Items of Interest.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 446, 3 November 1904, Page 7

Items of Interest.

LANGUAGE is the mirror of the mind. Never take a mean advantage of anyone. —Charles Dickens. We must nover assume that which is incapable of proofi—Lewes. A pessimist might bo defined as a person who has the choice between two evils and selects both. •' . .'.-..v. / .-."•■.. : " Youth is invariably present in the old age of a grsat man. He never completely loses life's first elixir. The true line of cleavage lies between the good citizen and the bad citizen, and the line of cleavage may, and often does, run at right angles to that which divides the rich and the poor.—President Eoosevelt. Let no man's soul despair ! The same eternal powers, for good or ill; ' The same unslumbering care Which lived of old, are quick and potent ■ still, And bend, obedient to the dauntless will Of souls that do and dare. —Robert Burns Wilson. It is not by regretting what is irreparable that true work is to be done, but by making the best of what we are. It is not by complaining that we have not the right tools, but by using well the tools we have. What we are, or where we are, is God's providential arrangement—God's doing, though it may bo man's misdoing; and the manly and wise way is to look your failures in the face and see what can be made out of them. —P. W. Robertson. The sun was rising. On the eastern sky of a sudden two golden doors had opened in the canopy of night, and in and out of them seemed to pass glittering swift-winged things, as souls might tread the gates of heaven. Look at the little clouds that in an unending stream floated out of gloom—travellers pressed onwards by a breath of destiny. . . What did the sight suggest to him? That it was worth while, perhaps, to be a mere drift of cloud, stormdriven and rain-laden in the bitter night of life, if the morning of deliverance brought such transformation on its wing.—Rider Haggard.

My character to-day is, for the most part, simply the resultant of all the thoughts I have ever had, of all the feelings I have ever cherished, and all the deeds I have ever performed. It is the entirety of my previous years packed and crystallised into the present moment. So that character is the quintessence of biography ; so that everybody who knows my character—and there is no character under cover—knows what for years I have been doing and thinking. Character is, for the most part, simply habit become fixed.—Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst.

The Art of Living may be disployed in many ways, It may be summed up in the words, —make the best of everything. Nothing is beneath its care : even common and little things it turns to account. It gives a brightness and graca to the home, and invests Nature with new charms. Through it we enjoy the rich man's park and woods as if they were our own. We inhale the common air, and bask under the universal sunshine. We glory in the grass, the passing clouds, and the flowers._ We love the common earth, and hear joyful voices through all Nature. It extends to every kind of social intercourse. It engenders cheerful goodwill and loving sincerity. By its help we make others happy, and ourselves blest. We elevate our being and ennoble our lot," We rise above the grovelling creatures of earth, and aspire to the Infinite. And thus we link time to eternity : where the true Art of Living has its final consummation. —Smiles.

| |There is a distinction between the fancy and the imagination ; the former gives us airy shapes, the latter gives us likeness; fancy is concerned with trivial objects, imagination with grand, spiritual, eternal things. In long-settled countrios, where multitudes are reared in coal pits or confined to ditches, or factories, or rarely pass beyond the walls of their native city, or, if they do, it is to visit some thickly populated graveyard or some forsakon castle, the fancy may be vigorous ; but in the forest of the new world there is but little chance for hobgoblins and apparitions. Man walks abroad freely amid the works of God—works in all tho wild magnificence of nature. Ho is in the midst of broai plains, majestic streams: on every hand he meets •with some object fitted to furnish him with elevated ideas, and to arouse into healthful and vigorous action the best powers of his mind; withal, he is not so hampered but that he can allow his mind free scope in depicting his own creations. It was under these circumstances that the grandest poetry of the world was produced.—Bishop Thompson.

When is a woman like a newspaper article ? —When she appears in print.