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Why Do So Many Ingenious Theorists Give Fresh Reasons Every Year For The Decline Of Letter Writing, And Why Do They Assume, In Derision Of Suffering Humanity, That It Has Declined? They Lament The Lack Of Leisure, The Lack Of Sentiment ... They Talk Of Telegrams, And Telephones, And Postal Cards, As If Any Discovery Of Science, Any Device Of Civilization, Could Eradicate From The Human Heart That Passion For Self-expression Which Is The Impelling Force Of Letters.

-Agnes Repplier

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Why Do So Many

Agnes Repplier

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Why Do So Many Ingenious Theorists Give Fresh Reasons Every Year For The Decline Of Letter Writing, And Why Do They Assume, In Derision Of Suffering Humanity, That It Has Declined? They Lament The Lack Of Leisure, The Lack Of Sentiment ... They Talk Of Telegrams, And Telephones, And Postal Cards, As If Any Discovery Of Science, Any Device Of Civilization, Could Eradicate From The Human Heart That Passion For Self-expression Which Is The Impelling Force Of Letters.

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Wit Is As Infinite As Love, And A Deal More Lasting In Its Qualities.

It Is Not The Office Of A Novelist To Show Us How To Behave Ourselves; It Is Not The Business Of Fiction To Teach Us Anything.

A World Of Vested Interests Is Not A World Which Welcomes The Disruptive Force Of Candor.

Humor Hardens The Heart, At Least To The Point Of Sanity.

Anyone, However, Who Has Had Dealings With Dates Knows That They Are Worse Than Elusive, They Are Perverse. Events Do Not Happen At The Right Time, Nor In Their Proper Sequence. That Sense Of Harmony With Place And Season Which Is So Strong In The Historian--if He Be A Readable Historian--is Lamentably Lacking In History, Which Takes No Pains To Verify His Most Convincing Statements.

Sleep Sweetly In The Fields Of Asphodel, And Waken, As Of Old, To Stretch Thy Languid Length, And Purr Thy Soft Contentment To The Skies.

The Most Comfortable Characteristic Of The Period [1775-1825], And The One Which Incites Our Deepest Envy, Is The Universal Willingness To Accept A Good Purpose As A Substitute For Good Work.

Neatness Of Phrase Is So Closely Akin To Wit That It Is Often Accepted As Its Substitute.

In Those Happy Days When Leisure Was Held To Be No Sin, Men And Women Wrote Journals Whose Copiousness Both Delights And Dismays Us.

I Wonder What Especial Sanctity Attaches Itself To Fifteen Minutes. It Is Always The Maximum And The Minimum Of Time Which Will Enable Us To Acquire Languages, Etiquette, Personality, Oratory ... One Gathers That Twelve Minutes A Day Would Be Hopelessly Inadequate, And Twenty Minutes A Wasteful And Ridiculous Excess.

Miserliness Is The One Vice That Grows Stronger With Increasing Years. It Yields Its Sordid Pleasures To The End.

The Most Charming Thing About Youth Is The Tenacity Of Its Impressions.

An Historian Without Political Passions Is As Rare As A Wasp Without A Sting.

Laughter Springs From The Lawless Part Of Our Nature.

To Have Given Pleasure To One Human Being Is A Recollection That Sweetens Life.

The Choice Of A Topic Which Will Bear Analysis And Support Enthusiasm, Is Essential To The Enjoyment Of Conversation.

Necessity Knows No Sunday.

It Is Impossible To Withhold Education From The Receptive Mind, As It Is Impossible To Force It Upon The Unreasoning.

Traveling Is, And Has Always Been, More Popular Than The Traveler.

Personally, I Do Not Believe That It Is The Duty Of Any Man Or Woman To Write A Novel. In Nine Cases Out Of Ten, There Would Be Greater Merit In Leaving It Unwritten.

Humor Distorts Nothing, And Only False Gods Are Laughed Off Their Earthly Pedestals.

Wit Is A Thing Capable Of Proof.

It Is The Steady And Merciless Increase Of Occupations, The Augmented Speed At Which We Are Always Trying To Live, The Crowding Of Each Day With More Work Than It Can Profitably Hold, Which Has Cost Us, Among Other Things, The Undisturbed Enjoyment Of Friends. Friendship Takes Time, And We Have No Time To Give It.

If Everybody Floated With The Tide Of Talk, Placidity Would Soon End In Stagnation. It Is The Strong Backward Stroke Which Stirs The Ripples, And Gives Animation And Variety.

