthusi- 
 asm for the things of the spirit and by 
 high philanthropy in matters of the 
 mind and of morals; here the conspic- 
 uousness of the market place is sub- 
 dued by the increasing successes of 
 letters and the arts. 
 
 A leader in this recent development 
 is Opie Read, the author, who in the 
 last decade, from the unfailing re- 
 sources of his originality, with strong 
 philosophy and rarest analysis, has 
 delineated the human life throbbing 
 and striving around him; hung his 
 marvelous portrayals before the world; 
 for the subject of his loving art won 
 interest and respect, and mightily 
 helped to vindicate the merit and pos- 
 sibilities of our western literature, 
 viii 
 
preface 
 
 Himself a great personality — a char- 
 acter combining elements of rugged 
 intellectual strength and those of ex- 
 ceeding tenderness and fineness — he is 
 a noble type of the people among 
 whom he dwells. He is distinctively 
 a man of the West— strong, virile, 
 chivalric, gentle, a lover of his kind. 
 
 The books he has written — "A Ken- 
 tucky Colonel," "The Jucklins," all of 
 them — are signallized by his profound 
 knowledge of human nature, by a style 
 of expression, clear, beautiful, poetic, 
 vigorous, by wise moralizings and 
 philosophic views of life, by the in- 
 spiring motive of revealing to men 
 the goodness of the obscure and the 
 nobility of the lowly. He is a novelist 
 with a lofty purpose; he believes in 
 human nature; he is an optimist, who 
 sees good in all mankind — a fine demo- 
 crat who draws no false distinctions 
 among men, nor credits any one class 
 with all the virtues and charges another 
 ix 
 
IPreface 
 
 with all the faults of humanity. Each 
 of his books is a moral in itself and is 
 so kindly and naturally didactic that 
 the reader receives his instruction, not 
 conscious that he is being taught. 
 
 In the "Glimpses and Epigrams of 
 Opie Read" is his condensed philoso- 
 phy; here are presented the crystallized 
 conclusions of his wisdom, aided by 
 his human sympathies. This is the 
 book of the author's great thoughts, 
 and none can read it, without learning 
 wisdom, receiving inspiration for bet- 
 ter living and being grateful to the 
 benefactor who created it. 
 
 Luther Laflin Mills. 
 
The author is indebted to the courtesy 
 of Messrs. Laird & Lee, publishers, for 
 the permission of using sayings and 
 epigrams from the following copyright 
 works of Opie Read: 
 
 The Carpetbagger, 
 
 Old Ebenezer, 
 
 My Young Master, 
 
 The Jucklins, 
 
 On the Suwanee River, 
 
 The Colossus, 
 
 A Tennessee Judge, 
 
 Emmet Bonlore, 
 
 A Kentucky Colonel, 
 
 Len Gansett, 
 
 Tear in the Cup and Other Stories, 
 
 Wives of the Prophet. 
 
 XI 
 
The author is indebted to Messrs. 
 Rand, McNally & Co., Publishers, for 
 the permission of using sayings and 
 epigrams from the following copyright 
 works of Opie Reed: 
 
 In the Alamo, 
 
 Judge Elbridge, 
 
 A Yankee From the West, 
 
 An Arkansas Planter, 
 
 Up Terrapin River, 
 
 Waters of Caney Fork. 
 
 xiu 
 
1Fntro5ttction 
 
 In presenting these epigrammatic 
 sentences and sayings of the varied 
 characters that appear in the works 
 of Opie Read the writer believes that 
 within the pages of no other book can 
 be found keener wit, finer sentiment, 
 truer pathos or deeper philosophy — 
 for 
 
 "Great truths are portions of the soul of man, 
 Great souls are portions of Eternity ; 
 Each drop of blood that e'er through true 
 
 heart ran 
 With lofty message, ran for thee and me." 
 
 Marion Lowell. 
 
 XV 
 
Glimpses and Epigrams of 
 Opie Read 
 
 The pulpit was given to man, per- 
 haps; but the first promise of eternal 
 life came through a woman. 
 
 God rewards the man that seeks to 
 ease an old mother's heart. 
 
 Youth is often too much lacking in 
 judgment to estimate its surroundings 
 — the dangers that lie about. Talk 
 comes early but sense follows very 
 slowly along. 
 
 Ambition in the breast of the weak 
 is a sore rankler. 
 
 In the matter of acquaintanceship, 
 a few minutes can sometimes accom- 
 plish the work of years. 
 
©limpses anO lEpigrams 
 
 The truth is often hard to tell. It is 
 hard to handle because it is so strange. 
 
 A woman who devotedly loves a man 
 cannot see how it is possible for the 
 object of her affections to fail in the 
 attempt to win the love of a goddess. 
 
 Happiness always comes just a little 
 in advance of a disappointment. 
 
 How ruling is a faith; how it blinds 
 reason, blots out incredulity. 
 
 Two minutes can be an eternity; two 
 seconds of the soul's existence can be 
 a shoreless sea of time. 
 
 In the majority of cases it's the edu- 
 cated man who finds it hardest to make 
 an honest living; the man who has a 
 trained mind. 
 
 It is more respectable in the eye of 
 the world to be a thief than a pauper: 
 
 Even in grief the most unpretentious 
 of us shallow mortals are sometimes 
 
 2 
 
of (S)pfe 1Rea^ 
 
 proud-^proud that we have a nature 
 that almost refuses to give up a sorrow. 
 
 The love that we learn to bestow is 
 the easiest love to take away. 
 
 Faith makes a man religious; will 
 makes him strong. 
 
 A quick look, a mere glance, the 
 shortest sentences within the range of 
 human expression, but in that short 
 sentence a full book of meaning. 
 
 Don't fool along with affairs that are 
 hopelessly tangled. Strike at some- 
 thing else. 
 
 It is a sin to laugh at a trouble. 
 
 Endurance has its boundary lines. 
 
 The wise man looks to the future; 
 the weak man hugs the present. 
 
 Do not destroy your natural manhood 
 by talking to people whose every aim 
 is to be unnatural. 
 3 
 
Glimpses anD lEpigtams 
 
 Religion means a life of inward 
 humility and outward obedience. 
 
 Compliments are almost worthless 
 when they reach none but the flattered 
 ear. 
 
 To be somebody calls for sacrifice as 
 well as ability and determination. 
 
 Is wretchedness always tiptoeing in 
 the expectancy of some new pang? 
 
 Villainy holds a virtue when it tells 
 the truth. 
 
 There are transactions in which men 
 are bettered by being beaten. 
 
 There is more of conviction in silent 
 opposites than in noisy arguments. 
 
 The worry of a strong man is a sign 
 of danger. 
 
 That is true wisdom not indeed to 
 have nothing to say, but keeping the 
 something that fain would fly forth. 
 4 
 
of ©pte 1Rea^ 
 
 It pays to let revenge go. 
 
 The coarse-grained man holds him- 
 self above the opinion of those far be- 
 low him, but a gentleman would value 
 the good will of a dog. 
 
 There never was a greater fallacy 
 than the supposition that all men were 
 born equal, inheriting the same amount 
 of original sin and capable of receiv- 
 ing the same degree of moral training. 
 
 Remember that in an irregularity 
 often lie some of the most precious 
 merits of this life. 
 
 A man's gone if he lets his so-called 
 friend run to him with discourage- 
 ments. 
 
 Even dignity sometimes stands in 
 need of advice. 
 
 The youth whose promise in life em- 
 braces the prospect of a broad scope 
 should be taught that at the end of it 
 5 
 
Glimpses ant) ^Epigrams 
 
 all — this alluring rainbow — lies disap- 
 pointment. 
 
 I hold that the Lord didn't make one 
 man for another man to run over. 
 
 What is more elastic than a promise 
 to wed? 
 
 Man may be walking pleasantly with 
 prosperity hooked upon his arm, talk- 
 ing of the deeds they are to perform in 
 common, when up gallops misfortune 
 on a horse, and that is the end. 
 
 How harder than a rock is human 
 justice 
 
 Some men might argue that it is 
 difficult if not impossible for a failure 
 to become a success, but all astonishing 
 success has come out of previous fail- 
 ure. 
 
 A trial of joy is the easiest trial to 
 bear. 
 
 Pity is not akin to love. 
 6 
 
of ©pie iReaD 
 
 Nature despises the weak. 
 Kindness is not always the truth 
 Does nature ever forgive? 
 It is awful to be companionless. 
 
 We are more meditative when we 
 have been close to nature and that 
 always gives us a sort of spiritual help. 
 
 The ancient philosophers, counseling 
 contentment of the mind,, had money 
 loaned out at interest. It was no won- 
 der that they could be contented, and, 
 after all, they held the right idea of 
 life: money first and philosophy after- 
 ward. 
 
 There is true religion in every phase 
 of art. 
 
 The strong man may be overthrown 
 by the hoard of weaklings that envy 
 has set against him. 
 
 Ardent yearning is but a spirit of 
 ambitious conquest. 
 7 
 
Glimpses and lEptdcams 
 
 ft 
 
 To resent an insult is sometimes more 
 of a scandal than to let it pass. 
 
 Earnestness is genius. 
 
 Next in importance to the discovery 
 of genius itself, is the discovery that 
 genius is picking its way along the 
 briary path of love, lifting a thorny 
 bough in bloom to peep blushingly 
 from a hiding place or boldly to tear 
 through the branches out into the open 
 and in honest resentment defy the won- 
 dering gaze of the common eye. 
 
 The only progressive force in the 
 human family is earnestness. 
 
 A trouble aired is lighter for the air- 
 ing. It is the secret trouble that eats 
 the heart. 
 
 Time and the something that bright- 
 ens hopes and softens fears gradually 
 soothes affliction. 
 
 A confession of ignorance is a step 
 toward wisdom. 
 
 8 
 
of ©pie IReaJ) 
 
 To enjoy a principle we must share it 
 with a friend. 
 
 Without a certain moral force there 
 can be no real and lasting achievement. 
 
 Apathy, the sure follower of enthusi- 
 asm. 
 
 The soul of mirth is a sly mischief. 
 
 The devil titters when men argue. 
 
 A rocking-chair is a remembrancer 
 of a mother's affection. 
 
 A man is truest to himself when he 
 performs some sort of labor no matter 
 v/hether it is digging in the ground or 
 expounding a philosophy. 
 
 The province of greatness is not to 
 enshroud but to simplify. 
 
 Love lights a hundred torches in the 
 soul of man. 
 
 Without failure the world could 
 never have realized one of its most pre- 
 cious virtues — perseverance. 
 9 
 
Glimpses and Epigrams 
 
 A gentleman can, at all times, stand 
 in smiling conquest above a tough. 
 
 We may tie a man's hands and feet 
 but we cannot bind him so fast that he 
 may not slip into slumber. 
 
 While a gentleman respects age, he 
 cannot permit age to humiliate him. 
 
 A marriage tie cannot hold an un- 
 willing mind. 
 
 There should be a difference between 
 the action of a man who is preaching 
 and one engaged in getting out saw- 
 logs. 
 
 You must not be a cynic — it is an 
 acknowledgment of a failure. 
 
