Life and Literature Part 79

Some lawyers have the knack of converting poor advice into good coin.

1096

Laziness grows on people; it begins in cobwebs and ends in iron chains.

1097

No man is so learned, but he may be taught; neither is anyone so illiterate, but he may teach.

1098

The chief art of learning is to attempt but little at a time.

--_Locke._

1099

Learning by study must be won, 'Twas ne'er entailed from sire to son.

--_Gay._

1100

One pound of learning requires ten of common sense to apply it.

1101

Who swallows quick, can chew but little. (Applied to learning.)

--_Chinese._

1102

AUTUMN LEAVES.

"Come little leaves," said the wind one day, "Come o'er the meadows with me and play; Put on your dress of red and gold, Summer is gone, and the days grow cold."

Soon as the leaves heard the wind's loud call Down they came fluttering, one and all; Over the brown fields they danced and flew, Singing the soft little songs that they knew.

Dancing and whirling the little leaves went, Winter had called them, and they were content.

Soon fast asleep in their earthly beds, The snow laid a coverlet over their heads.

1103

GENERAL LEE'S REPLY.

After the Civil War many offers of places of honor and fame came to General Robert E. Lee. He refused them all, says Thomas Nelson Page, in his biography of the soldier. The only position which he finally did accept, was the presidency of Was.h.i.+ngton College,--now Was.h.i.+ngton and Lee University, at Lexington, Virginia, with a small salary.

On one of these occasions, Lee was approached with the tender of the presidency of an insurance company, at a salary of fifty thousand dollars a year. He declined it, saying that it was work with which he was not familiar.

"But, general," said the representative of the insurance company, "you will not be expected to do any work. What we wish, is the use of your name."

"Do you not think," said General Lee, "that if my name is worth fifty thousand dollars a year, I ought to be very careful about taking care of it?"

1104

Colonel Chesney, of the British Army, said of R. E. Lee: "The day will come when the evil pa.s.sions of the great civil war will sleep in oblivion, and the North and South do justice to each other's motives, and forget each other's wrongs. Then history will speak with clear voice of the deeds done on either side, and the citizens of the whole Union do justice to the memories of the dead, and place above all others the name of the great Southern chief. In strategy, mighty; in battle, terrible; in adversity, as in prosperity, a hero indeed; with the simple devotion to duty and the rare purity of the ideal Christian Knight,--he joined all the kingly qualities of a leader of men. It is a wondrous future indeed that lies before America; but in her annals of the years to come, as in those of the past, there will be found few names that can rival in unsullied l.u.s.tre that of the heroic defender of his native Virginia,--Robert Edward Lee."

_From "Lee of Virginia_,"

--_By Edward Jennings Lee, M. D._

1105

He that visits the sick, in the hope of a legacy, I look upon him in this to be no better than a raven, that watches a weak sheep only to peck out the eyes of it.

--_Seneca._

1106

Leisure is sweet to those who have earned it, but burdensome to those who get it for nothing.

1107

Full oft have letters caused the writers To regret the day they were inditers.

1108

Letters which are sometimes warmly sealed, are often but coldly opened.

--_Richter._

1109

FOR LIBERALITY.