GENIUS. GREAT indeed are the miseries that here await the children of Genius; so exquisitely alive are they to every breath that stirs. But if they suffer more than others, more than others is it theirs to enjoy. Every gleam of sunshine on their journey has a lustre not its own ; and to the last, come what may, how great is their delight when they pour forth their conceptions, when they deliver what they receive from the God that is within them; how great the confidence with which they look forward to the day, however distant, when those who are yet unborn shall bless them! Rogers, Notes to Italy. DEBASED GENIUS. WHEN I behold a genius bright and base, Young, Night Thoughts, vi. INCONSISTENCY OF GENIUS. WHAT an impostor Genius is! How, with that strong mimetic art All shapes of thought, all hues of heart, Nor feels itself one throb it wakes; How like a gem its light may smile Moore, Rhymes of the Road (alluding to Rousseau). CLIMATE AND GENIUS. BACON has observed, that the inhabitants of the South are, in general, more ingenious than those of the North; but that, where the native of a cold climate has genius, he rises to a higher pitch than can be reached by the southern wits. This observation a late writer (Dr. Berkeley) confirms, by comparing the southern wits to cucumbers, which are commonly all good in their kind, but at best are an insipid fruit; while the northern geniuses are like melons, of which not one in fifty is good, but when it is so, it has an exquisite relish. GENTLENESS. Hume, Essays, xx. A GENTLE answer is an excellent remora to the progresses of anger, whether in thyself or others. For anger is like the waves of a troubled sea; when it is corrected with a soft reply, as with a little strand, it retires, and leaves nothing behind it but froth and shells; no permanent mischief. Jeremy Taylor, Discourse on the Decalogue. GENTLENESS. BUT all those sweetest gifts that win, L. E. Landon, Golden Violet. GENTLENESS. WITH a smile Gentle, and affable, and full of grace, GENTLENESS. HER sweet deportment towards those who were with her could be outdone by nothing but her tenderness in relation to the absent, whom she was sure to think and speak as well of as was possible: and when their character was plainly such as could have no good colours put upon it, yet she would show her dislike of it no otherwise than by saying nothing of them. Neither her good-nature nor her religion, neither her civility nor her prudence, would suffer her to censure any one: she thought she had enough to do at home in that way, without looking much abroad; and therefore turned the edge of all her reflections upon herself. Indeed she spared others as much as if she had been afraid of them, and herself as little as if she had had many faults that wanted mending; and yet, it was because she could, after the severest scrutiny, find no great harm in herself, that she could scarce be brought to suspect any in others. Her conversation might, for this reason, seem to want somewhat of that salt and smartness, which the ill-natured part of the world are so fond of; a want that she could easily have supplied, would her principles have given her leave but her settled opinion was, that the good name of any one was too nice and serious a thing to be played with, and that it was a foolish kind of mirth, which, in order to divert some, hurt others. She could never bring herself to think, that the only thing which gave life and spirit to discourse was to have somebody's faults the subject of it; or, that the pleasure of a visit lay in giving up the company to one another's sport and malice, by turns. And if these are the chief marks of wit and good-breeding, it must be confessed that she had neither. Atterbury, Discourse on Death of Lady Cutts, 1698. GERMANS AND FRENCH. EVERY nation has faults peculiar to itself, and we Germans have our celebrated slowness. As is well known, there is lead in our boots, and even in our dancing slippers. But of what use to the French are all their expert, facile ways, if they forget things as quickly as they perform them? With each recurring day they are obliged to live their history over again. GLASS. Heine. IT could not be expected that those Phoenician sailors, who saw the sands of Boetica transformed by fire into a transparent glass, should have at once foreseen, that this new substance would prolong the pleasures of sight to the old; that it would, one day, assist the astronomer in penetrating. the depths of the heavens, and in numbering the stars of the Milky Way that it would lay open to the naturalist a miniature world, as populous and as rich in wonders as that which alone seemed to have been granted to his senses and his contemplations:-in fine, that the most simple and direct use of it would enable the inhabitants of the Baltic Sea to cultivate, although under the frost of the polar circle, the most delicious fruit of the torrid zone. : GLASS. Cuvier. It is pleasing to contemplate a manufacture rising gradually from its first mean state, by the successive labours of innumerable minds. Who, when he saw the first sand or ashes, by a casual intenseness of heat, melted into a metalline form, rugged with excrescences, and clouded with impurities, would have imagined that in this shapeless lump lay concealed so many conveniences of life, as would in time constitute a great part of the happiness of the world? Yet, by some such fortuitous liquefaction was mankind taught to procure a body at once in a high degree solid and transparent, which might admit the light of the sun, and exclude the violence of the wind; which might extend the sight of the philosopher to new ranges of existence, and charm him at one time with the unbounded extent of the material creation, and at another with the endless subordination of animal life; and, what is yet of more importance, might supply the decays of nature, and succour old age with subsidiary sight. Thus was the first artificer in glass employed, though without his own knowledge or expectation. He was facilitating and prolonging the enjoyment of light, enlarging the avenues of science, and conferring the highest and most lasting pleasures; he was enabling the student to contemplate nature, and the beauty to behold herself. Johnson, Rambler, No. 9. GOLD. GOLD is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant; accommodates itself to the meanest capacities; silences the loud and clamorous, and brings over the most obstinate and inflexible. Addison, Spectator, No. 239. GOLD. THIS idol can boast of two peculiarities: it is worshipped in all climates, without a single temple; and by all classes, without a single hypocrite. Colton, Lacon. Jupiter. GOLD. When I made This gold I made a greater god than Jove, Dryden, Amphitryon, act iii. 9. 1. GOOD HUMOUR. Good humour may be defined a habit of being pleased; a constant and perennial softness of manner, easiness of |