 Drink, — the devil's sympathy, prom- 
 ises heaven, but slippers the foot — that 
 treads its way to hell. 
 
 A close acquaintance with a few 
 masterful books is oftener better than a 
 more pretentious education. 
 10 
 
of ©pie IReaO 
 
 How weak it is to sin and how strong 
 to forgive. 
 
 We sometimes fight against happi- 
 ness. 
 
 There is virtue in even a rebellious 
 strength. 
 
 Human nature respects exclusiveness. 
 
 Aristocracy hampered by extreme 
 stinginess would cut but a poor figure. 
 
 There must be a titter in hell when 
 at last man, sore and crushed, resolves 
 to do his duty. 
 
 We often miss an end simply because 
 we are unable to discover it and because 
 we have no one to point it out. 
 
 There is some little truth in the wild- 
 est of speculation. 
 
 Nothing can be more charming than 
 the unconscious generosity of simple 
 folk. 
 
 II 
 
©limpses an& JEpigrams 
 
 The children of genius are cheapened 
 by frequent parade. 
 
 In the creation of the great tree there 
 had not been a sound; all has been the 
 noiseless will of God. 
 
 To accomplish a good we must use 
 the directest means. 
 
 Hallowed books were written by men 
 who lived when the ungodly sword and 
 the godly pen were at war against each 
 other. 
 
 Man's first trouble was to lose his 
 title to a garden. 
 
 Everything teaches us to practice 
 economy; it's the saving clause of 
 life. 
 
 It is sometimes a very difificult mat- 
 ter to explain the simplest mistake. 
 
 A consolation that comes with strife 
 consoles but poorly. 
 
 12 
 
of <S>pfe IReaC) 
 
 Falsehood gallops in riotous pleasure 
 when Truth is absent. 
 
 If a man has once stood as a servant, 
 he is, if at all sensitive, ever afterwards 
 afflicted with a sort of self-repression. 
 
 Industry is no sure sign of honesty; 
 "Worked like a thief," has become a 
 saying. 
 
 It is only on the stage that the villain 
 wears his principles stamped upon his 
 countenance. 
 
 In thoughtless sympathy a great 
 wrong may lie. 
 
 In impudence there may lie a good 
 intention and a piece of advice that 
 may not be bad. 
 
 To an unsettled mind a book is a sly 
 poison; the greatest of books are but 
 the records of trouble. 
 
 If you make an equal of a man who 
 is not your equal he is sure, sooner or 
 later, to insult you. 
 13 
 
Glimpses and JEpfgtams 
 
 Some great orators make you laugh 
 at your own sorrow and then compel 
 you to look with grief upon your own 
 laughter. 
 
 We are never so truthful as when we 
 forget self. 
 
 Frankness should always have judg- 
 ment behind it. 
 
 How time does stop and mock a 
 man's impatience! 
 
 We may learn how to express thought 
 but thought itself must be born in us. 
 
 Man's mind, you know, has two 
 lobes — one embracing the horse and 
 the other covering the human family 
 and other little things. 
 
 How many strange things love will 
 make a man say. 
 
 A man's a fool to leave his wife with 
 
 y ir 
 14 
 
 a misunderstanding in her head 
 
of <^pie IRead 
 
 Of what use is an ear when you turn 
 it from heart-felt praise to catch the 
 unsympathetic tones of average life? 
 
 Undue enthusiasm is a human weak- 
 ness. Nature's work, with God stand- 
 ing behind it, is orderly, except when 
 nature destroys, and then there is fury. 
 
 Sense not being so light of foot has a 
 hard time trying to overtake wordli- 
 ness and there are cases where it does 
 not succeed. 
 
 If we believed nothing except that 
 which is based upon reason so plain 
 that every man can see it, we would, 
 indeed, be an incredulous people. 
 
 Love comes once and is ever present 
 afterward. 
 
 Thought may come as a temptation; 
 to restrain it makes us virtuous. 
 
 Common ^ense always commands 
 respect, for nearly every rule that gov- 
 
 15 
 
Ollmpses and Bpidtams 
 
 erns the conduct of a man is founded 
 upon it. 
 
 A rainy day makes a companion 
 dearer to us, just as a dark night makes 
 our fire the brighter. 
 
 The most persistent explorer of 
 motive is woman. 
 
 One of man's greatest influences is 
 to inspire silence. 
 
 A law book without poetry behind it 
 is a heap of helpless dust. 
 
 There is in the world a genuineness 
 of hospitality, a kindness which makes 
 no calculation of a possible return of 
 favors. 
 
 Love knows a duty and often it 
 throws away the bow and nobly takes 
 up the yoke. 
 
 A reformed man may not be the best, 
 but he is never the worst. 
 i6 
 
of ©pie iReaD 
 
 Ah, trouble has many a mask, which 
 it puts from day to day upon our faces, 
 choosing those with deeper and yet 
 still deeper lines. But a young god of 
 happiness may spring up, with the com- 
 ing of a new surprise, tear off the 
 mask, and with a wing loaned by the 
 angel of love, fan back to youth the 
 aged countenance. 
 
 To an uneasy mind any suspicion is 
 reasonable. 
 
 In the coming glory of the day when 
 molten gold is poured from the black 
 furnaces of the night, even the most 
 doubtful must feel the spirit of the 
 world's creator; and it is then that the 
 heart takes fresh confidence. 
 
 The ignorant are those who have not 
 been taught to govern their emotions. 
 
 More than half our criticisms are 
 absurd. Why should I presume to 
 criticise something in an atmosphere 
 entirely different from mine? 
 17 
 
(Bifmpses anD Bpiarams 
 
 The soul does not steadily abide 
 within us, but wanders hither and 
 thirther, seeking rest; and when it re- 
 turns and lights this lonely temple for 
 a time, men say that we have been in- 
 spired. 
 
 The mind asks for its ambition; the 
 heart begs for its life. 
 
 Ah, the glory of being loved. But is 
 there not a greater glory,- the glory of 
 loving? Is not hunger for love a sel- 
 fishness? 
 
 Said the preacher: If there were but 
 one word to express all the qualities of 
 God I should select the word forgive- 
 ness. 
 
 What is the sea but the tears that 
 have been shed by the sorrowing chil- 
 dren of men? The sea has its tide and 
 what is that but the emotion, the grief- 
 swell that is still alive in those briny 
 drops? 
 
 i8 
 
of (S)pie HieaD 
 
 Reason is the off-spring of wisdom, 
 but it has always been a coward. 
 
 Nothing is much crueler than to 
 remind one of ingratitude; it is like 
 shooting from behind a rock; it is hav- 
 ing one completely at your mercy. 
 
 Was there ever a future that was not 
 prepared to take care of itself? And 
 is there a past that can be helped? 
 Then let us fasten' our mind to the 
 present. 
 
 To be wholly respectable a man must 
 give up many an enjoyment. 
 
 Having failed to achieve the highest 
 success in a chosen calling we can find 
 contentment in the middle ground of a 
 second choice, for then the heart has 
 had its day of suffering. 
 
 In matters that tend to lead the heart 
 astray we rarely think until too late, 
 and then each thought is an added 
 pain. 
 
 19 
 
©limpscs an& Epigrams 
 
 There are always two hopes walking 
 with a doubt, one on each side, but a 
 certainty walks alone. 
 
 We are sometimes afraid to feel an 
 unaccountable buoyancy lest it may 
 foretell a coming fall. I have known 
 Christians who had prayed for sanctity 
 in the sight of the Lord, to tremble at 
 happiness, afraid that it might be a 
 trap set by the devil. 
 
 Worry is a bad producer, but a good 
 critic. 
 
 When the teachings of a man's 
 mother leave him unfinished there isn't 
 a great deal of encouragement for the 
 wife. 
 
 Admiration of the powerful is felt 
 alike by the savage and the cultivated 
 man. 
 
 The night is the mother of many an 
 imp that the day refuses to father. 
 
 20 
 
of ®pie IRead 
 
 Do something, see something, feel 
 the throb rather than the dead pressure 
 of life. 
 
 We are putting too much weight on 
 what we can buy for money, unmindful 
 of the fact that the best things of this 
 life are free. Ah, but the trouble is 
 we don't seem to need the free things. 
 When we stand in real want of them 
 we die. 
 
 Love may be a divine essence, calm 
 as God-ordained peace, when it flows 
 from the heart, or it may be — wolfish. 
 
 Behind an error of the heart there 
 stands a sophist, a Libanius, to offer a 
 specious consolation — a voice ever 
 ready to say, "It was not your fault; 
 you do not create your own desires, 
 neither can you control them." 
 
 A man looks upon his wife as a part 
 of himself; and a man will. lie even to 
 himself. 
 
 21 
 
Glimpses and lEpigtams 
 
 When a man has once been a "serv- 
 ant" of the people, he is never satisfied 
 to fall back among the powerless "mas- 
 ters." 
 
 There is no greater bore than the 
 well-balanced man. He wears us out 
 with his evenness. 
 
 The mind is God-given, and every 
 good book bears the stamp of divinity. 
 Books are the poor man's riches — the 
 tramp's magnificent coach. With them 
 every man is a king; without them 
 every man is a slave. I had rather 
 live in prison where there are books, 
 than in a palace destitute of them. 
 They reduce a dreary and barren hour 
 into a minute of ripe delight. 
 
 Any tie of life that holds us to some 
 one, although at times its straining 
 may fall little short of agony, is better 
 far than slip-shod freedom from re- 
 sponsibility. 
 
 22 
 
ot ©pie "Keab 
 
 Love is sometimes invisible as well 
 as blind. 
 
 Mysticism is too grand to be grasped 
 at once. It is the key to all wisdom; 
 and there can be no sorrow when all 
 men are just and wise, for justice re- 
 lieves the wants of the body and wis- 
 dom will provide against grief. 
 
 There is something new in your 
 eyes, something I never saw there be- 
 fore — so tender that your bantering 
 words seem strangely to belie you. 
 Have you been gazing into sweet coun- 
 tenances? Or perhaps Doctor, you 
 have caught the reflection of the first 
 light in a baby's eyes. 
 
 Do you know what is the noblest 
 office that poetry exercises upon life? 
 It prevents the marriage of many a man 
 and woman; it demands love first, and 
 ':hen accepts marriage. 
 
 A confidence is more valuable when 
 we have fought to restrain it. 
 23 
 
Glimpses and ]£ptgrams 
 
 Behind all mystery there is power. 
 
 How dear stupid people are — they 
 are sometimes our dearest ones. 
 About the only thing they can do is 
 to make themselves dear. 
 
 Art is a selfishness; and so is every 
 high-born longing in the breast of man. 
 Philanthropy itself cannot escape the 
 accusation. To give to the needy flat- 
 ters the conscience. 
 
 It is always interesting to hear what 
 a stranger has to say of one's old 
 aquaintances — if he be inclined to say 
 mean things. 
 
 While men may build the houses 
 and make the laws, it is the whim that 
 makes the social atmosphere. 
 
 Who of us is appointed to set up the 
 standard and gauge of naturalness? 
 
