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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