Our Dogs Will Love And Admire The Meanest Of Us, And Feed Our Colossal Vanity With Their Uncritical Homage.

The Great Dividing Line Between Books That Are Made To Be Read And Books That Are Made To Be Bought Is Not The Purely Modern Thing It Seems. We Can Trace It, If We Try, Back To The First Printing-presses.

It Is Claimed That The United States Gets The Cleanest And Purest Tea In The Market, And Certainly It Is Too Good To Warrant The Nervous Apprehension Which Strains And Dilutes It Into Nothingness. The English Do Not Strain Their Tea In The Fervid Fashion We Do. They Like To See A Few Leaves Dawdling About The Cup. They Like To Know What They Are Drinking.

If A Man Be Discreet Enough To Take To Hard Drinking In His Youth, Before His General Emptiness Is Ascertained, His Friends Invariably Credit Him With A Host Of Shining Qualities Which, We Are Given To Understand, Lie Balked And Frustrated By His One Unfortunate Weakness.

There Is No Liberal Education For The Under-languaged.

Liberal Education

But Self-satisfaction, If As Buoyant As Gas, Has An Ugly Trick Of Collapsing When Full Blown, And Facts Are Stony Things That Refuse To Melt Away In The Sunshine Of A Smile.

The Friendships Of Nations, Built On Common Interests, Cannot Survive The Mutability Of Those Interests.

The Cat Dwells Within The Circle Of Her Own Secret Thoughts.

America Has Invested Her Religion As Well As Her Morality In Sound Income-paying Securities. She Has Adopted The Unassailable Position Of A Nation Blessed Because It Deserves To Be Blessed; And Her Sons, Whatever Other Theologies They May Affect Or Disregard, Subscribe Unreservedly To This National Creed.

There Was No Escape From The Letter-writer Who, A Hundred Or A Hundred And Twenty-five Years Ago, Captured A Coveted Correspondent. It Would Have Been As Easy To Shake Off An Octopus Or A Boa-constrictor.

There Are Few Things More Wearisome In A Fairly Fatiguing Life Than The Monotonous Repetition Of A Phrase Which Catches And Holds The Public Fancy By Virtue Of Its Total Lack Of Significance.

A Kitten Is The Most Irresistible Comedian In The World. Its Wide-open Eyes Gleam With Wonder And Mirth. It Darts Madly At Nothing At All, And Then, As Though Suddenly Checked In The Pursuit, Prances Sideways On Its Hind Legs With Ridiculous Agility And Zeal.

The Tourist May Complain Of Other Tourists; But He Would Be Lost Without Them. He May Find Them In His Way, Taking Up The Best Seats In The Motors, And The Best Tables In The Hotel Dining-rooms; But He Grows Amazingly Intimate With Them During The Voyage, And Not Infrequently Marries One Of Them When It Is Over.

Humor Brings Insight And Tolerance.

Discussion Without Asperity, Sympathy With Fusion, Gayety Unracked By Too Abundant Jests, Mental Ease In Approaching One Another; These Are The Things Which Give A Pleasant Smoothness To The Rough Edge Of Life.

People Who Pin Their Faith To A Catchword Never Feel The Necessity Of Understanding Anything.

The Man Who Never Tells An Unpalatable Truth 'at The Wrong Time' (the Right Time Has Yet To Be Discovered) Is The Man Whose Success In Life Is Fairly Well Assured.

It Is Not Depravity That Afflicts The Human Race So Much As A General Lack Of Intelligence.

What Puzzles Most Of Us Are The Things Which Have Been Left In The Movies Rather Than The Things Which Have Been Taken Out.

The Tourist May Complain Of Other Tourists, But He Would Be Lost Without Them.

The Necessity Of Knowing A Little About A Great Many Things Is The Most Grievous Burden Of Our Day. It Deprives Us Of Leisure On The One Hand, And Of Scholarship On The Other.

The Least Practical Of Us Have Some Petty Thrift Dear To Our Hearts, Some One Direction In Which We Love To Scrimp.

History Is Not Written In The Interests Of Morality.

There Is A Secret And Wholesome Conviction In The Heart Of Every Man Or Woman Who Has Written A Book That It Should Be No Easy Matter For An Intelligent Reader To Lay Down That Book Unfinished. There Is A Pardonable Impression Among Reviewers That Half An Hour In Its Company Is Sufficient.