 Plain truths are tiresome. They 
 never lend grace to a conversation. A 
 
 2.A 
 
of ©pie lRea& 
 
 truth, to be interesting, must be whim- 
 sical or so blunt that it jolts 
 
 Nothing can be madder than misled 
 labor. 
 
 Wisdom lends its conceit to the 
 aged. 
 
 Women are the first to show the con- 
 tempt with which wealth regards 
 poverty, the first to turn with resent- 
 ment upon former friends who have 
 been left in the race for riches, the 
 first to feel the overbearing spirit that 
 money stirs. 
 
 A vigorous nation buys and sells and 
 fights; but a nation that is threatened 
 with decay paints and begs. 
 
 Gentleness maybe a passion that has 
 sunk into a dreamy sleep. 
 
 However much we may respect our 
 own necessity to tell a lie, we do not 
 recognize the necessity in other people. 
 25 
 
(Glimpses anb Eptgrams 
 
 The lake seemed now a deep-blue 
 elegy, now a limpid lyric, varying in 
 hue with the shifting of a luminous 
 fleece-work, far above. 
 
 At best, happiness is only the bright 
 side of trouble. 
 
 I hate a man that sneers at my coun- 
 try; I pity the fool who says that any 
 responsibility is too great for us. All 
 thrones trembled when the Declaration 
 was signed. 
 
 A political contest would coarsen a 
 seraph. 
 
 The heart cannot express a geat joy 
 until it has felt a deep sorrow. 
 
 Things that we most doubt sometimes 
 come to pass, and then we wonder why 
 we should have questioned them. 
 
 There is always a ruffian standing 
 
 behind a tree in the dark, with club 
 
 lifted, on tip-toe, to knock an ambition 
 
 on the head. Ambition is a drunken- 
 
 26 
 
oT (S)pte iReat) 
 
 ness, but man is noblest when he is 
 fired by another sort of intoxication — 
 when he forgets himself in his love for 
 some other human being. 
 
 Things that come to us without a 
 fight are not worth having. The 
 world's only glory has come out of 
 battle. The Cross was useless till 
 blood was poured upon it. 
 
 It's a curse to be poor. It gives no 
 opportunity to be generous, sneers at 
 truth and calls virtue a foolish little 
 thing. It is the philosopher, with 
 money out at interest, that smiles upon 
 the contentment and blessedness of the 
 poor man. 
 
 Judgement, hope's cold critic. 
 
 The lines of art and the lines of bread 
 are rarely found on the same page. 
 
 The coward ever seems to fear the 
 light of an open eye quite as much as 
 he does the gleaming of a weapon. 
 2^ 
 
OUmpses and Bpfdtams 
 
 Love — souls waving in a perfumed 
 atmospliere, touching each other. 
 
 The sea sounded the deeper notes of 
 its endless opera. 
 
 What is it to die? Wise men prove 
 to their own satisfaction that there is 
 no life after death, but where is the 
 proof that shall satisfy me? I want 
 their proof. They have none. 
 
 In some distant place where the land 
 was dry a shower of rain had fallen, 
 and the air was quickened with the 
 coming of that dusty, delicious smell, 
 that reminiscent incense which more 
 than the perfume of flower or shrub 
 taijses us back to the lanes and the sweet 
 loitering places of youth. 
 
 The love that we learn to feel is just 
 as strong and is calmer and often 
 sweeter than the love that leaps out 
 from an ambush and smites us. 
 28 
 
ot ©pie iReaD 
 
 Let us not prattle a resentment in 
 palliation of a duty neglected. 
 
 This is an age in which a man may 
 not tell most truth but when he de- 
 mands that most truth shall be told. 
 Realism has been taken up as a fad. 
 But what is more real than the beauti- 
 ful? 
 
 Self-made men rarely worship the 
 past, for to them the past was hard and 
 gnarly. 
 
 Nothing is more inspiring than to see 
 innocence gazing upon nature. 
 
 On this earth, the strongest of all 
 claims is the sentimental claim; it js 
 delicious to know that some one has a 
 sentimental sight draft against you — a 
 judgment note of the heart. 
 
 Our happiness lies not in what others 
 think, but in what we feel. 
 29 
 
(Bltmpses and Bpigtams 
 
 We are mighty apt to believe that 
 there's great wisdom mixed up in a 
 mind we can't understand. Let a 
 preacher mystify us and we cry, "In- 
 spired!" 
 
 You can always gamble on a woman's 
 pride standing square against her inter- 
 est. 
 
 As long as the spirit of the child re- 
 mains with the man, he loves the 
 country. All children are fond of the 
 woods. The deep shade holds a mys- 
 tery. 
 
 The marriage veil is sometimes the 
 winding sheet of art. 
 
 The gospel of content builds poor- 
 houses. 
 
 The teacher may not be the father of 
 a thought held by the young but he is 
 the guardian of it. 
 
 How blinder than a bat in the sun- 
 light is human faith. How much proof, 
 30 
 
of ©pie IReaD 
 
 and how much argument are required 
 in a court of law, and yet in spiritual 
 things how thin a pretext man believes 
 to be a God-sent truth. 
 
 Trouble paints strong pictures. Ah, 
 but the paint eats the canvas. Trouble 
 uses no soft oil in its art. 
 
 The domain of silence is free. There 
 no claims are marked off; a privilege 
 awaits every comer. 
 
 I don't believe that the Creator found 
 it essential to set up an opposite to 
 himself. 
 
 Love — Ah, sweet and perfumed 
 poison, beyond the skill of the chem- 
 ist's analyzing eye: mystic contagion, 
 how defiant of all self-summoned power 
 to eradicate. Older than the first gray 
 hair on the head of new-made man, and 
 yet with a youth younger than the first 
 breath of a child; the scoff of the cold 
 
 31 
 
©Umpses an& Epigrams 
 
 in heart; the torturer of the strong; 
 the despair of the wise; the hope of 
 the fool; the glory of the world. 
 
 Ah, after this life, what then? To be 
 remembered. But what serves this 
 purpose? A perpetuation of our inter- 
 ests. After you, your son — the man 
 dies, but the name lives. No one of 
 any sensibility can look calmly on the 
 extinction of his name. 
 
 Trade is the realization of logic, and 
 success is the fruit of philosophy. 
 People wonder at the achievements of 
 a man whom they take to be ignorant; 
 but that man has a secret intelligence 
 somewhere, and if they could discover 
 it they would imitate him. The states- 
 man is but a business man. Behind 
 the great general is the nation's back- 
 bone, and that backbone is a financier. 
 
 Over our gravest misfortunes we do 
 not brood with words, but with pic- 
 tures. 
 
 32 
 
of ©pie IReaD 
 
 Behind one's own words is a flimsy 
 place to hide; they are a lattice-work 
 and men see through them. 
 
 Ah, many days must fall upon a sad 
 memory before it is sweetened. 
 
 Humor is the cream that rises to the 
 surface of the "milk of human kind- 
 ness." 
 
 Out of culture may come a pale 
 beauty, but a poet to be immortal must 
 be mad! 
 
 Poverty is the only really shrewd 
 fellow, the only genuine critic of life. 
 
 How hallowed and sun-glinted that 
 school life now seems to me. Many a 
 grave has been opened and closed, the 
 roots of many a greenbrier is embedded 
 in the ashes of a heart that was once 
 alive with fire, the fierce passion of life. 
 The sun is still shining, and the arch of 
 God's many-hued lithograph is still 
 seen in the sky, and hearts have fire 
 33 
 
Glimpses anO Epigrams 
 
 shut within them, but I wonder if the 
 sun is as bright as it was in the long 
 ago, if the rainbow is as purple, if the 
 fire in the heart is as glowing. Ah, and 
 I know that my grandchildren, in the 
 far away years to come, will lean feebly 
 upon the gate and wonder if the world 
 is as full of light as it was. Every 
 emotion you have felt you may know 
 has been felt by other men. It is this 
 that makes nearly all poetry seem old; 
 it is this that sends true poetry to the 
 human heart. 
 
 The ugly are not truer than the beau- 
 tiful. 
 
 Fortune is vested with a peculiar dis- 
 crimination. It appears more often to 
 favor the unjust than the just. Ability 
 and a life of constant wooing do not 
 always win success, for luck, the fac- 
 totum of fortune, often bestows in one 
 minute a success which a lifetime of 
 stubborn toil could not have achieved. 
 34 
 
ot <S>pte 1ReaD 
 
 Mathematics was the invention of 
 man, but speech was God-given. 
 
 Among those who have failed, we 
 often find the highest type of manhood. 
 
 A severe countenance is not a com- 
 munication from God, while laughter 
 might bespeak His holy presence. If 
 God is always frowning, why have we 
 flowers and streams that flash and sing 
 in the sunlight? Man must guard 
 against trivial things, it is true; but 
 good humor is not trivial — it is the 
 voice of health. 
 
 Justice ought to be stronger than 
 friendship or even blood relationship. 
 
 Sincerity expects a reward, as a 
 rule, and when a man is sincere at his 
 own expense, there is something about 
 him to admire. 
 
 In the sturdy and stubborn affairs of 
 life, there is no hope for the man who 
 believes that newness of expression is 
 35 
 
Glimpses an& Epigrams 
 
 an essential grace. If his originality 
 is striking, men will call him a crank; 
 if it is not striking they will say he is 
 dull. 
 
 To heal the sick is the most noble of 
 all arts — one that our Saviour prac- 
 ticed. 
 
 There must be a reserve force behind 
 all forms of art. It is art to conceal a 
 strength, to create the impression that 
 you are not doing your best. 
 
 A man thinks more of you in the 
 long run if you compel him to bow to 
 you than if you permit him to put his 
 arm on your shoulder. 
 
 It is better to find contentment, even 
 in a dream, than to snap our nerves in 
 two, straining to reach an impossible 
 happiness. 
 
 If a man is disposed by nature to do 
 right, the carrying out of his intentions 
 does not require a constant effort. 
 ■ 36 
 
of ©pie 1Rea5 
 
 Flattery is an exaggeration, but can 
 the most gifted flatterer exaggerate the 
 brightness of the sun? 
 
 Ah, how long success lies waiting, 
 and how rusty it has grown when some- 
 times we find it! 
 
 He] who has suffered in childhood, 
 and who in after life has walked hand 
 in hand with disappointment, and is 
 then not sensitive, is a brute. 
 
 But was there ever a man who, in the 
 very finest detail, lived a life of perfect 
 truth and freedom from all selfishness? 
 One, and He was nailed to the cross, 
 to die — for liars and thieves. 
 
 Your city belle may be cold, but she 
 cannot hope to rival the imperious 
 chilliness of the backwoods queen. 
 The rough homage of the man with his 
 trousers in his boots inspires more of 
 contemptuous loftiness in the mind of 
 the country belle f;han the polished 
 37 
 
Glimpses and Bptgrams 
 
 worship of a cavalier could instill in 
 the heart of a beauty celebrated by two 
 continents. 
 
