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A mind free from ambition is a main help to political gentleness. Ambition, on the contrary, is hard-hearted, and the greatest fomenter of envy.

117

Plutarch: Lives. Aristides and Marcus Cato. Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues.

118

Quintilian: Education of an Orator. Bk. i. Ch. 2,
Sec. 22. (Watson, Translator.)

It is not position, but mind, that I want.

119 Mme. Roland: To Her Father when rejecting a Suitor Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. Shakespeare: Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2. The poor make themselves poorer as apes of the rich, and the merely rich carry themselves like princes.

120

121

AMERICA

Lew Wallace: Ben-IIur. Bk. iv. Ch. 11.

see Freedom, Government, Great Britain, Liberty, Newspapers, Patriotism, Philistinism, Public Opinion.

In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book, or goes to an American play, or looks at an American picture or statue ?

122

Sydney Smith: Review on Seybert's Annals of the United States.

America has proved that it is practicable to elevate the mass of mankind that portion which in Europe is called the laboring, or lower, class-to raise them to self-respect, to make them competent to act a part in the great right and great duty of self-government; and she has proved that this may be done by education and the diffusion of knowledge. She holds out an example a thousand times more encouraging than ever was presented before, to those nine-tenths of the human race who are born without hereditary fortune or hereditary rank. 123

Daniel Webster: The Bunker Hill Monument,
June 17, 1843.

AMIABILITY.

Amiableness is the object of love, the scope and end is to obtain it, for whose sake we love, and which our mind covets to enjoy.

124 Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. iii. Sec. i. Mem. 1, Subs. 2.

AMITY.

With him who knocks at the door of peace, seek not hostility.

125 Saadi: The Gulistan. Ch. 8. Rules for Conduct in Life. No. 14.

AMUSEMENT

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see Reading, Play.

The city. has May games, feasts, wakes and merry meetings to solace themselves.

Let them freely feast, sing, and dance, have their puppet plays, hobby-horses, tabors, crowds, bag-pipes, etc., play at ball, and barley brakes.

126 Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. ii. Sec. 2, Mem. 4. Amusement to an observing mind is study.

127 Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield): Contarini Fleming. Pt. i. Ch. 23.

Poetry makes a principal amusement among unpolished nations; but in a country verging to the extremes of refinement, painting and music come in for a share.

128

Goldsmith: The Traveller.

Dedication.

The moment a man finds a contradiction in himself between his amusements and his humanity, it is a signal that he should give them up.

129

Leigh Hunt: Table Talk. Sporting.

I am a great friend to public amusements, for they keep people from vice.

130

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Johnson: Boswell's Life of Johnson. II. 169, (George Birkbeck Hill, Editor, 1887.)

see Fame, Merit.

A man who has ancestors is like a representative of the past.

131 Bulwer-Lytton: The Lady of Lyons. Act ii. Sc. 1. Wisdom of our ancestors.

132 Burke: Discussion on the Traitorous Correspondence Bill. 1793.

Conceal not the meanness of thy family, nor think it disgraceful to be descended from peasants; for when it is seen that thou art not thyself ashamed, none will endeavor to make thee so.

133

Cervantes: Don Quixote. Pt. ii. Ch. 43. (Jarvis, Translator.)

This is the true pride of ancestry. It is founded in the tenderness with which the child regards the father, and in the romance that time sheds upon history. 134 George William Curtis: Prue and I.

Portraits.

VI. Family

Being convinced that, for a person who thinks himself to be somebody, there is nothing more disgraceful than to exhibit himself as held in honor, not on his own account, but for the renown of his forefathers; for hereditary honor is to descendants a treasure honorable and magnificent.

135

Plato: Menexenus. Sec. 19. (Burges,
Translator.)

We come into the world with the mark of our descent, and with our characters about us.

136

Le Sage: Gil Blas. Bk. x. Ch. 10. (Smollett,
Translator.)

Reason, indeed, will soon inform us that our estimation of birth is arbitrary and capricious, and that dead ancestors can have no influence but upon imagination.

137

Johnson: The Adventurer. No. 111. Proud men are very much mistaken. Their ancestors have left all things which are in their power to them, riches, images, the noble recollection of themselves; they have not left their virtue, nor were they able: it alone can neither be presented as a gift, nor received.

138 Sallust: The Jugurthine War. Sec. 85. (Ramage, Translator.)

The glory of ancestors sheds a light around posterity; it
allows neither their good nor bad qualities to remain in
obscurity.
139

Sallust: The Jugurthine War. Sec. 85. (Ramage,
Translator.)