It Is Not Every Tourist Who Bubbles Over With Mirth, And That Unquenchable Spirit Of Humor Which Turns A Trial Into A Blessing.

A Vast Deal Of Ingenuity Is Wasted Every Year In Evoking The Undesirable, In The Careful Construction Of Objects Which Burden Life. Frankenstein Was A Large Rather Than An Isolated Example.

It Takes Time And Trouble To Persuade Ourselves That The Things We Want To Do Are The Things We Ought To Do.

We Cannot Hope To Scale Great Moral Heights By Ignoring Petty Obligations.

A Kitten Is Chiefly Remarkable For Rushing About Like Mad At Nothing Whatever And Generally Stopping Before It Gets There.

It Was Hard To Speed The Male Child Up The Stony Heights Of Erudition, But It Was Harder Still To Check The Female Child At The Crucial Point, And Keep Her Tottering Decorously Behind Her Brother.

Economics And Ethics Have Little In Common.

The Essence Of Humor Is That It Should Be Unexpected, That It Should Embody An Element Of Surprise, That It Should Startle Us Out Of That Reasonable Gravity Which, After All, Must Be Our Habitual Frame Of Mind.

The Thinkers Of The World Should By Rights Be Guardians Of The World's Mirth.

Men Who Believe That, Through Some Exceptional Grace Or Good Fortune, They Have Found God, Feel Little Need Of Culture.

It Is Difficult To Admonish Frenchmen. Their Habit Of Mind Is Unfavorable To Preachment.

The Comfortable Thing About The Study Of History Is That It Inclines Us To Think Hopefully Of Our Own Times.

Now The Pessimist Proper Is The Most Modest Of Men. ... Under No Circumstances Does He Presume To Imagine That He, A Mere Unit Of Pain, Can In Any Degree Change Or Soften The Remorseless Words Of Fate.

There Is Always A Secret Irritation About A Laugh In Which We Cannot Join

Fair Play Is Less Characteristic Of Groups Than Of Individuals.

There Is No Illusion So Permanent As That Which Enables Us To Look Backward With Complacency; There Is No Mental Process So Deceptive As The Comparing Of Recollections With Realities.

Humor Brings Insight And Tolerance. Irony Brings A Deeper And Less Friendly Understanding.

The Well-ordered Mind Knows The Value, No Less Than The Charm, Of Reticence. The Fruit Of The Tree Of Knowledge ... Falls Ripe From Its Stem; But Those Who Have Eaten With Sobriety Find No Need To Discuss The Processes Of Digestion.

Edged Tools Are Dangerous Things To Handle, And Not Infrequently Do Much Hurt.

Philadelphians Are Every Whit As Mediocre As Their Neighbors, But They Seldom Encourage Each Other In Mediocrity By Giving It A More Agreeable Name.

History Is, And Has Always Been Trameled By Facts. It May Ignore Some And Deny Others; But It Cannot Accommodate Itself Unreservedly To Theories; It Cannot Be Stripped Of Things Evidenced In Favor Of Things Surmised.

The Pitfall Of The Feminist Is The Belief That The Interests Of Men And Women Can Ever Be Severed; That What Brings Sufferings To The One Can Leave The Other Unscathed.

There Is A Natural Limit To The Success We Wish Our Friends, Even When We Have Spurred Them On Their Way.

We May Fail Of Our Happiness, Strive We Ever So Bravely; But We Are Less Likely To Fail If We Measure With Judgement Our Chances And Our Capabilities.

There Are Few Nudities So Objectionable As The Naked Truth.

Woman Is Quick To Revere Genius, But In Her Secret Soul She Seldom Loves It.

Lovers Of The Town Have Been Content, For The Most Part, To Say They Loved It. They Do Not Brag About Its Uplifting Qualities. They Have None Of The Infernal Smugness Which Makes The Lover Of The Country Insupportable.

Innovations To Which We Are Not Committed Are Illuminating Things.

No Rural Community, No Suburban Community, Can Ever Possess The Distinctive Qualities That City Dwellers Have For Centuries Given To The World.

Diaries Tell Their Little Tales With A Directness, A Candor, Conscious Or Unconscious, A Closeness Of Outlook, Which Gratifies Our Sense Of Security. Reading Them Is Like Gazing Through A Small Clear Pane Of Glass. We May Not See Far And Wide, But We See Very Distinctly That Which Comes Within Our Field Of Vision.