 The first frost had fallen but it had 
 been so light that the cotton stalk 
 seemed to stand in surprise, not know- 
 ing whether to curl up its leaves in 
 obedience to the warning chill or to 
 hold up its head and open its top boll, 
 but the sycamore tree, more easily dis- 
 couraged, threw down its leaves and 
 waved its bare arms in the evening's 
 long-drawn sigh. 
 
 An actor is of the present and a 
 writer may be of the future. 
 
 I had rather stand high as the ex- 
 ponent of any art that I might choose 
 than to have all the money that could 
 be heaped about me. 
 
 Shakespeare — the Bible's wise 
 though sometimes sportive child. 
 38 
 
of ©pie iReao 
 
 Two great teachers, one a man of 
 books, of engaging fancy and bright 
 illustration; the other a child of nature 
 — a man who can feel the pulse of a 
 leaf, who can hear the beating heart of 
 a tree. 
 
 We are never tired of a man so long 
 as we can laugh at him. 
 
 Women may be persistent but they 
 e quick to recognize the impossible. 
 
 are 
 
 An acknowledgement of a fault is 
 not within itself virtue. The fool's 
 recourse is to call himself a fool, to up- 
 braid himself, curse himself and then 
 in graciousness to pardon himself. 
 You might as well reason with a rattle- 
 snake, striking at you — might as well 
 seek to temporize and argue with a dog 
 drooling hydrophobic foam, as to tell 
 the human heart what it ought to do. 
 Reason is a business matter and it can 
 make matches, but it cannot make love. 
 39 
 
Glimpses an5 Epigrams 
 
 Words are the trademarks of the 
 goods stored on the mind, and a flashy 
 expression proclaims the flimsy trinket. 
 
 She walked in advance of me holding 
 a light high above her head, and how 
 like an angel she looked, the darkness 
 parting to let her pass. 
 
 Her hair was as black as the outskirts 
 of a moonless night. 
 
 Rose-bushes, heavy with the senti- 
 ment of June, and wet with the sweet 
 moisture of a moon-lighted night, 
 drooped over the garden fences. The 
 mocking-bird, sleepless creature, sang 
 to his mate, who, quiet in the contem- 
 plation of the cares of approaching 
 maternity, sat on her nest. 
 
 Can we commit an innocent error, an 
 error that will lie asleep and never rise 
 up to confront us? 
 
 Repetition may make a sentiment 
 trite, but words spoken to encourage 
 40 
 
of (S>pie lRea& 
 
 an anxious heart do not lose their 
 freshness. 
 
 To a thoughtful mind there is more 
 of interest in decay than in progress. 
 "Decline and Fall" is a greater book 
 than could have been written on the 
 "Origin and Rise." 
 
 And it was oratory that spread the 
 great news of redemption — the native 
 force of Peter and the cultivated grace 
 of Paul. Yes, the men of order and of 
 the text book condemned Him to 
 death, but borne upon the eloquence 
 that flew from the heart of impulsive 
 man, His name was carried to the ends 
 of the earth. 
 
 Most any man can support a sorrow, 
 but the man who can restrain a joy has 
 shown the completest victory over self. 
 
 Let a man get sick and he feels that 
 the world is against him; let him get 
 well and wear poor clothes, and he will 
 41 
 
OUmpses an& Epigrams 
 
 find that the world do^n't think 
 enough of him to set itself against him 
 the world doesn't know him at all. 
 
 A sort of self-education makes a man 
 adventurous in his talk, when a more 
 systematic training might inflict him 
 with the dullness of precision. 
 
 Youth and love — when we grow out 
 of one and forget the other, there's not 
 much left to live for. 
 
 To desire commendation is of itself 
 a merit. 
 
 Once joke with a woman, and her 
 impudence — which she mistakes for wit 
 — leaps over all differences in ages. 
 
 Genius is the bloom that bursts out 
 at the top of commonplace humanity. 
 
 The victim of a king's displeasure is 
 not insignificant. 
 
 42 
 
ot ©pie 1Rea& 
 
 We haven't long to stay here, and 
 nothing sweetens our sojourn so much 
 as forgiveness. 
 
 "Madam," he said, "all that a mar- 
 ried woman wants with a church is to 
 hit her husband on the head with it." 
 
 The man who is not ready to assume 
 will never accomplish anything, and 
 from a lower station must be content 
 to contemplate the success of those 
 who were less delicate. 
 
 To elevate the stage is to make it 
 natural. Scenery often serves to em- 
 phasize an emptiness. 
 
 It all depends on the way you go at 
 a thing. Any calling can be made 
 offensive. 
 
 Just as a man thinks a woman is 
 stronger than a lion she tunes up and 
 cries. 
 
 43 
 
Glimpses ait& Bptgrams 
 
 There are times when a man would 
 be excusable for being the echo of the 
 devil. 
 
 At some time of life, we are all 
 enigmas unto ourselves; the mystery 
 of being, the ability to move, and the 
 marvelous something we call emotion, 
 startles us and drives us into a specu- 
 lative silence. 
 
 Soft, but forced, tones of kindness 
 burn worse than harshness. 
 
 Flattery was intended for women, 
 but they don't look for it as much as 
 men do, and are not so deeply affected 
 when they find it. 
 
 The real blessings of this life come 
 through justice and not through im- 
 pulsive mercy. 
 
 The sternly practical have termed 
 imagination a disease, a branch of 
 mistletoe marking the unsoundness of 
 the tree. 
 
 44 
 
of ®pie IReaC) 
 
 There is an atmosphere that pro- 
 motes gallantry, breeds a gentle pride 
 in self; and that gentle pride inspires 
 generosity. 
 
 It gets mighty tiresome when a man 
 is compelled to do everything except 
 something he feels like doing. 
 
 I don't know of anything more un- 
 reasonable than a warm-weather cold. 
 It's like a fellow with a high voice, 
 singing out of tune in church. 
 
 How quick the heart is to give all 
 nature a tint of its own hue. 
 
 Who is so frenzied a religionist as 
 the man that has been an infidel; who 
 is so visionary a spiritualist as one that 
 has turned from materialism? 
 
 The world seems to be holding its 
 breath, waiting for something to hap- 
 pen; it always appears so when there is 
 a lull in the air just at sunrise. 
 
 45 
 
Glimpses and JEpigtams 
 
 A simple kindness of heart is a wis- 
 dom, while viciousness, though it may 
 be possessed by a philosopher, is a 
 stupid ignorance. In my mind a satir- 
 ist is the most despicable creature that 
 lives. And history teaches us that he 
 dies abjectedly. Addison, holding 
 until the last his gracious faculties, 
 died a beautiful death; Dean Swift 
 rotted at the top. That part of a man 
 which tantalizes his fellow man, is 
 soonest to decay. The sting of a wasp 
 dies last, but the sting of a man dies 
 first. 
 
 We sometimes wound a life-long 
 friend with a word that would have no 
 effect upon a mere acquaintance. 
 
 Any woman can learn to play a 
 piano, to speak Italian and to make an 
 attempt at painting, but every woman 
 cannot be a good companion. 
 
 Reason, when slower than action, is 
 a miserable cripple. 
 46 
 
of ©pie IReaO 
 
 The best of us have cause to fear the 
 man we have placed too much confi- 
 dence in. We have made him our 
 master. 
 
 One of the penalties of wealth is that 
 a rich man is forced constantly to 
 fumble about in the dark, feeling for 
 some one whose touch may inspire con- 
 fidence.. 
 
 Books are the records of human suf- 
 fering. Every great book is an ache 
 from a heart and a pain-throb from a 
 brain. 
 
 A quick judgment is nearly always 
 wrong, yet it is better than a slow judg- 
 ment that allows itself to be imposed 
 upon. 
 
 What an error it is to suppose that 
 one can actually read character. 
 
 At times and in some men an under- 
 appraisal of self is a virtue, but more 
 47 
 
©Umpses an& JEpigrams 
 
 often it is a crime committed against 
 one's own chance of prosperity. The 
 people's candidate is the man who 
 loudest avows his fitness for the office. 
 
 We don't want brain enough to cover 
 the heart like cold ashes heaped on a 
 fire. 
 
 Unless a man has something to lift, 
 he can never find out how strong he is. 
 
 A weak man uses a weak word in 
 apology for a weak character. 
 
 Isn't it strange that a woman is so 
 bold with her husband and so backward 
 with her son — about expressing her 
 mind? 
 
 Perhaps it isn't intended that the 
 noblest shall always be the happiest. 
 
 An orator can be trained down to a 
 point too fine — it may weaken his pas- 
 sion, dim his fire with too much judg- 
 48 
 
of ©pie iRead 
 
 ment, hem him in with too much 
 criticism and compel him to dodge. I 
 think that it was Greek art that kept 
 Ben Jonson from creating great char- 
 acters. The perfection of Greek form 
 rendered it impossible for him to give 
 us anything save talking moralities. 
 
 Traveling unquestionably gathers 
 knowledge, but the man who reads has 
 ever a feeling that he is the proper 
 critic of the man who has simply ob- 
 served. 
 
 Happiness will not bear a close in- 
 spection; to be flawless it must be 
 viewed from a distance — we must look 
 forward to something longed for, or 
 backward to some time remembered. 
 
 The public is greedy for scandal, but 
 looks with suspicion and coldness upon 
 a correction. 
 
 Analysis is the dagger that lets the 
 life-blood out of fiction's heart. Ana- 
 49 
 
©limpses anD JEptgrams 
 
 lyze a passion — pick it to pieces, and it 
 blows away. We must not analyze an 
 oil painting, but must be satisfied with 
 art — with deception, for all art has 
 been termed sublime deception. 
 
 We all have a certain aim, a certain 
 idealistic end to accomplish. In youth 
 the bright mark is almost within reach, 
 but as we grow older, the mark, less 
 bright, recedes. Those who fancy that 
 they have reached the mark find after a 
 while that it is a delusion. 
 
 Let us say that sometimes the devil 
 giveth and the Lord taketh away. 
 
 How many people hear the songs of 
 birds and are too dull to be thrilled. 
 
 A wild vine, when it is taken from 
 the woods and planted in the yard, 
 where it is watered and cultivated, 
 grows very fast; faster than if it had 
 first come up in the yard. 
 50 
 
A man is often contented with his 
 misery and proud of his disgrace. 
 
 Why is a man so weak of decision 
 and so strong of regret? 
 
 Sometimes a beginning is so delight- 
 ful that we are afraid to look toward 
 the end. 
 
 If there comes a time when men are 
 worth their salt and women are worth 
 their pepper humanity will be well 
 seasoned. 
 
 Ah! how many hearts are aching for 
 a love that the law has edged about 
 with Duty! 
 
 The attractive fades, but how eternal 
 is the desolate! 
 
 A new community worships material 
 things; and if it pays tribute to an 
 idea, it must be that idea which ap- 
 peals quickest to the eye — to the com- 
 moner senses. 
 
 SI 
 
Olimpses an5 lEptgrams 
 
 Money professes great love for the 
 law, and not without cause. The rich 
 man thinks that the law is his; and the 
 poor man says, "It was not made for 
 me. 
 
