How "All Men Are Born Equal"

1905

The woman born beautiful doesn't bother to educate her intelligence, is spoiled by flattery, is unable to hold the men she attracts; the woman born homely is driven to develop her character and her mind, and so more than overcomes her handicap as against her pretty sister.

The man born clever loses because he wins too easily and has no incentive to that sustained effort which alone achieves success; the man born "slow" develops patience, assiduity, balance and, best of all, tenacity.

It comes near to being a universal rule that strong points and weak ones just about offset each other in any human being at the start, and that the development is a matter for the man himself to determine. And there is no fatal handicap except the disposition to regard one's handicap as fatal. — Saturday Evening Post.


Use Pipes of Pure Gold

There is an endless variety of substances of which pipes are made. In China the stems are of bamboo. In India leather stems are used, in Persia sweet jasmine, in Asia Minor cherry wood. In the Philippine Islands a richer material is available, for the natives hollow out sold nuggets which they find in the torrent beds, and use them as pipe bowls.

Are Animals Ever "Bored?"

1893

Surely mankind has sufficient faults and failings of its own to answer for without being called upon to assume the responsibility of animal failings as well. An American author has discovered that domestic animals, such as cats or dogs, are not only subject to ennui, but also display their feelings under that infliction after very much the same fashion as their human friends, a fact which no one who has kept tame animals will be tempted to deny.

But from this fact our contemporary, The News, leaps to a perfectly unwarrantable conclusion and boldly asserts that ours is the fault, that mankind has inoculated the beast creation with its own particular disease and that it is civilization "which produces ennui, not only in man, women and children, but even in cats and dogs." "We may well blush," it continues, "when we think how man has demoralized the dog. We have taught the dog to be bored. We have corrupted him by our society." And again, "Ennui is one of man's many inventions, but he has taught the unprofitable vice to the domestic or at least to the household animals — pupils only too apt in evil."

Was ever so monstrous a charge leveled against our innocence! The next thing we shall be told is that we are the cause that dogs do bark and bite and that whatever may have been the morality of Dr. Watts his natural history is no better than his poetry. The News, if it is so assured of the demoralizing influence it has exercised upon dogs, is welcome to blush for itself. We prefer to maintain that dogs sorrow under boredom for the same simple reason that they delight to bark and bite, "for 'tis their nature to." — London Spectator.

Birds and Human Nature

1878

What is that legend of Mrs. Piatt's poem about the bird in the brain? Birds are perhaps the most human of creatures, and I should not be surprised if told we all carry more or less of them in our hearts and brains.

I have seen the hawk looking out of the human face many a time, and I think I have seen the eagle; I credit those who say they have seen the owl. Are not the buzzards and unclean birds terribly suggestive? The song-birds were surely all brooded and hatched in the human heart. They are typical of its highest aspirations, and nearly the whole gamut of human passion and emotion is expressed more or less in their varied songs.

Among our own birds there is the song of the hermit-thrush for devoutness and religious serenity, that of the wood-thrush for the musing, melodious thoughts of twilight, the song-sparrow's for simple faith and trust, the bobolink's for hilarity and glee, the mourning-dove's for hopeless sorrow, the vireo's for all-day and every-day contentment, and the nocturne of the mocking-bird for love. Then there are the plaintive singers, the soaring, ecstatic singers, the confident singers, the gushing and voluble singers, and the half-voiced, inarticulate singers. The note of the pewee is a human sigh, the piping of the chickadee unspeakable tenderness and fidelity. There is pride in the song of the tanager, and vanity in that of the cat-bird.

There is something distinctly human about the robin; his is the note of boyhood. I have thoughts that follow the migrating fowls northward and southward, and that go with the sea-birds into the desert of the ocean, lonely and tireless as they. I sympathize with the watchful crow perched yonder on that tree, or walking about the fields. I hurry outdoors when I hear the clarion of the wild gander; his comrade in my heart sends back the call. — John Burroughs, in Scribner's Magazine.

Blushing – The Learned Darwin's Take on It

1874

The man who does not blush now and then is scarcely human. According to Darwin, blushing originated at a very late period in the long line of our descent. The learned thinker explains: "The relaxation of the small arteries of the surface, on which blushing depends, seems to have primarily resulted from earnest attention directed to the appearance of our own persons, especially of our faces, aided by habit, inheritance, and the ready flow of nerve-force along accustomed channels; and afterwards, to have been extended by the power of association to self-attention directed to moral conduct."

There are some men who lie brazenly, so repeatedly and so persistently in the very face of the truth, that the question may well be asked if they ever blush. Certainly they have no scruples in regard to moral conduct. The coarse animal must linger in these men, for their conscience is dead and they do not know the meaning of morality.

Darwin holds that it does not seem possible that any animal, until mental powers had been developed to an equal degree with those of man, would have been sensitive about its personal appearance or moral conduct. Hence it is his opinion that animals have not the power to blush. Impudent liars and braggarts, also, never blush, and so they are hardly human.


The Boy and the Nuts

A boy once found some nuts in a jar. Like all boys, he was fond of nuts, and was glad to hear that he might put his hand once in the jar, and have all the nuts he could then take out. He thrust his hand down the neck of the jar, and took hold of all the nuts he could. When his hand was quite full, he did his best to draw it out of the jar. But the neck of the jar was small, and his hand was so full of nuts, that he could not draw it out. He felt so sad, that tears fell from his eyes. His friend who stood near told him to let go half the nuts. He did so, and then drew out his hand with ease. We shall find it so in life: men lose all, if they try to get too much.


What is the difference between a tenant and the son of a widow? The tenant has to pay rents, but the son of a widow has not two parents.

Ten Benefits of Literature Named by Brown in Talk

1922

"Literature — Why Study It," is Subject of English Lecture

"Literature is the textbook on human nature," said H. G. Brown, instructor in English, Tuesday afternoon at the Law building in his lecture on "Literature — Why Study It." Ten benefits which can be derived from reading literature were given. "Knowledge of human nature is acquired better through familiarity with the masterpieces than even real life," Brown declared. Brown, who explained that one can associate with a man for month without knowing him as well as you could know Macbeth or Hamlet in four hours. "Literature gives all the significant details of a man's life in complete sequence, while real life gives only glimpses."

"Literature is a cure for provincialism. With this as the medium we may travel and know the world from the Moab of Ruth to the Mississippi Valley of Tom Sawyer," said Mr. Brown. "We may travel back over great periods of time and know the common people of the fourteenth century through Chaucer's Prologue. We may travel up and down through unfamiliar society."

—The Capital Times, Madison, Wisconsin, July 27, 1922, page 8.

Every Town Has

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EVERY TOWN HAS

A liar.
A sponger.
A blatherskite.
A smart Alec.
Its richest man.
Some pretty girls.
A weather prophet.
A girl who giggles.
Half a dozen lunatics.
A woman who tattles.
One Lincoln Republican.
A man who knows it all.
One Jacksonian Democrat.
More loafers than it needs.
Men who see every dog fight.
A boy who acts up in church.
A few meddlesome old women.
A "thing" who stares at women.
A mutton head who tries to run everything.
A few who try to run the affairs of the country.
A girl who goes to the post office every time the mail comes in.
A legion of smart fellows who can tell the editor how to run his paper.
Scores of men with the caboose of their trousers worn smooth as glass. --Exchange.

--The Deming Headlight, Deming, New Mexico, May 7, 1920, page 4.