Items of Interest.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 447, 10 November 1904, Page 7

Items of Interest.

JOY and industry makes the hours fly. A man who sits with his hands in his poskots usually hasn't much else there.

The poorest man is not the one who has the least, but, the one who wants the most. . The man who is fond of books is usually a man of lofty thought and elevated opinions.

No man is born into the world whose work Is not torn with him. There's always work And tools withal, for those who will. —J. R. Lowell.

Liberty, like health, is often best illustrated by its opposite; hence Lettres de Cachet, Bastiles, and Inquisitions, may perhaps give us a livelier sense of a just and mild administration than any of the blessings we enjoy under it.—Henry Fielding.

. Who gains wisdom? He who is willing to recieve instruction from all sources. Who is the mighty man? He who subdueth his temper. Who is r: ch ? He who is content with his lot. Who is deserving of honour ? He who honoureth mankind. —Talmud.

Three causes, especially, have excited the discontent of mankind; and by impelling us to seek for remedies for the irremediable, have bewildered us in a maze of madness and error. These are death, toil, and ignorance of the future.—Dr. James Hamilton.

Real Criticism.— Obedience to an instinct prompting us to try to know the best that is known and thought in the world, irrespectively of practice, politics, and everything of the kind; and to value knowledge and thought as they approach this best, without the intrusion of any other considerations whatever.—Matthew Arnold.

Philosophy can add to our happiness in no other manner but by diminishing our misery : it should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of. The great source of calamity lies in regret or anticipation ; he therefore is most wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or the future. This is impossible to a man of pleasure: it is difficult to a man of business; and is in some degrees attainable by the philosopher. Happy were we all born philosophers, all born with a telent of thus dissipating our own cares by spreading them upon all mankind. —Goldsmith,

All the great and wise and good mankind, all the benefactors of the human race, whose names I read in the world's history, and the still greater number of those whoso good deeds have outlived their names —all those have labored for me. I have entered into their harvest. I walk the green earth which they inhabited. I tread in their footsteps, from which blessings grow. I can undertake the sublime task which they once undertook, the task of making our common brotherhood wiser and happier. I can build forward where they were forced to leave off; and bring nearer to perfection the great edifice which they left incompleted. And at length, I too, must leave it, and go hence. 0, this is the sublimest thought of all! I can never finish the noble task; therefore, so sure as this task is my destiny, I can never cease to work and consequently never' cease to be.— Longfellovv.

There are really two things only that have to be remembered about the nature of poetry, before we read any sort of poem. The first is that the nature of poetry is, so to speak, exclomatory. It is the relieving of human emotion by means of some outburst of words which shall express that emotion better, because it consists of much bigger and nobler words than the words we use. The real feelings inside us aro too great, too precious and painful to be conveyed by our daily phraseology. Therefore, we have to cry out suddenly to something great—to the stars, or to humanity, or to the beauty of woman. The thing which is really most like poetry in' ordinary life is some such phrase as ' Thank God,' or ' Mercy on us.' In these you perceive the emotion of the speakor is such that he is obliged, in order to express his own feelings about catching a train or receiving a telegram, to use the tremendous vocabulary of the great religious idea. Our feelings, even about small things, when these feelings are sufficiently intense, demand a haughty and heroic language, and, sometimes, a supernatural language. This is the first point to remember about poetry : it is a splendid exclamation.—G. K, Chesterton.