 Our friends mark out a course for us, 
 and if we depart from it and do some- 
 thing better than their specifications 
 call for, they become our enemies. 
 
 It is not necessary to plant the tree 
 in order to enjoy the fruit. 
 
 The man who does not love the 
 woods would seek to crucify a god. 
 Poetry and soul do not demand that we 
 shall live there, but they do enforce a 
 reverence and a love for the grandeur 
 of a tree, and the beauty of a flower 
 that seems to have stolen away from 
 the gaze of the vulgar. The city roars 
 a groan, but the leaves sweetly mur- 
 mur; we chase a dollar along the side- 
 walk, but in the deep heaven of the 
 woods we feel the presence of God. 
 52 
 
of (^pie 1Rea& 
 
 Nature held up a pink rose in the 
 east, and the hill-tops were glowing, 
 while the valleys were yet dark. 
 
 I cannot conceive of a much grander 
 pleasure than to be able to speak well 
 of a man. Human nature is too much 
 inclined to cross a muddy street to tell 
 a man of a fault, rather than to stop 
 him on the sidewalk and tell him of a 
 virtue. 
 
 No matter who drops out, the affairs 
 of this life go on just the same. A 
 man becomes so identified with a busi- 
 ness that people think it couldn't be 
 run without him. He dies, and the 
 business — improves. 
 
 We have our struggles, but, like the 
 hero of Thermopylae when told that the 
 enemy's arrows were so thick that they 
 obscured the sun, we must congratulate 
 ourselves that we can fight in the 
 shade. When misfortunes stand thick, 
 we can knock more of them down at one 
 53 
 
Glimpses and Spigtams 
 
 blow. Samson could not have killed 
 so many of his enemies had they been 
 scattered. 
 
 Marriage is a noisy failure or a quiet 
 blessing. 
 
 The poets have said that the sweetest 
 music makes no sound. 
 
 Who is so humble as a proud woman 
 that loves? 
 
 Our friends instead of being able to 
 help us, are themselves in need of aid. 
 
 I have acquired one great piece of 
 knowledge, which, had I not received 
 a regular training, might have seemed 
 to me as the arrogance of ignorance, 
 and that is the fact that profound 
 knowledge hurts the imagination. Of 
 course I had read this — but ascribed it 
 to prejudice. I know now, however, 
 that it is true; and I would take care 
 not to over-educate the boy with an 
 S4 
 
of (S)pfe 1Rea& 
 
 instinct for art. His technique would 
 destroy his creation. And take it in 
 the matter of writing. I believe in cor- 
 rectness, but it is a fact that when a 
 writer becomes a purist he conforms 
 but does not create. After all, I be- 
 lieve that what's within a man will 
 come out regardless of his training. 
 There may be mute, inglorious Mil- 
 tons, but Art struggles for expression. 
 The German woman worked in a field 
 and had no books, but she brought 
 tears to the eyes of the Empress, with 
 a little poem, dug up out of the ground. 
 
 To forgive the weakness of a sin is 
 sometimes a strength; but sometimes 
 forgiveness is of itself a weakness, 
 almost a sin. 
 
 Bread may be the staff of life, but 
 art is the wing of the soul. 
 
 We are made narrow-minded by our 
 surroundings. When a man is gloomy 
 he thinks that the world has gone 
 
 55 
 
(Blimpses and JBviQvnms 
 
 wrong, that life is a mistake, that 
 creation took the wrong shoot from the 
 beginning; but let him be prosperous 
 and in good health, and he is then 
 ready meekly to acknowledge that God 
 is right. 
 
 Self-ridicule, the keen scalpel that 
 lances our swollen prominence, that 
 cuts through the skin and shows how 
 watery is the blood of our own narrow 
 yearning. 
 
 Man may reason and find conversion 
 in the light of his own argument; 
 ideas, like a flight of birds, may fill 
 this modern air; science, thought, ex- 
 actness of speech, precision of conduct, 
 a mountain top of intellectual training 
 may be reached— and yet, a strong 
 man's love, fashioned unconsciously 
 and then suddenly electrified with life, 
 is as much of a madness as it was when 
 the breath of Almighty creation had 
 just been breathed upon the earth. 
 56 
 
of ®pte 1Rea^ 
 
 There is more religion in a bird's 
 nest, in a shade sanctified by pure air, 
 than there is in a thousand churches; 
 there is more of the praise of God in 
 the song of one bird than there is in a 
 million human hallelujahs. 
 
 At last, worn out with serving as 
 pall-bearer to his own dead spirit, he 
 lay asleep — beflowered, roses on his 
 breast, a broken heart perfumed. 
 
 Ignorance always credits itself with 
 shrewdness. 
 
 If we die suddenly, at night, dream- 
 ing a sweet dream, we may continue 
 the dream through eternity — heaven. 
 If we die dreaming a troubled dream, 
 we may go on dreaming it after death 
 — hell Then let us strive to live con- 
 ducively to pleasant dreams. 
 
 Winning is easy to the man. that 
 wins. 
 
 57 
 
Olimpses anb Epigrams 
 
 A tender conscience has no more 
 show in business than a peg-leg has in 
 a foot-race. 
 
 There is no genius except it be 
 whole-souled desire and persistent 
 e£fo4-t. The genius works late. When 
 he goes to bed the oil in his lamp is 
 low. He sometimes works with the 
 energy of despair, and at last sees suc- 
 cess through a mist of tears. 
 
 The humorous air is a stumbling 
 block in the way of character reading. 
 A man can hide so much behind a 
 comical expression that his true nature 
 cannot be seen. 
 
 A woman has a contempt for the 
 hope of a man. She is a materialist; 
 she wants immediate results. 
 
 One may have ever so hairy an ear, 
 and yet the gossip of the neighborhood 
 will force its way in 
 58 
 
ot ©pie 1Rea^ 
 
 It is to fiction that we owe 'some of 
 our greatest blessings. The refine- 
 ment of Greece rested not upon her 
 realities, but upon her fancies, for all 
 her elegant realities grew out of her 
 great fancies. A rough man can tell 
 you a fact — rough men are full of facts 
 — but he cannot give you an ennobling 
 fancy. 
 
 In an adjustment of the human 
 heart's estate, to receive only friend- 
 ship in return for a loan of love is a 
 painful compromise. 
 
 A glimpse of the dawn-couch, pur- 
 ple with the sun's resurrection. 
 
 It is not by design that men become 
 philosophers; for to be a true philoso- 
 pher, one must have suffered. 
 
 While profound men grieve and 
 waste away over a crushing loss, the 
 man of simple faith finds rest. 
 59 
 
©limpses anD Epigrams 
 
 He held the position of professional 
 humorist, and thus he spoke of his call- 
 ing: "Humor requires quick descrip- 
 tion — a portrait made by one scratch 
 of the pen; an insight as sudden as a 
 flash, and yet must all along show a 
 profound respect for the reader's im- 
 agination. You must permit a man to 
 see a point, yet you must not show it 
 to him. You must leave him under the 
 impression that he is a discoverer. 
 Straight literature is altogether differ- 
 ent. You can yield to mood; you can 
 be gay or sad, light or heavy, prolix or 
 condensed; but the humorist-^the un- 
 fortunate painter whose colors must 
 always be bright — kills his gentler im- 
 pulses, and tickles the public's nose 
 with the perfumed feather of a red 
 bird." 
 
 Patience is the very perfection of in- 
 dustry. 
 
 A man needs something beyond his 
 needs; there are times when we look 
 60 
 
of ®pie iRead 
 
 for something aside from our own 
 natural forces; there are wants which 
 nature was ages in supplying. Look 
 at tobacco. The Greeks missed it as 
 they sat deep in the discussion of their 
 philosophy: They did not know what 
 it was they were missing — but they 
 knew that it was something and I 
 know it was tobacco. 
 
 Poetic possessions are the richest to 
 one who has a soul. 
 
 There were sounds, the creaking of 
 wagons and the tones of man, speaking 
 to caution his horses, going down a 
 steep hill, but these sounds served 
 only as the punctuation marks of 
 silence. 
 
 The mind could exist and be observ- 
 ing even if the heart were dead* Some 
 of the world's great men are heartless. 
 A man to be great in the esteem of the 
 public must be cold — he must con- 
 6i 
 
C5limpses anO Epigrams 
 
 stantly keep his mind on himself, must 
 sacrifice friends, smother emotion — he 
 must kill his heart. 
 
 There is no grasp strong enough to 
 hold a love that has beea given as a 
 duty. Love is sublimely selfish; it 
 doesn't take kindly to duty. Duty is 
 a yoke and love wants a bow. 
 
 We all have two selves, one self does 
 wrong, and the other self, which is a 
 sort of indulgent parent, suffers over 
 it. 
 
 A wise man is always a little afraid 
 that his friend may follow his advice. 
 
 The man who keeps his emotions 
 and his impulses under too much con- 
 trol, is a hypocrite. 
 
 That dear fallacy, that silken toga 
 in whicH many of us have wrapped our- 
 selves — the belief that a good score at 
 college means immediate success out 
 in the world. 
 
 62 
 
of ©pie 1Rea& 
 
 Fancy always playing must play well 
 at times. 
 
 In the country where the streams are 
 so pure that they look like strips of 
 sunshine, where the trees are so ancient 
 that one almost stan4s in awe of them, 
 where the moss, so old that it is gray, 
 and hanging from the rocks in the 
 ravine looks like venerable beards 
 growing on faces that have been har- 
 dened by years of trouble — in such a 
 country, even the most slouching 
 clown, walking as though stepping 
 over clods when plowing where the 
 ground breaks up hard, has in his un- 
 tutored heart a love of poetry. He 
 may not be able to read — may never 
 have heard the name of a son of gen- 
 ius, but in the evening, when he stands 
 on a purple "knob," watching the soul 
 of day sink out of sight in a far-away 
 valley, he is a poet. 
 
 It is in the love we give that we find 
 our happiness. 
 
 63 
 
<5Umpse0 an& Epigrams 
 
 With reason you catch a reasoner 
 here and there, but the people are 
 caught by entertainment, by word- 
 flights, by jolts, by unexpected utter- 
 ances. Reason with the average man 
 and you lead him to surmise what you 
 are going to say, and then he loses 
 respect for your intelligence. But 
 pour out words upon him, dazzle him 
 with pictures, and he thinks that he 
 sees an inspiration. 
 
 Ah, the old road, older than the lane, 
 the first pathway made by the foot of 
 man, bestrewn with the human heart's 
 first tender foibles, with the lamps of 
 man's earliest fancy burning here and 
 there and with darkness lying cold 
 between them — the uneven road of 
 love. 
 
 We must observe form and recognize 
 
 the rules which good taste has drawn, 
 
 but after all the finest form and the 
 
 most nearly perfect rule is an inborn 
 
 64 
 
of ©pie iReaD 
 
 judgment. The merest accident may 
 thrill a dull man with genius. 
 
 Nobody has so good an argument as 
 the scold. 
 
 What a reproach it is to a woman to 
 see a man think! She must stir him 
 up, scatter his faculties. 
 
 No matter how you may be situated, 
 remember that you are not a pioneer; 
 no human strain is new. 
 
