Life and Literature Part 77

1066

I have also seen the world, and after long experience have discovered that ennui is our greatest enemy, and remunerative labor our most lasting friend.

--_Moser._

1067

LABOR.

Some relaxation is necessary to people of every degree; the head that thinks, and the hand that labors, must have some little time to recruit their diminished powers.

--_Gilpin._

1068

None so little enjoy life, and are such burdens to themselves, as those who have nothing to do. The active only have the true relish of life. He who knows not what it is to labor, knows not what it is to enjoy. It is exertion that renders rest delightful, and sleep sweet, and undisturbed.

1069

A LABORING SCARECROW.

Two old farmers were walking up a road near Dunfermline, when one of the pair, shading his eyes from the sun, pointed to a distant field and said:

"I wonder if that figure over there is a scarecrow."

He paused and considered the matter for a while, and then, in a satisfied tone, concluded:

"Yes, it must be a scarecrow; it's not moving."

But the other Scot had a sharper pair of eyes, and perhaps a better understanding of human nature.

"No," he said, dryly, "it's not a scarecrow; it's only a man working by the day."

1070

ADVICE TO A YOUNG LADY.

The Rev. Mr. Berridge being once visited by a loquacious young lady, who, forgetting the modesty of her s.e.x, and the superior gravity of an aged divine, engrossed all the conversation of the interview with small talk concerning herself. When she rose to retire, he said, "Madam, before you withdraw, I have one piece of advice to give you; and that is, when you go into company again, after you have talked _half an hour_ without intermission, I recommend it to you to stop awhile, and see if any other of the company has anything to say."

--_Old Magazine._

1071

SCOTCH STUDENT AS LAMPLIGHTER.

Many hards.h.i.+ps endured by students attending university or college in Scotland have been brought to light from time to time. A student of Anderson's Medical College some years ago fulfilled the duties of lamplighter during his spare hours in a neighboring burgh. He had no other income than the few s.h.i.+llings he received weekly for lighting, extinguis.h.i.+ng and cleaning the burgh lamps, and from this he paid his college fees and kept himself fairly respectable. On one occasion he applied for an increase of wages, and was called before the committee.

One of the bailies remarked that an able-bodied healthy-looking young man like the applicant, might find some other employment instead of wasting his time as he was doing. The application for an increase was refused. One may conceive the bailie's surprise at a subsequent meeting when the town clerk read a letter from the lamplighter, tendering his resignation, as he had pa.s.sed his final examination as a fully qualified doctor.

--_Glasgow News._

1072

Ah! how sweet it is to remember--the long, long ago.

1073

ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE.

Talking of the origin of language,--_Johnson_: "It must have come by inspiration. A thousand, nay, a million of children could not invent a language. While the organs are pliable, there is not understanding enough to form a language; by the time that there is understanding enough, the organs are become stiff. We know that after a certain age we cannot learn to p.r.o.nounce a new language. No foreigner who comes to England when advanced in life, ever p.r.o.nounces English tolerably well; at least such instances are very rare. When I maintain that language must have come by inspiration, I do not mean that inspiration is required for rhetoric, and all the beauties of language; for when once man has language, we can conceive that he may gradually form modifications of it. I mean only that inspiration seems to me to be necessary to give man the faculty of speech; to inform him that he may have speech; which I think he could no more find out without inspiration than cows or hogs would think of such a faculty."

--_Boswell's Life of Johnson._

1074

_Laughter._--To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to men before the fortieth day from his birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of precocity.

--_Pliny, the Elder._

1075

A good laugh is suns.h.i.+ne in a house.

--_Thackeray._

1076

John Dryden said,--"It is a good thing to laugh, and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness, and of health."

1077

He who laughs overmuch may have an aching heart.

1078

The vulgar laugh and seldom smile; whereas well-bred people often smile and seldom laugh.