Conversation Between Adam And Eve Must Have Been Difficult At Times, Because They Had Nobody To Talk About.

There Is Nothing In The World So Incomprehensible As The Joke We Do Not See.

People Who Cannot Recognize A Palpable Absurdity Are Very Much In The Way Of Civilization.

It Is In His Pleasure That A Man Really Lives; It Is From His Leisure That He Constructs The True Fabric Of Self.

The Impulse To Travel Is One Of The Hopeful Symptoms Of Life.

A Real Dog, Beloved And Therefore Pampered By His Mistress, Is A Lamentable Spectacle. He Suffers From Fatty Degeneration Of His Moral Being.

Every Misused Word Revenges Itself Forever Upon A Writer's Reputation.

Those Persons Are Happiest In This Restless And Mutable World Who Are In Love With Change, Who Delight In What Is New Simply Because It Differs From What Is Old; Who Rejoice In Every Innovation, And Find A Strange Alert Pleasure In All That Is, And That Has Never Been Before.

Sensuality, Too, Which Used To Show Itself Course, Smiling, Unmasked, And Unmistakable, Is Now Serious, Analytic, And So Burdened With A Sense Of Its Responsibilities That It Passes Muster Half The Time As A New Type Of Asceticism.

Friendship Takes Time.

To Be Brave In Misfortune Is To Be Worthy Of Manhood; To Be Wise In Misfortune Is To Conquer Fate.

The Cure-alls Of The Present Day Are Infinitely Various And Infinitely Obliging. Applied Psychology, Autosuggestion, And Royal Roads To Learning Or To Wealth Are Urged Upon Us By Kindly, If Not Altogether Disinterested, Reformers. Simple And Easy Systems For The Dissolution Of Discord And Strife; Simple And Easy Systems For The Development Of Personality And Power. Booklets Of Counsel On 'how To Get What We Want,' Which Is Impossible; Booklets On 'visualization,' Warranted To Make Us Want What We Get, Which Is Ignoble.

The Earliest Voice Listened To By The Nations In Their Infancy Was The Voice Of The Storyteller.

There Is A Vast Deal Of Make-believe In The Carefully Nurtured Sentiment For Country Life, And The Barefoot Boy, And The Mountain Girl.

The Diseases Of The Present Have Little In Common With The Diseases Of The Past Save That We Die Of Them.

A Villain Must Be A Thing Of Power, Handled With Delicacy And Grace. He Must Be Wicked Enough To Excite Our Aversion, Strong Enough To Arouse Our Fear, Human Enough To Awaken Some Transient Gleam Of Sympathy. We Must Triumph In His Downfall, Yet Not Barbarously Nor With Contempt, And The Close Of His Career Must Be In Harmony With All Its Previous Development.

Humor, In One Form Or Another, Is Characteristic Of Every Nation; And Reflecting The Salient Points Of Social And National Life, It Illuminates Those Crowded Corners Which History Leaves Obscure.

It Is Not Begging But The Beggar, Who Has Forfeited Favor With The Elect.

What Strange Impulse Is It Which Induces Otherwise Truthful People To Say They Like Music When They Do Not, And Thus Expose Themselves To Hours Of Boredom?

The Dog Is Guided By Kindly Instinct To The Man Or Woman Whose Heart Is Open To His Advances. The Cat Often Leaves The Friend Who Courts Her, To Honor, Or To Harass, The Unfortunate Mortal Who Shudders At Her Unwelcome Caresses.

A Puppy Is But A Dog, Plus High Spirits, And Minus Common Sense.

The Age Of Credulity Is Every Age The World Has Ever Known. Men Have Always Turned From The Ascertained, Which Is Limited And Discouraging, To The Dubious, Which Is Unlimited And Full Of Hope For Everybody.

The Carefully Fostered Theory That Schoolwork Can Be Made Easy And Enjoyable Breaks Down As Soon As Anything, However Trivial, Has To Be Learned.

The Gayety Of Life, Like The Beauty And The Moral Worth Of Life, Is A Saving Grace, Which To Ignore Is Folly, And To Destroy Is Crime. There Is No More Than We Need; There Is Barely Enough To Go Round.

The Delusions Of The Past Seem Fond And Foolish. The Delusions Of The Present Seem Subtle And Sane.

Democracy Forever Teases Us With The Contrast Between Its Ideals And Its Realities, Between Its Heroic Possibilities And Its Sorry Achievements.