 A novel-reader is never wholly a bad 
 man, for to be a lover of novels he 
 must enter into the soul of the work. 
 He must sympathize with the afflicted 
 and rejoice with the happy character. 
 
 To be young and to place the proper 
 estimate upon it — how magnificent! 
 
 Inspirations have their own time, and 
 we should be thankful for their coming 
 rather than to carp at their lateness. 
 65 
 
©Umpses ano Epigrams 
 
 Any heart that wants to be forgiven 
 is one of God's hearts. 
 
 Art drops on its worn knees and 
 prays to business, and literature begs 
 it for a mere nod. 
 
 In this world there are harder hearts 
 than hearts of oak, for through the 
 oaken heart there flows a gentle sap 
 that tips with velvet buds the winter- 
 stiffened twigs. 
 
 The shrewd business man, whose 
 success we all admire, cannot, in jus- 
 tice to his business, carry absolute truth 
 in one hand and a price-list in the 
 other. 
 
 A frown trailing the skirts of a smile. 
 
 Gratitude — a rarer quality than gen- 
 ius. 
 
 Nothing is wonderful. The mere 
 fact that a thing happens proves that 
 there is about it no element of the 
 66 
 
ot ©pte iRcnt> 
 
 marvelous. The strange thing is the 
 one that does not occur. When it does 
 occur it ceases to be strange. 
 
 I am not so much of a scientist that 
 I am a fool. No, but you are so much 
 of a fool that you are not a scientist. 
 
 In associating with the young the old 
 often catch the spirit of youth. The 
 young man helps the old man to think 
 of pleasant things. An old tree is 
 grander when a sapling grows beside 
 it. 
 
 Sweetness, purity and modesty — the 
 Divine Master could not give to a 
 woman three graces more beautiful. 
 
 Boys are taught to be honorable and 
 girls are taught to be virtuous. And 
 the boy is permitted to be honorable 
 without being virtuous. So therein 
 lies the social story of this life. 
 
 Religion, pure and holy though it 
 may be, must keep pace with the 
 67 
 
(Blimpses an& JEpigrams 
 
 shrewdness and the intelligence of the 
 world in order that it may protect itself 
 against the snares of the world. Inno- 
 cence is not safety; wisdom alone is 
 protection. 
 
 Faith is well enough, but simple faith 
 is the reverse of reason; faith bats its 
 eyes like an owl in the glare of a light. 
 
 This neighborhood was very much 
 like the rest of the world-lacking heart 
 only in places. 
 
 A mother may plan the marriage of 
 her daughter, for that is romantic, but 
 she looks with an anxious eye upon the 
 marriage of her son, for that is serious. 
 
 American aristocracy is the most 
 grinding of all aristocracies, for the 
 reason that a man's failure to reach its 
 grade is attributable to himself alone. 
 
 Inspiration is not of constant flame; 
 the fire dies down, and the coals are 
 covered with ashes, and it blazes not 
 68 
 
ot ®pte TRcnif 
 
 until more fuel is brought. Blow not 
 the coals; wait until the fueldoth come. 
 
 True rhetoric is the voice of God. 
 
 The devil deadens our senses with a 
 sweet perfume that he may better steal 
 the soul. 
 
 We meet many persons and become 
 well acquainted with them, and yet 
 never feel that they belong to our at- 
 mosphere. They are not necessary to 
 the story of our lives, and yet that 
 atmosphere of which they are not 
 really a part, would not be wholly 
 complete without them. They stand 
 ready for our side talks; sometimes 
 they even flip a sentiment at us, we 
 catch it, trim it with ribbons and hand 
 it back. They keep it; we forget. 
 
 Experience doesn't always make us 
 
 wise. It sometimes tends to weaken 
 
 rather than to make us strong. It 
 
 might make freshness stale; it is a thief 
 
 69 
 
Glimpses anD Epidtams 
 
 that steals enthusiasm; it enjoins 
 caution at the wrong time. 
 
 The night was hot, the slow air fum- 
 bled among the leaves. Far in the 
 sultry west was an occasional play of 
 lightning, the hot eye of day peeping 
 back into the sweltering night. 
 
 Moonbeams fell through the window, 
 a ladder of light upon which a spirit 
 might well descend to earth. 
 
 Sometimes the soul is impatient of 
 the body's dogged hold on life, and 
 steals away to view its future domain, 
 to draw in advance upon its coming 
 freedom — now lingering, now swifter 
 than a hawk, — and then it comes back 
 and we say that we have been absent- 
 minded. 
 
 Exact memory is not the vital part 
 of true culture; it is the absorption of 
 the idea rather than the catching of 
 the words. 
 
 70 
 
of ©pie IReaD 
 
 Sometimes a soothing spirit which 
 the sun could not evoke from its bound- 
 less fields of light comes out of the 
 dark bosom of a cloud. A bright day 
 promises so much, so builds our hopes, 
 that our keenest disappointments seem 
 to come on a radiant morning, but on 
 a dismal day, when nothing has been 
 promised, a straggling pleasure is acci- 
 dentally found and is pressed closer to 
 the senses because it was so unex- 
 pected. 
 
 The noblest quality of man is mercy; 
 the most godly quality of man is justice. 
 
 A woman's duty is not so clearly 
 marked cut now as it used to be. As 
 long as man was permitted to mark it 
 out her duty was clear enough — to him. 
 
 Successful men are often niggardly 
 of advice, while the prattling tongue 
 nearly always belongs to failure. 
 Therefore, when a successful man does 
 advise, heed him. 
 
 71 
 
Glimpses ant) Bpigrams 
 
 Happy is the man of old books. He 
 hears voices whose sweetness years 
 cannot destroy, whose bright eyes the 
 dust of ages cannot dim. 
 
 It requires a good deal of brain to 
 protect the heart. 
 
 In a man's surprise is a reflex of his 
 ignorance. 
 
 What is art? A semblance of truth 
 more beautiful than the truth. 
 
 The lover who seeks to be liberal is a 
 hypocrite, a sneak-thief robbing his 
 own heart. 
 
 The stake of the past and the gibbet 
 of the present are emblems of martyr- 
 dom. 
 
 It's raining now, rhythmic, poetry — 
 all poets have been as water. I will 
 class them for you. Keats, the rivulet; 
 Shelley, the brook; Byron, the creek; 
 Tennyson, the river; Wordsworth, the 
 72 
 
of ©pie IReaD 
 
 lake; Milton, the bay; and Shakes- 
 peare, the waters of all the world, the 
 sea. 
 
 When we meet one with a noble pur- 
 pose we feel stronger, though we may 
 not know what that purpose is. 
 
 There is a difference between forget- 
 ting a thing and never having known 
 it. But how natural it is for a man 
 who never knew to say, "I forget." 
 
 "My dear" is the first link in the 
 chain of bondage 
 
 Christ died to save every woman 
 Snyhow, and every man who does the 
 best he can. 
 
 How rare it is that we find a soothing 
 truth. When I was a child, I had to 
 lie to protect the skin on my back, and 
 I imagined that truth was a set of stiff 
 bristles rising up to invite punishment. 
 
 n 
 
Glimpses an& Bptgtams 
 
 Even a trick that causes a poor heart 
 to laugh is better than many a cool 
 virtue that goes about rebuking sin. 
 
 When a man becomes known as a 
 good fellow the roadway that leads to 
 success is closed to him. When 
 favors are to be distributed they are 
 given to other people. 
 
 We may be modest observers of 
 action, but we are egotistic readers of 
 motive. 
 
 How complete a scoundrel a man 
 may be, and yet hold the admiration 
 of honest women. 
 
 It is pleasant to be among other peo- 
 ple who have not caught from the world 
 the trick of concealing their feelings 
 and who love simple music. 
 
 A lonesome song is the spirit of 
 patience. 
 
 There is always some sort of hope as 
 long as we are interested in ourselves. 
 74 
 
of ©pie IReaJ) 
 
 At the threshold of a new venture, 
 we look back upon the hopes that led 
 us into other undertakings and upon 
 many a failure we bestow a look of 
 tender but half reproachful forgiveness. 
 
 You have a habit of silence that en- 
 forces respect for your talk. A talka- 
 tive man utters many an unheeded 
 truth. 
 
 The poet is not the only man who 
 really lives, — those who worship with 
 him, live with him. 
 
 The caves and nooks and quiet pools 
 that lay along the stream are dreamful; 
 there was not a mighty rock nor bold 
 surprising bluff to startle one with its 
 grandeur, but at the end of every view 
 there was the promise of a resting place 
 and never was the fancy led to disap- 
 pointment. Now gurgle and drip, now 
 perfect calm, the elm leaf motionless, 
 the bird dreaming. And had history 
 marched down that quiet vale a thou- 
 75 
 
Glimpses an& Epigrams 
 
 sand years ago and tinged the water 
 with the blood of man, how sweetly 
 verse would sing its beauty, from what 
 distances would come the poet and the 
 artist, the rich man seeking rest — all 
 would flock to marvel and to praise. 
 Ah, we care but little for what nature 
 has done, until man has placed his 
 stamp upon it. 
 
 Selfishness, extreme, unyielding sel- 
 fishness, is the essential oil of success. 
 
 If a poet would look to his fame let 
 him die when there is no other news. 
 
 If hope worked half the time there 
 wouldn't be one-third as much trouble 
 in the world. 
 
 Love itself is a divine outlaw. It 
 tramples upon reason. Man has sought 
 to regulate it, but he cannot. The 
 cynic has striven to kill it with ridi- 
 cule, but it has seized the cynic and 
 76 
 
of ©pie iReaD 
 
 has made his soul beg for mercy. God 
 does not restrain it, for it is a part of 
 Himself. 
 
 Unless we look for cares they some- 
 times pass unobserved and unfelt. 
 
 The angels smile when we are kind 
 to a bird. 
 
 A woman will pardon a thing that's 
 rash where she would look with scorn 
 upon a gentle stupidity. 
 
 A man may stand shoulder to shoul- 
 der with the law and yet wound his 
 own conscience. 
 
 Love does not cast out fear;- love in- 
 vites fear; fear is love's companion. 
 
 What infatuation did common sense 
 ever sanction? The man who could 
 love wisely was a mere arithmetician, 
 a shrewd figurer, an exactor of weights 
 and measures; the man with a deeper, 
 warmer, purer soul loved heedlessly. 
 17 
 
Glimpses and Epigrams 
 
 How natural it is that the stupid 
 should be dignified? 
 
 If a man be not vain, it is hard for 
 him to believe that a beautiful woman 
 loves him. 
 
 An old scholar looks with dread upon 
 any sort of change. 
 
 What is that something which pilots 
 men into the achievement of success? 
 It cannot be the mind for wise men 
 often strive in vain for recognition. 
 
 There is bravado in confessing to the 
 world, but confessing to a friend is a 
 virtue. 
 