All history shows the power of blood over circumstances as much as agriculture shows the power of the seeds over the soils. 140 E. P. Whipple: Outlooks on Society, Literature, and Politics. American Principles.

ANGER see Cruelty, Hatred.

Anger is a bow that will shoot sometimes where another feeling will not.

141

Henry Ward Beecher: Life Thoughts. Fire hath its force abated by water, not by wind; and anger must be allayed by cold words, and not by blustering threats. 142 Anne Bradstreet: Printed in 1867 from a MS. left by the Author.

Anger helps complexion, saves paint.

143

Congreve: The Way of the World. Act i. Sc. 9. Anger is an expensive luxury in which only men of a certain income can indulge.

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Anger is a fierce and sudden flame, which may be kindled in the noblest breasts; but in these the slow droppings of an unforgiving temper never take the shape and consistency of enduring hatred.

146 George S. Hillard: Life and Campaigns of George B. McClellan. Ch. 13.

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Love. 147

The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of Landor: Miscellaneous. LXVI. Anger may repast with thee for an hour, but not repose for a night; the continuance of anger is hatred, the continuance of hatred turns malice. That anger is not warrantable which hath seen two suns. Quarles: Enchiridion. Cent. II. No. 60. Beware of him that is slow to anger; anger, when it is long in coming, is the stronger when it comes, and the longer kept. 149 Quarles: Enchiridion. Cent. II. No. 67. Anger, when excessive, createth terror.

148

150

Saadi: The Gulistan. Ch. 8. Rules for Conduct
in Life. No. 18.

The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
151 Seneca: Of Anger.

ANGLING.

Bk. iv. Ch. 29. (Stewart, Trans.)

We may say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries: "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did;" and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling. 152 Izaak Walton: The Complete Angler. Pt. i. Ch. 5. ANTICIPATION.

Hope deceives, enjoyment undeceives.

153

ANTIPATHY

Joseph Roux: Meditations of a Parish Priest.
Pt. v., ix. (Hapgood, Translator.)

There is one species of terror which those who are unwilling to suffer the reproach of cowardice have wisely dignified with the name of antipathy.

154

ANTIQUARIAN

Johnson: Rambler. No. 126.

see Antiquity.

A mere antiquarian is a rugged being.

155

ANTIQUITY

Johnson: Boswell's Life of Johnson. III. 278. (George Birkbeck Hill, Editor, 1887.)

see Antiquariau.

Nothing is old but the mind.

156 Emerson: Letters and Social Aims.

Culture.

Progress of

They who make research into antiquity, may be said to pass often through many dark lobbies and dusky places before they come to the Aula lucis, the great hall of light; they must repair to old archives, and peruse many moulded and moth-eaten records, and so bring light, as it were, out of darkness, to inform the present world what the former did, and make us see truth through our ancestors' eyes. James Howell: Londonopolis

157

Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes; they were easiest for his feet.

158 ANXIETY

John Selden: Table Talk. Friends.

There is much unnecessary anxiety in the world, which is apt too hastily to calculate the consequences of any unforeseen event, quite forgetting that, acute as it is in observation, the world, where the future is concerned, is generally wrong. 159 Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield): Lothair. Ch. 86. The misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.

160 Lowell: Democracy. Address. Birmingham, Eng., Oct. 6, 1884.

APOLOGIES.

Apologies only account for that which they do not alter.
161 Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield): Speech House of
Commons (Order of Business), July 28, 1871.

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Apologizing, a very desperate habit, -one that is rarely cured. Apology is only egotism wrong side out. Nine times out of ten, the first thing a man's companion knows of his shortcomings is from his apology.

162 Holmes: The Professor at the Breakfast-Table. Ch. 6. APOSTASY.

We are all as God made us, and oftentimes a great deal

worse.

163 Cervantes: Don Quixote. Pt. ii. Ch. 4. (Jarvis, Translator.) APPETITE

A man who rides out for an appetite consults but little the dignity of human nature.

164

APPLAUSE.

Johnson: Works. XI. 204.

(Edition, 1787.)

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

165

Colton: Lacon.

Great minds had rather deserve contemporaneous applause. without obtaining it, than obtain, without deserving it; if it follow them, it is well, but they will not deviate to follow it. 166 Colton: Lacon.

APPRECIATION.

A work of real merit finds favor at last.
167

A. Bronson Alcott: Table Talk. I. Learning.
Criticism.

APPREHENSION.

It is worse to apprehend than to suffer.

168 La Bruyère: Characters. Of Man. (Rowe, Trans.)

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