There Are People Who Balk At Small Civilities On Account Of Their Manifest Insincerity. ... It Is Better And More Logical To Accept All The Polite Phraseology Which Facilitates Intercourse, And Contributes To The Sweetness Of Life. If We Discarded The Formal Falsehoods Which Are The Currency Of Conversation, We Should Not Be One Step Nearer The Vital Things Of Truth.

Sweetness Of Life

We Are Tethered To Our Kind, And May As Well Join Hands In The Struggle.

Need Drives Men To Envy As Fullness Drives Them To Selfishness.

Where There Is No Temptation, There Is No Virtue.

It Has Been Well Said That Tea Is Suggestive Of A Thousand Wants, From Which Spring The Decencies And Luxuries Of Civilization.

I Am Eighty Years Old. There Seems To Be Nothing To Add To This Statement. I Have Reached The Age Of Undecorated Facts - Facts That Refuse To Be Softened By Sentiment, Or Confused By Nobility Of Phrase.

Like Simplicity And Candor, And Other Much-commented Qualities, Enthusiasm Is Charming Until We Meet It Face To Face, And Cannot Escape From Its Charm.

In The Stress Of Modern Life, How Little Room Is Left For That Most Comfortable Vanity That Whispers In Our Ears That Failures Are Not Faults! Now We Are Taught From Infancy That We Must Rise Or Fall Upon Our Own Merits; That Vigilance Wins Success, And Incapacity Means Ruin

The Party Which Is Out Sees Nothing But Graft And Incapacity In The Party Which Is In; And The Party Which Is In Sees Nothing But Greed And Animosity In The Party Which Is Out.

There Is Something Frightful In Being Required To Enjoy And Appreciate All Masterpieces; To Read With Equal Relish Milton, And Dante, And Calderon, And Goethe, And Homer, And Scott, And Voltaire, And Wordsworth, And Cervantes, And Molière, And Swift.

I Am Seventy Years Old, A Gray Age Weighted With Uncompromising Biblical Allusions. It Ought To Have A Gray Outlook, But It Hasn't, Because A Glint Of Dazzling Sunshine Is Dancing Merrily Ahead Of Me.

A Dead Grief Is Easier To Bear Than A Live Trouble.

A Man Who Listens Because He Has Nothing To Say Can Hardly Be A Source Of Inspiration. The Only Listening That Counts Is That Of The Talker Who Alternately Absorbs And Expresses Ideas.

English Civilization Rests Largely Upon Tea And Cricket, With Mighty Spurts Of Enjoyment On Derby Day, And At Newmarket.

When The Contemplative Mind Is A French Mind, It Is Content, For The Most Part, To Contemplate France. When The Contemplative Mind Is An English Mind, It Is Liable To Be Seized At Any Moment By An Importunate Desire To Contemplate Morocco Or Labrador.

People Fed On Sugared Praises Cannot Be Expected To Feel An Appetite For The Black Broth Of Honest Criticism.

It Is Impossible For A Lover Of Cats To Banish These Alert, Gentle, And Discriminating Friends, Who Give Us Just Enough Of Their Regard And Complaisance To Make Us Hunger For More.

The Pessimist Is Seldom An Agitating Individual. His Creed Breeds Indifference To Others, And He Does Not Trouble Himself To Thrust His Views Upon The Unconvinced.

There Are Many Ways Of Asking A Favor; But To Assume That You Are Granting The Favor That You Ask Shows Spirit And Invention.

The Clear-sighted Do Not Rule The World, But They Sustain And Console It.

Who That Has Plodded On To Middle Age Would Take Back Upon His Shoulders Ten Of The Vanished Years, With Their Mingled Pleasures And Pains? Who Would Return To The Youth He Is Forever Pretending To Regret?

Conversation In Its Happiest Development Is A Link, Equally Exquisite And Adequate, Between Mind And Mind, A System By Which Men Approach One Another With Sympathy And Enjoyment, A Field For The Finest Amenities Of Civilization, For The Keenest And Most Intelligent Display Of Social Activity. It Is Also Our Solace, Our Inspiration, And Our Most Rational Pleasure. It Is A Duty We Owe To One Another; It Is Our Common Debt To Humanity.

Love Is A Malady, The Common Symptoms Of Which Are The Same In All Patients.