 Nature is a thoughtless spendthrift; 
 and love is a spendthrift; the Galilean 
 was a spendthrift, for at the hearts of 
 all men he threw His jewels — the 
 rubies and the diamonds of his love 
 In the eyes of society, of the law, he 
 was a vagabond, and I love him for 
 that. He was the truest of all Bohe- 
 78 
 
ot ©pie IReaO 
 
 mians, a wandering genius, looking for 
 a place to rest His head. He touched a 
 vice and glorified it into a virtue He 
 was not looking for the economical, 
 the righteous; He frowned upon rules; 
 conscious virtues. And instead of 
 making me a bigot, it has made me 
 liberal. I can scarcely bring myself 
 to blame a man who does evil. I feel 
 that it is not entirely his fault, for the 
 love that I feel has been withheld from 
 him. 
 
 Honesty among men is much more 
 rare than virtue among women. 
 
 A man can do physical labor and, 
 when he puts his tools aside, speak of 
 subjects that annoy him; a man 
 engaged in mental work cannot put his 
 tools aside. 
 
 It is difficult to look through the daz- 
 zle and estimate the intelligence of a 
 queen. 
 
 79 
 
Glimpses an& Bptgtams 
 
 There has never been a great contem- 
 poraneous literature, for the narrow 
 lines of the critic run into the past. It 
 takes us almost a generation to dis- 
 cover that a writer is original; at first 
 we call him crude, wanting in art; but 
 afterward we may find that what we 
 took to be a lack of finish is a new art, 
 stronger, bolder than the old art. 
 
 In nearly all wisdom there is a tinc- 
 ture of cynicism. 
 
 Work has its degrees, idleness has 
 not. We labor hard or easily, but 
 when we are idle we simply rust. 
 
 To listen and to muse was more rest- 
 ful than to sleep. The first conscious- 
 ness of life could not have been sweeter; 
 the low roof, the patter, the luxurious 
 bed and the soft air, scented with the 
 midnight fragrance of the woods. 
 
 Give conscience time and it will find 
 an easy bed, and yet the softest bed 
 80 
 
of Qvie IReat) 
 
 may have grown hard ere morning 
 comes. 
 
 A luxury brings with it the memory 
 of a privation. 
 
 Love is by turns a sweet and anxious 
 selfishness, while friendship is a broad- 
 spread generosity. 
 
 Keen intelligence is never in smooth 
 accord with itself. 
 
 A writer steals from himself his most 
 secret beliefs and emotions and puts 
 them into the mouths of his characters. 
 
 Ah, the tender, the hallowed egotism 
 of a mother's love! 
 
 A powerful love looks upon itself as 
 hopeless; upon it must be thrown that 
 sort of a light, to complete its deli- 
 ciousness. 
 
 Education is often the sensitizing of 
 a nerve that leads to misery. To be 
 a gentleman means to possess a large 
 8i 
 
(Bltmpses and Bpigrams 
 
 ability to feel, and to feel is to worry, 
 to brood and to suffer. 
 
 The greatest thinkers, the greatest 
 poets were too broad and too great to 
 live within society's prescription. 
 Conventionality is a poisonous vapor, 
 and genius cannot live in it. 
 
 If you can't tell what you are good 
 for, no other man is ever likely to find 
 out. 
 
 The horse on the tread-wheel can 
 look through a crack, and see a flower 
 growing outside. 
 
 Fame whirls her cloak in the air and 
 we never know how soon it is going to 
 
 fall. 
 
 To be enemies must argue a certain 
 degree of equality. 
 
 Of course, it is not just to despise a 
 man who has no ancestry, but it is a 
 crime not to honor him if he has a 
 worthy lineage. 
 
 82 
 
of ©pic iReaO 
 
 Great things do not come from a quiet 
 heart. Quiet hearts may criticise, but 
 they do not create. Genius is an 
 agony, a tortured John Bunyan. 
 
 In matters of business we may cor- 
 rect an error, we may rub out one figure 
 and put down another, but a mark 
 made upon the heart is likely to remain 
 there. 
 
 The man of genius always writes near 
 home. The foolish and aimless ro- 
 mancer seeks a country of which his 
 probable readers are not familiar. Then 
 he can exercise a fancy acquired from 
 unhealthful books instead of throwing 
 aside the unlikely, and writing of the 
 true. 
 
 Poverty has its arrogance, and fop- 
 pery is sometimes found in rags. 
 
 It is reasonable to suppose almost 
 anything when you start out on that 
 line; but it's not common sense to act 
 upon almost any supposition. 
 83 
 
©Umpses an& Epigrams 
 
 It is a pretty hard matter to live a lie 
 even when it is imposed as a duty. 
 
 We are not to be vain of what nature 
 has done for us, nor censured for what 
 she has denied. We are 'all children, 
 toddling about as an experiment, and 
 wondering what we are going to be. 
 
 Nature may seem to mock her own 
 endeavors, but I believe she creates 
 with a purpose, though the purpose 
 may remain hidden until the end. 
 
 Look there, you see a flower with a 
 weed as its parent. The weed has 
 done some good, for it has brought 
 forth the flower and after all it must 
 have held an unconscious refinement. 
 
 Ridicule is the bite of the spider, and 
 it ought not to be directed against the 
 man who dedicates his life to sacred 
 work. 
 
 When a thing touches bottom it can't 
 go any further down, but it may rise. 
 84 
 
of ©pic lRea5 
 
 The trials, the failures and the suc- 
 cesses of other men make us strong. 
 
 Nothing is more tiresome than to 
 listen to a man's hopes. 
 
 If a man evinces good sense in con- 
 versation, why can't he evince good 
 sense in action, since action is but the 
 execution of thought? 
 
 Who can trace the filmy thread that 
 lies between consciousness and sleep? 
 Sometimes I fancied that it was a 
 raveling from a rainbow with one end 
 in the sunset, the other in the sunrise. 
 
 The perfect gentleman may be a 
 bore; the perfect lady may be tiresome. 
 
 In man there is a sort of innocent 
 evil, a liking for the half depraved, and 
 an occasional feeding of this appetite 
 heightens his respect for the truly vir- 
 tuous. 
 
 85 
 
Glimpses an& Epigrams 
 
 The heart of woman will never know 
 a perfect home until the love of its 
 hero has built a mansion for it. 
 
 There is a difference between the sin 
 of a man and a woman, but repentance 
 is held out regardless of sex. 
 
 In the hands of love, duty is a sweet 
 selfishness. 
 
 Christianity has not improved poe- 
 try, although it has blessed the world. 
 Poetry, in its truest and sublimest 
 sense, is the light of the dawn, and not 
 the glare of noontide. 
 
 Without humor there could be no 
 high state of civilization. The savage 
 frowns; the philosopher laughs. 
 
 There are lanes so romantic that cool 
 design could have had no hand in their 
 arrangement. They hold the poetry 
 of accident. 
 
 There is true reverence in nothing 
 save silence. 
 
 86 
 
of ®pie ll^eab 
 
 Life can be looked at with an eye 
 altogether too conscientious to stand 
 the dust that is blown about the street. 
 
 The greatest of men have trod the 
 level ground, but it is hard to mark 
 history upon a plain; there is no rugged 
 place on which to hang a wreath, and 
 on the prairie the traveling eye is 
 accommodated by no inn whereat it 
 may halt to rest. 
 
 The greatest women may not be 
 emotional, but the truest women are. 
 
 The gilt on the dome doesn't prove 
 that the dome is rotten ; it may be strong 
 with seasoned wood and ribs of iron. 
 
 Human nature is not over-scrupulous 
 in a matter of business. The hard 
 knot of competition takes the wire 
 edge off the commercial axe. The 
 commander of an army, though he may 
 be what we term a perfect gentleman, 
 does not hesitate to deceive the enemy. 
 
 87 
 
©Itmpscs an& Epigrams 
 
 Whenever you see a boy trying to 
 amount to something help him, for that 
 is a direct good done to mankind. 
 
 The preacher, in words as simple as 
 the prattled story of a child, told them 
 of the Saviour of mankind. "I want to 
 tell you of a man whose life was tender 
 and beautiful, who shared the sorrow 
 of all humanity. He poured faith and 
 love into hearts that were broken; he 
 plucked the evil glitter from the eye 
 of human wickedness, and in its place 
 set the warm glow of trust and affec- 
 tion." 
 
 Although a courtesy may be a mis- 
 take, it is still a virtue. 
 
 War is sometimes a blessing. The 
 world's greatest progress has been 
 sprinkled with blood — blood, the em- 
 blem of the soul's salvation. 
 
 If you are going to worship a man, 
 let him be a hero. 
 
 88 
 
or ©pie 1Rea^ 
 
 Telia man a truth he doesn't know 
 and he may dispute it; call to his mind 
 a truth which he has known and for- 
 gotten, and he regards it as a piece of 
 wisdom. 
 
 Eve loved Adam, for Adam never 
 neglected her. 
 
 The path of duty is the winding path 
 that leads to the sweetest flowers. 
 
 Every evening comes with a new 
 mystery. We think we know what to 
 expect, but when the evening comes it 
 is different from what it was yesterday. 
 And it is thus that we are enabled to 
 live without growing tired of the world 
 and of ourselves. 
 
 A woman's heart is like a bird, beat- 
 ing upon the window at night, dazzled 
 by the promise of a warmth within a 
 glowing room, and seeing not an icy 
 cruelty sitting beside the fire, lying in 
 wait for a tender victim. 
 89 
 
OUmpses and jBpigttims 
 
 She played on the hillside until she 
 got the sunshine mixed up in her voice. 
 
 How odd now it would seem to point 
 out a man and say, "he once owned, 
 in this land of freedom, a hundred 
 human beings — owned them in body, 
 but Christian-like yielded to God the 
 direction of their souls." 
 
 We may for years carry in our minds 
 a sort of mist that we cannot shape into 
 an idea. Suddenly we meet a man, and 
 he speaks the word of life unto that 
 mist, and instantly it becomes a 
 thought. 
 
 Two wrongs don't make a right, as 
 the saying has it, but a wrong with a 
 cause is half-way right. 
 
 After all, in the light of the world's 
 universal inconsistency, all creeds are 
 consistent. 
 
 Ah, but the sweetest communications 
 come in a whisper. 
 
 90 
 
of ©pie iRead 
 
 How the coming of one person can 
 change an atmosphere! At one mo- 
 ment the breath we draw is a new and 
 invigorating hope, the next instant the 
 air is parched and dead — we see an evil 
 eye, a hated face. 
 
 A thousand scraps of knowledge 
 don't make an education 
 
 If a man is too serious we call him a 
 pessimist; if he is too happy we know 
 that he is an idiot. 
 
 A consistent character in fiction is 
 merely a strained form of art. In life 
 the most arrant coward will sometimes 
 fight; the bravest man at times lacks 
 nerve; the generous man may some- 
 times show the spirit of the niggard. 
 But your character in fiction is differ- 
 ent. He must always be brave, or 
 generous, or niggardly. He must be 
 consistent, and consistency is not life. 
 91 
 
©limpses anD Epigrams 
 
 If a njan has truth in one hand it 
 needn't make any difference what the 
 other fellow has in both hands. 
 
 Your face is a Vandyke conception 
 of a spirit of adventure, you are a 
 strength repenting a weakness; there 
 are flaws in you, and yet I could wish 
 that I were the mother of such a son. 
 
