A SELECTED SERIES OF PRECEPTS COUNSELS AND CAUTIONS RELATING TO THE HOPES PLEASURES AND SORROWS OF LIFE NEW EDITION, EDITED AND GREATLY ENLARGED BY MRS. CLARA L. BALFOUR AUTHOR OF UPHILL WORK, THE WOMEN OF SCRIPTURE, "In small proportions we just Beauties see: BEN JONSON LONDON 65, PATERNOSTER ROW MUCCCLXI PREFACE. As minute rays of various colours blent together make the bright sunbeams, so, it is hoped, the readers of this volume will find that the rays of various light from many minds, some of them the brightest that ever illumined the world, will prove a means of diffusing that cheering and invigorating mental light, worthy to be called "SUNBEAMS FOR ALL SEASONS." It is not assumed, that readers intent on improvement, will merely rest satisfied with the scintillations of wisdom and truth shining in these pages; but that stimulated by what they find here, they will as opportunity offers, go to the sources indicated by the names of some of our best and most charming writers. But as all cannot have access to large libraries, and as few, in these busy times, have leisure to consult various authors, a Compendium that presents apt Thoughts and Illustrations on a great variety of Topics cannot fail to be both pleasant and profitable. Materials for thought may be offered by a brief, pithy sentence, far more valuable than a long treatise sometimes supplies. The sententious Proverb, the brief Couplet, the graceful Stanza, contain the seed that, dropped into the fertile soil of a reflective mind, will germinate and produce fruit and flowers for the profit and delight of future days. As an aid to conversation, nothing is more valuable than the illustrations which short, apt quotations afford. Indeed, those may be said to be best supplied for the colloquial intercourse of social life who possess abundance of ready allusion, and know what the most gifted minds have said on most general subjects. As a mode of employing spare moments-" Redeeming the time"- -no plan can be better than to have a book at hand, that in every page, has some word of Wisdom, some approved and valuable Thought, ready to warn, to cheer, to soothe, to guide. Thus employed, the moments snatched from daily toil and duties may, like the fragments gathered up after the Five Thousand were Divinely fed, amount in value to far more than the entire stock began with. REIGATE, May, 1861. CLARA L. BALFOUR. |