Wit Is Artificial; Humor Is Natural. Wit Is Accidental; Humor Is Inevitable. Wit Is Born Of Conscious Effort; Humor, Of The Allotted Ironies Of Fate. Wit Can Be Expressed Only In Language; Humor Can Be Developed Sufficiently In Situation.

Art... Does Not Take Kindly To Facts, Is Helpless To Grapple With Theories, And Is Killed Outright By A Sermon.

Books That Children Read But Once Are Of Scant Service To Them; Those That Have Really Helped To Warm Our Imaginations And To Train Our Faculties Are The Few Old Friends We Know So Well That They Have Become A Portion Of Our Thinking Selves.

It Is Bad Enough To Be Bad, But To Be Bad In Bad Taste Is Unpardonable.

Bargaining Is Essential To The Life Of The World; But Nobody Has Ever Claimed That It Is An Ennobling Process.

It Is Not What We Learn In Conversation That Enriches Us. It Is The Elation That Comes Of Swift Contact With Tingling Currents Of Thought.

It Is Not Easy To Find Happiness In Ourselves, And It Is Not Possible To Find It Elsewhere.

The Human Race May Be Divided Into People Who Love Cats And People Who Hate Them; The Neutrals Being Few In Numbers, And, For Intellectual And Moral Reasons, Not Worth Considering.

We Have But The Memories Of Past Good Cheer, We Have But The Echoes Of Departed Laughter. In Vain We Look And Listen For The Mirth That Has Died Away. In Vain We Seek To Question The Gray Ghosts Of Old-time Revelers.

Life Is So Full Of Miseries, Minor And Major; They Press So Close Upon Us At Every Step Of The Way, That It Is Hardly Worthwhile To Call One Another's Attention To Their Presence.

The Universality Of A Custom Is Pledge Of Its Worth.

Next To The Joy Of The Egotist Is The Joy Of The Detractor.

Science May Carry Us To Mars, But It Will Leave The Earth Peopled As Ever By The Inept.

It Is Because Of Our Unassailable Enthusiasm, Our Profound Reverence For Education, That We Habitually Demand Of It The Impossible. The Teacher Is Expected To Perform A Choice And Varied Series Of Miracles.

Wit Is The Salt Of Conversation, Not The Food, And Few Things In The World Are More Wearying Than A Sarcastic Attitude Towards Life.

No Man Pursues What He Has At Hand. No Man Recognizes The Need Of Pursuit Until That Which He Desires Has Escaped Him.

We Cannot Learn To Love Other Tourists,-the Laws Of Nature Forbid It,-but, Meditating Soberly On The Impossibility Of Their Loving Us, We May Reach Some Common Platform Of Tolerance, Some Common Exchange Of Recognition And Amenity.

He Is Your Friend, Your Partner, Your Defender, Your Dog. You Are His Life, His Love, His Leader. He Will Be Yours, Faithful And True, To The Last Beat Of His Heart. You Owe It To Him To Be Worthy Of Such Devotion. Our Dogs Will Love And Admire The Meanest Of Us, And Feed Our Colossal Vanity With Their Uncritical Homage.

Wit Is A Pleasure-giving Thing, Largely Because It Eludes Reason; But In The Apprehension Of An Absurdity Through The Working Of The Comic Spirit There Is A Foundation Of Reason, And An Impetus To Human Companionship.

Too Much Rigidity On The Part Of Teachers Should Be Followed By A Brisk Spirit Of Insubordination On The Part Of The Taught.

Laughter Springs From The Lawless Part Of Our Nature, And Is Purifying Only In So Far As There Is A Natural And Unschooled Goodness In The Human Heart.

While Art May Instruct As Well As Please, It Can Nevertheless Be True Art Without Instructing, But Not Without Pleasing.

The Tea-hour Is The Hour Of Peace ... Strife Is Lost In The Hissing Of The Kettle - A Tranquilizing Sound, Second Only To The Purring Of A Cat.

We Know When We Have Had Enough Of A Friend, And We Know When A Friend Has Had Enough Of Us. The First Truth Is No More Palatable Than The Second.

Why Do So Many Ingenious Theorists Give Fresh Reasons Every Year For The Decline Of Letter Writing, And Why Do They Assume, In Derision Of Suffering Humanity, That It Has Declined? They Lament The Lack Of Leisure, The Lack Of Sentiment ... They Talk Of Telegrams, And Telephones, And Postal Cards, As If Any Discovery Of Science, Any Device Of Civilization, Could Eradicate From The Human Heart That Passion For Self-expression Which Is The Impelling Force Of Letters.