 But if property makes a woman beau- 
 tiful to the rich, why should it make 
 her ugly to the poor? 
 
 Down deep in the grass a horde of 
 insects shouted their death songs. 
 Their day of judgment was soon to lie 
 white upon the ground. Artists in 
 their way, with no false notes, with 
 mission ended, they were to die in art, 
 among fantastic pictures wrought in 
 the frost. 
 
 The late moon was rising, and in the 
 magnolia gardens there s^med to 
 waver a bright and shadowy silence — a 
 92 
 
of ©pie iRcaO 
 
 night when every sound is afar off, a 
 half mysterious echo — the closing of a 
 window shutter, the indistinct notes of 
 an old song lagging in the soft and 
 lazy air. 
 
 I hate a woman that hates children. 
 
 Adam enjoyed his greatest freedom 
 before the appearance of Eve. 
 
 Work-day annoyances fester on 
 Sunday. 
 
 Woman is a constant experiment. 
 Nature herself does not as yet know 
 what to make of her. One moment 
 she is a joy, and the next she is search- 
 ing for a man's weak spots, like a 
 disease. 
 
 The wisest man among wise men 
 could easily be a fool among women. 
 
 Hope is the world's best bank ac- 
 count. Hope is the soulss involuntary 
 prayer. 
 
 93 
 
GUmpdcs and JEpigrams 
 
 It was a pleasure to stand in the mist, 
 the trees shadowy about him. It was 
 dreamy to fancy the fog a torn frag- 
 ment of night, floating through the 
 day. It was easy to imagine the lake 
 a boundless sea. Over the rushes a 
 loon flew, a gaunt and feathered lone- 
 liness, looking for a place to light. 
 
 Sometimes the biggest liar will tell 
 the truest truth. 
 
 In the opinion of the world involu- 
 tion is depth. It takes a simple book 
 a hundred years to become a classic. 
 
 Words may sometimes be ashes, but 
 often they are coals of fire. 
 
 Failure has always been easier to 
 understand than success. Failure is 
 natural. It comes from the weakness 
 of man and*nothing is more natural 
 than weakness. 
 
 94 
 
of ©pte lRea& 
 
 Her complexion reminds me of a 
 tinted vase with the light sweeping 
 through it 
 
 A woman that smiles all the time 
 wants you to think she's better than 
 she is. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln could squeeze 
 mirth and tears out of the heart all at 
 once. When he arose to speak, and 
 even before he had uttered a word, 
 every man in the audience said to him- 
 self, "There is my brother." 
 
 Men who are the soonest to confess 
 ingratitude are sometimes the most 
 likely to prove ungrateful in the future. 
 
 A wisdom stolen tempts a stealthy 
 use. 
 
 A scene may be described, but a 
 condition must be felt. 
 
 That the brave are always gentle is 
 a fallacy. 
 
 95 
 
©limpses an& JEpigrams 
 
 Jealousy is a matter of temperament 
 more than of love. 
 
 The theory of to-day may become the 
 scientific truth of to-morrow. And it 
 may also be the scientific error of the 
 day after to-morrow. 
 
 I believe that immortal fruit grows 
 upon the tree of sincere repentance. 
 I believe that each of us owes to God a 
 life of simple purity and honesty. Our 
 allotted time on earth is but a few 
 days, and what should we gain though 
 we be placed in high position among 
 men, for high positions soon crumble 
 into the dust of forgetfulness and men 
 soon pass away. It is not enough sim- 
 ply to declare that we love the Lord, 
 for love is often selfish; it is not enough 
 simply to praise the Lord, for praise 
 is sometimes the off-shoot of fear. 
 While professing to love the Lord, and 
 while showing that we praise Him we 
 must look with tenderness upon the 
 96 
 
of ©pie IRcaD 
 
 faults of others; we must speak no evil 
 word of a neighbor, neither shall we 
 bear tales, for the man who comes and 
 tells me that some one has spoken in 
 our dispraise, may profess that he 
 took our part to hush the mouth of 
 slander, yet he destroys our happiness 
 for an entire day. 
 
 If I am to have a master, let me have 
 a masterful one. 
 
 Is it a kindred narrowness that drives 
 a miser to a creed? 
 
 Horses can be called back from a 
 false spurt in the race, and another 
 start taken, but man must go on. 
 
 Histories are not so broad as some 
 other forms of literary work, for they 
 sre mainly records of the narrow trans- 
 actions of men. Women are so far 
 above the shallow limitations of his- 
 torical composition that no great his- 
 tory has ever been written by a woman. 
 97 
 
Glimpses and Bptgcams 
 
 To one who has been condemned to 
 death there comes a resignation that is 
 deeper than a philosophy. Despair 
 has killed the nerve that fear exposed, 
 and nothing is left for terror to feed 
 on. 
 
 Nature sometimes makes sport of a 
 man by giving him a heart. And what 
 does it mean? It means that he shall 
 suffer at the hands of other men, and 
 that when his hour for revenge has 
 come, his overgrown heart rises up and 
 commands him to be merciful. 
 
 Indifference can be more patient than 
 love. 
 
 The mind ripens, and why should not 
 the heart undergo a change? It is all 
 a growth, a development, and nature 
 is not to be criticised by her children. 
 
 The things that make the most differ- 
 ence are the ones we cannot see. 
 98 
 
The strongest of all genius — that 
 genius which we meet, talk to and 
 laugh with and still respect. 
 
 , Is a beautiful face but the light 
 thrown from a beautiful soul? 
 
 If we are taught to die for love we 
 ought to kill for it. 
 
 Art is the old age of trade. 
 
 Prejudices are sometimes our dearest 
 inheritances. In a quickly formed 
 prejudice there is always more or less 
 of intuition. 
 
 A woman may be pleased with light 
 talk and with a lively manner, but her 
 respect for a man rests upon his ser- 
 iousness, his ardor, for to her there is 
 a charm even in an enthusiastic trouble. 
 
 The mere existence of a state line 
 does not change human nature. Man 
 is not changed even by the lines drawn 
 about empires. 
 
 99 
 
Gltmpses ant) Epigvama 
 
 What has made this country great, 
 the gentility of Virginia or the dogged 
 industry of New England? To whom 
 do we owe most, the silver-buckled 
 gentleman or. the steeple-hatted Puri- 
 tan? 
 
 A man that is easy with a man is 
 always exacting with a woman. 
 
 Why should a man have an ambition 
 to own large tracts of land — his mind 
 can't lie at ease on acres. 
 
 Bunyan held the idea that the only 
 way to be good was first to be bad. 
 
 Ah! What is sweeter, and what can 
 be purer than the uneducated back- 
 woodsman's love of a book? 
 
 Ah, love, we demand that you shall 
 not only be happy, but miserable at our 
 wish. We would dim your eye when 
 our own is blurred; we would smother 
 your heart when our own is heavy, and 
 100 
 
of ®pie 1Rea^ 
 
 would pierce it with a pain. Upon her 
 children this old world has poured the 
 wisdom of her gathered ages, and could 
 we look from another sphere we might 
 see the minds of great men twinkling 
 like the stars, but the human heart is 
 yet unschooled, yet has no range of 
 vision, but chokes and sobs in its own 
 emotion, as it did when the first poet 
 stood upon a hill and cried aloud to an 
 unknown God. 
 
 I am a strong believer in natural fit- 
 ness, We may learn to do a thing in 
 an average sort of way, but excellence 
 requires instinct, and instinct, of course, 
 can't be learned. 
 
 You've got to be foolish or a woman 
 will think you've ceased to love her. 
 The minute you are strong she thinks 
 you have forgotten her. 
 
 No matter how Quakerish in dress a 
 man may be, there is a good deal of 
 fear mixed up in his contempt for good 
 . loi 
 
Glimpses ant> JEpigtams 
 
 clothes. And when an old fool imag- 
 ines himself in love, a necktie is of more 
 weight than an idea. 
 
 I read of love, the rapture of the 
 poet and the slow-running syrup of the 
 romancer, and I smile. Oh, it may be 
 well enough for a man, but for a woman 
 — a sprinkle of gold dust on an iron 
 chain. 
 
 There is no failure more complete 
 than the one that comes along in the 
 wake of a success. 
 
 When we realize a weakness we have 
 found a strength. 
 
 The majority of men whom we term 
 eccentric, are not only wide-awake to 
 their own peculiarities, but seem to be 
 ever cultivating them to a higher state 
 of oddity. 
 
 Luck begets luck, and failure suckles 
 a failure. 
 
 102 
 
of ©pie 1Rea& 
 
 A man's never so big a liar as when 
 he's telling things about himself or his 
 enemy. 
 
 Truth told to man is a virtue — told 
 to a woman a sublimity. 
 
 A studied art may become a careless 
 grace, witness the Frenchman and the 
 Spaniard; but the blunt Anglo-Saxon 
 must still depend upon truth for his 
 incentive — the others taste dainty 
 viands; he feeds upon blood-dripping 
 meat. 
 
 IJpon what does success depend? 
 Mind? Oh, no. Industry? No. What 
 then? Temperament. Temperament 
 is of itself a success. 
 
 There is more wisdom in the Bible 
 than in all other books put together. 
 I don't care anything about creed, or 
 what one man or another may believe; 
 I don't care how or why it was written 
 — I brush aside the oaths that have 
 been sworn on it and the dying lips 
 103 
 
©limpscs anO JEpigrams 
 
 that have kissed it; I shut my eyes to 
 everything but the fact that it is the 
 greatest opera, the greatest poem, the 
 greatest tragedy ever written. 
 
 At a cross-roads stood an old brick 
 house, an ancient rarity upon a land- 
 scape white spotted with wooden cot- 
 tages. It was a rest for the eye, a 
 place for a moment of musing, a page 
 of a family's record, a bit of dun-col- 
 ored history. It was built long before 
 the railroad set the clocks of the coun- 
 try, before man entered into business 
 co-partnership ^ith the minute and 
 employed the second as his agent. 
 
 To the youthful, two summers are 
 twins; to the older, they are relatives; 
 to the aged, strangers. 
 
 It was a day when we like to read the 
 old things which long ago we com- 
 mitted to memory. We know the word 
 before we reach it, but reaching it we 
 find it full of a new meaning. But the 
 104 
 
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 hours are long when the heart is rest- 
 less. In the woods the mist hung in 
 the tree-tops as if vapor were the 
 world's slow-moving time, balking 
 among the dripping leaves. 
 
 In the matter of marriage genius 
 often unconsciously seeks the con- 
 stancy of the sturdy and the common- 
 place. 
 
 Quiet self-assurance in home-spun 
 clothes exists only in America. 
 
 Let the judgment administer upon 
 cool affairs and let the heart keep warm 
 in its own joy. 
 
 Nothing can appear colder than pas- 
 sion's studied by-play. 
 
 A strong rope — made of the strands 
 of weaknesses. 
 
 It is a rare charity to pardon a mis- 
 deed committed against one's self. It 
 is easier to condone a crime committed 
 against a neighbor. 
 
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