LAUGHORISMS.

When a favourite dog has an

incurable pain, you "put him out of his misery " with a bullet or an axe. A favourite child similarly afflicted is preserved as long as possible, in torment. I do not say that this is not right; I claim only that it is not consistent. There are two sorts, of kindness; one for dogs, and another for children. A very dear friend, wallowing about in the red mud of a battle-field, once asked me for some of the dog sort. I suspect, if no one had been looking, he would have got it.

It is to be feared that to most men the sky is but a concave mirror, showing nothing behind, and in looking into which they see only their own distorted images, like the reflection of a face in a spoon. Hence it needs not surprise that they are not very devout worshippers; it is a great wonder they do not openly scoff.

than studied.

Otherwise, we should know how it is that some countries that have so much climate have no civilization.

Whoso shall insist upon holding your attention while he expounds to you things that you have always thriven without knowing resembles one who should go about with a hammer, cracking nuts upon other people's heads and eating the kernels himself.

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There are but two kinds oftemporary insanity, and each has but a single symptom. The one was discovered by a coroner, the other by a lawyer. The one induces you to kill yourself when you are unwell of life; the other persuades you to kill somebody else when you are fatigued of seeing him about.

People who honour their fathers and their mothers have the comforting promise that their days shall be long in the land. They are not sufficiently numerous to make the life assurance companies think it worth their while to offer them special rates.

...

There are people who dislike to ie, for apparently no better reason than that there

are a few vices they have not had the time to try; but it must be confessed that the fewer there are of these untasted sweets, the more loth are they to leave them.

Men ought to sin less in petty details, and more in the lump; that they might the more conveniently be brought to repentance when they are ready. They should imitate the touching solicitude of the lady for the burglar, whom she spares much trouble by keeping her jewels well together in a box.

I once knew a man who made me a map of the opposite hemisphere of the moon. I knew another who taught me what country lay upon the other side of the grave. a most acute thinker-as he had need

He was crazy.

He was

to be.

Those who are horrified at Mr. Darwin's theory, may comfort themselves with the assurance that, if we are descended from the ape, we have not descended so far as to preclude all hope of return.

There is more poison in apho

risms than in painted candy; but it is of a less seductive kind.

If it were as easy to invent a credible falsehood as it is to believe one, we should have little else in print. The mechanical construction of a falsehood is a matter of the gravest import.

There is just as much true pleasure in walloping one's own wife as in the sinful enjoyment of another man's right. Heaven gives to each man a wife, and intends that he shall cleave to her alone. To cleave is either to "split" or to "stick." To cleave to your wife is to split her with a stick.

A strong mind is more easily impressed than a weak one: you shall not as readily convince a fool that you are a philosopher, as a philosopher that you are a fool.

In our intercourse with men, their national peculiarities and customs are entitled to consideration. In addressing the common Frenchman take off your hat; in addressing the common Irishman make him take off his.

It is nearly always untrue to

say of a man that he wishes to leave a great property behind him when he dies. would like to take it along.

Usually he

as greed.

Benevolence is as purely selfish
No one would do a benevolent action if

he knew it would entail remorse.

If cleanliness is next to godli

ness, it is a matter of unceasing wonder that, having gone to the extreme limit of the former, so many people manage to stop short exactly at the line of demarcation.

Most people have no more

definite idea of liberty than that it consists in being compelled by law to do as they like.

Every man is at heart a brute, and the greatest injury you can put upon any one is to provoke him into displaying his nature. No gentleman ever forgives the man who makes him let out his beast.

The Psalmist never saw the
In our day

seed of the righteous begging bread.
they sometimes request pennies for keeping the
street-crossings in order.

When two wholly irreconcil

able propositions are presented to the mind, the safest way is to thank Heaven that we are not like the unreasoning brutes, and believe both.

M