The Pleasure Of Possession, Whether We Possess Trinkets, Or Offspring - Or Possibly Books, Or Prints, Or Chessmen, Or Postage Stamps - Lies In Showing These Things To Friends Who Are Experiencing No Immediate Urge To Look At Them.

The Audience Is The Controlling Factor In The Actor's Life. It Is Practically Infallible, Since There Is No Appeal From Its Verdict. It Is A Little Like A Supreme Court Composed Of Irresponsible Minors.

A Man Who Owns A Dog Is, In Every Sense Of The Words, Its Master; The Term Expresses Accurately Their Mutual Relations. But It Is Ridiculous When Applied To The Limited Possession Of A Cat.

[mary Wortley Montagu] Wrote More Letters, With Fewer Punctuation Marks, Than Any Englishwoman Of Her Day; And Her Nephew, The Fourth Baron Rokeby, Nearly Blinded Himself In Deciphering The Two Volumes Of Undated Correspondence Which Were Printed In 1810. Two More Followed In 1813, After Which The Gallant Baron Either Died At His Post Or Was Smitten With Despair; For Sixty-eight Cases Of Letters Lay Undisturbed ... 'les Morts N'écrivent Point,' Said Madame De Maintenon Hopefully; But Of What Benefit Is This Inactivity, When We Still Continue To Receive Their Letters?

Punctuation Marks

If We Could Make Up Our Minds To Spare Our Friends All Details Of Ill Health, Of Money Losses, Of Domestic Annoyances, Of Altercations, Of Committee Work, Of Grievances, Provocations, And Anxieties, We Should Sin Less Against The World's Good-humor. It May Not Be Given Us To Add To The Treasury Of Mirth; But There Is Considerable Merit In Not Robbing It.

Just As We Are Often Moved To Merriment For No Other Reason Than That The Occasion Calls For Seriousness, So We Are Correspondingly Serious When Invited Too Freely To Be Amused.

There Is Nothing In The World So Enjoyable As A Thorough-going Monomania.

Erudition, Like A Bloodhound, Is A Charming Thing When Held Firmly In Leash, But It Is Not So Attractive When Turned Loose Upon A Defenseless And Unerudite Public.

We Owe To One Another All The Wit And Good Humour We Can Command; And Nothing So Clears Our Mental Vistas As Sympathetic And Intelligent Conversation.

For Indeed All That We Think So New To-day Has Been Acted Over And Over Again, A Shifting Comedy, By The Women Of Every Century.

The Sanguine Assurance That Men And Nations Can Be Legislated Into Goodness, That Pressure From Without Is Equivalent To A Moral Change Within, Needs A Strong Backing Of Inexperience.

It Is In His Pleasure That A Man Really Lives.

The English Possess Too Many Agreeable Traits To Permit Them To Be As Much Disliked As They Think And Hope They Are.

Tea Had Come As A Deliverer To A Land That Called For Deliverance; A Land Of Beef And Ale, Of Heavy Eating And Abundant Drunkenness; Of Gray Skies And Harsh Winds; Of Strong-nerved, Stout-purposed, Slow-thinking Men And Women. Above All, A Land Of Sheltered Homes And Warm Firesides - Firesides That Were Waiting - Waiting For The Bubbling Kettle And The Fragrant Breath Of Tea.

This Is The Sphinx Of The Hearthstone, The Little God Of Domesticity, Whose Presence Turns A House Into A Home.

Believers In Political Faith-healing Enjoy A Supreme Immunity From Doubt.

Resistance, Which Is The Function Of Conservatism, Is Essential To Orderly Advance.

It Is Unwise To Feel Too Much If We Think Too Little.

If History In The Making Be A Fluid Thing, It Swiftly Crystallizes.

Every True American Likes To Think In Terms Of Thousands And Millions. The Word 'million' Is Probably The Most Pleasure-giving Vocable In The Language.

People With Theories Of Life Are, Perhaps, The Most Relentless Of Their Kind, For No Time Or Place Is Sacred From Their Devastating Elucidations.

The Labors Of The True Critic Are More Essential To The Author, Even, Than To The Reader.

Real Letter-writing ... Is Founded On A Need As Old And As Young As Humanity Itself, The Need That One Human Being Has Of Another.

