Wit and Wisdom of "Thecphrastus Such."

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3395, 8 November 1879, Page 1

Wit and Wisdom of "Thecphrastus Such."

It is in the nature of foolish reasoning to seem good to the foolish reasoner.

We mortals should chiefly like to talk to each other out of goodwill and fellowship, not tor the sake of hearing revelations of being stimulated by witticisms. Blessed is the mau who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact—from calling on us to look through a heap of millet-seed in order to be sure that there is no pearl in it. .'■ ■ ■■ ' ■' - : ■ ■ ■•

I never felt myself sufficiently meritori* ous to like being hated as a proof of my superiority, or f o thirsty for improvement as to desire that all my acquaintances should give me their caudid opinion of mo.

Part of an agreeable talker's charm ii (bat he lets commonplaces fall continually with no more than, their due emphasis. Giving a pleasant voice to whit we are well assured of makes a sort of wholesome air"for more special and dubious remark to move in. >

Most of us who bare bad decent parents would shrink from wishing that oar father or mother had been somebody else whom we never knew; yet it is held no impiety, rather a graceful mark of instruction, for a roan to wail that he was not tbe son of another ace snd another nvtion, of which also he knows nothing except through the easy process of an imperfect imagination and a flattering fancy. Examining the world in order to find consolation in it is very much like looking carefully over the pages of a great book in order to find our own name; if not in the text, at least in a laudatory note: whether we find what we want or not, our preocoupation has hindered us from a true know* ledge of the contents. But an attention fixed on tbe main theme or rariousmatter of tbe book wonld deliver us from that subjection to our own self* importance. Some high authority is needed to gire many worthy and timid persona the free- - dom of muscular repose under the growing demand on them to laugh when they have no other reason than the peril of being taken for dullards; still more to inspire them with the courage to say that they object to theatrical spoiling of themselves and their children of all affecting themes, all the grander deeds and aim: of men, by burlesque associations adapted to rich fishmongers in their stalls and their assistants in the gallery. It is admirable in a Briton with a purpose to learn Chinese, bnt it would not be a proof of fine intellect in him to taste Chinese poetry in the original more than he tastes the poetry of his own tongue. Affection, intelligence, duty, radiate from the centre, and nature has decided that for us English folk that centre can be neither ( hina nor Paris. Moat of us feel this unreflectingly, for the affectation of undervaluing everything native, and being too fine for ono's own country, belongs only to a few minds of no dangerous leverage. . , A littlo unpremeditated insincerity must be indulged under tfic stress of social intercourse. The "talk eren of in honest man must often represent merely his wish to be inofleusire or agreeable rather than his genuine opinion or feeling on the matter in hand. Hia thought, if uttered, might bo wounding; or he has not sbilily to utter it with exactness and snatches at a loose paraphrase; or he has really no genuine thought on the question, and is driven to fill up the vacancy by borrowing the remarks in vogue. . . . Let us not bear too hardly on each other for this common incidental frailty, or think that we rise superior to it bj dropping all consideratcness and defereuce. —George Eliot.