The Gospel Of Cheerfulness, I Had Almost Said The Gospel Of Amusement, Is Preached By People Who Lack Experience To People Who Lack Vitality. There Is A Vague Impression That The World Would Be A Good World If It Were Only Happy, That It Would Be Happy If It Were Amused, And That It Would Be Amused If Plenty Of Artificial Recreation - That Recreation For Which We Are Now Told Every Community Stands Responsible - Were Provided For Its Entertainment.

Abroad It Is Our Habit To Regard All Other Travelers In The Light Of Personal And Unpardonable Grievances. They Are Intruders Into Our Chosen Realms Of Pleasure, They Jar Upon Our Sensibilities, They Lessen Our Meager Share Of Comforts, They Are Everywhere In Our Way, They Are Always An Unnecessary Feature In The Landscape.

If We Go To Church We Are Confronted With A System Of Begging So Complicated And So Resolute That All Other Demands Sink Into Insignificance By Its Side.

What Monstrous Absurdities And Paradoxes Have Resisted Whole Batteries Of Serious Arguments, And Then Crumbled Swiftly Into Dust Before The Ringing Death-knell Of A Laugh!

Everybody Is Now So Busy Teaching That Nobody Has Any Time To Learn.

Letters Form A By-path Of Literature, A Charming, But Occasional, Retreat For People Of Cultivated Leisure.

To Be Civilized Is To Be Incapable Of Giving Unnecessary Offense, It Is To Have Some Quality Of Consideration For All Who Cross Our Path.

The Perfectly Natural Thing To Do With An Unreadable Book Is To Give It Away; And The Publication, For More Than A Quarter Of A Century, Of Volumes Which Fulfilled This One Purpose And No Other Is A Pleasant Proof, If Proof Were Needed, Of The Business Principles Which Underlay The Enlightened Activity Of Publishers.

By Providing Cheap And Wholesome Reading For The Young, We Have Partly Succeeded In Driving From The Field That Which Was Positively Bad; Yet Nothing Is Easier Than To Overdo A Reformation, And, Through The Characteristic Indulgence Of American Parents, Children Are Drugged With A Literature Whose Chief Merit Is Its Harmlessness.

Letter-writing On The Part Of A Busy Man Or Woman Is The Quintessence Of Generosity.

There Is An Optimism Which Nobly Anticipates The Eventual Triumph Of Great Moral Laws, And There Is An Optimism Which Cheerfully Tolerates Unworthiness.

When The Milk Of Human Kindness Turns Sour, It Is A Singularly Unpalatable Draught.

The Worst In Life, We Are Told, Is Compatible With The Best In Art. So Too The Worst In Life Is Compatible With The Best In Humour.

The Soul Begins To Travel When The Child Begins To Think.

Our Belief In Education Is Unbounded, Our Reverence For It Is Unfaltering, Our Loyalty To It Is Unshaken By Reverses. Our Passionate Desire, Not So Much To Acquire It As To Bestow It, Is The Most Animated Of American Traits.

Passionate Desire

An Appreciation Of Words Is So Rare That Everybody Naturally Thinks He Possesses It, And This Universal Sentiment Results In The Misuse Of A Material Whose Beauty Enriches The Loving Student Beyond The Dreams Of Avarice.

Cats, Even When Robust, Have Scant Liking For The Boisterous Society Of Children, And Are Apt To Exert Their Utmost Ingenuity To Escape It. Nor Are They Without Adult Sympathy In Their Prejudice.

Whatever Has "wit Enough To Keep It Sweet" Defies Corruption And Outlasts All Time; But The Wit Must Be Of That Outward And Visible Order Which Needs No Introduction Or Demonstration At Our Hands.

Whereas The Dog Strives To Lessen The Distance Between Himself And Man, Seeks Ever To Be Intelligent And Intelligible, And Translates Into Looks And Actions The Words He Cannot Speak, The Cat Dwells Within The Circle Of Her Own Secret Thoughts.

I Do Strive To Think Well Of My Fellow Man, But No Amount Of Striving Can Give Me Confidence In The Wisdom Of A Congressional Vote.

For My Part, The Good Novel Of Character Is The Novel I Can Always Pick Up; But The Good Novel Of Incident Is The Novel I Can Never Lay Down.

The Vanity Of Man Revolts From The Serene Indifference Of The Cat.

It Has Been Wisely Said That We Cannot Really Love Anybody At Whom We Never Laugh.

Guests Are The Delight Of Leisure, And The Solace Of Ennui.

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Pervez Musharraf

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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