The Cool Man

1895

The superiority of those men who keep their tempers in public bodies is so apparent that coolness should be one of the first virtues to be cultivated there. The discreet member will regard public life of this kind as a school for such a purpose.

There are trials for nervous or impulsive men often in these positions, but a part of their tactics must be to resist them if they are to have hope of success. Nothing can be clearer than that it is for their interest to do so. The debater who keeps cool is sure to have his opponent at a disadvantage.

The cool man is usually a master of sarcasm, which is an effective weapon in annoying an adversary, but a dangerous one also, because there is always the temptation to carry it too far. The men who have the widest influence are the good natured men, whose words leave no sting behind them. — Boston Herald.

Jack's Account of It

1901

One of Uncle Sam's able seamen, who was in an "Owl" train that was wrecked, thus described his experience:

"It was a little after two bells this morning and I was smoking my pipe in the 'Owl's' stern galley. The first thing I knew of any happening was when I was thrown violently from my seat. After the pitching and jumping had stopped, I crawled out and saw that the steering gear of the 'Owl' had been carried away, causing her to part amidships. The after end listed badly to starboard and went aground, throwing all hands in a heap to the listed side. No lives were lost, however, though all were badly shaken up and somewhat damaged. One unlucky passenger bunted the glass out of a porthole, cutting her head and face quite badly. After wigwagging the craft coming up behind to change her course, the forward end of our craft picked up the passengers and crew and continued her voyage. As for me, I will be glad when I am safe aboard the Albatross again. This cruising overland is too rough and choppy for me." — Argonaut.

Fun Has a Valuable Side

1901

"Show me a man who does not appreciate humor," said John Kendrick Bangs to me, "and I will show you a man who is morbid, cynical, unresponsive to every call of nature. Such a man is worse than a pessimist and more to be pitied. Take some of the greatest and most successful men in the world. Humor has always played an important part in their lives. Often a funny incident has marked the turning point of a great man's career. Often some ridiculous condition has been the impetus of a new start in life."

Mr. Bangs is right. Did not Columbus' apparently hopeless task of standing an egg on end make thinkers of the wise men who sat around him? Was not George Washington credited with being a master of the truth because he once saw a boy punished for trying to jest with his father and finally became, as Mr. Bangs facetiously remarks, so "he couldn't tell a lie even if he saw one?" And didn't Johann Gutenberg invent the printing press by working out a theory which found its origin while he was playing leapfrog with some boys on damp ground? The impression made in the soil by the boys' feet is said to have given Gutenberg his first idea of the impression that could be made by types. — Robert Mackay in Success.

A Glimpse of the Japanese

1901

Mrs. Hugh Fraser, the author, widow of an English diplomat and sister of Marion Crawford, says of her life in Japan, to which her husband was minister from Great Britain:

The absence of snobbishness and kindred vices in Japan impresses itself very clearly upon one. There are two characteristics of the Japanese which stand out very boldly. Home life is paramount, and the possession of money is but lightly regarded. Any one who would pretend to be richer than he is would be calmly avoided as a fool. Money is not spoken of, the absence of it is not apologized for. A person living in a poor way gives a guest all he has to offer and is not humiliated at having to show his poverty. The rich man does not overwhelm you with his riches. He shows you one beautiful object from his collection at a time in an empty room, only beautiful through its perfect proportions, coloring and cleanliness.

These people travel through life so lightly weighted, their requirements are so few in the material order, that they seem as independent as the swallows and fly where we, weighted down by the commissariat for our artificial wants, can only creep. But they hold invisible things very precious. Honor and self respect, the love of their children, the harmony of the family, the privileges of patriotism, the commonwealth of learning, these are things for which they will sacrifice much.

As Dr. Johnson Said It

1910

George Augustus Sala's eloquent testimony to the superiority of English viands reminds us of Dr. Johnson's outburst after examining a French menu.

"Sir," said he to the faithful Boswell, "my brain is obfuscated with the perusal of this heterogeneous conglomeration of bastard English ill spelt and a foreign tongue. Bid the rascals bring me a dish of hog's puddings, a slice or two from the upper cut of a well roasted sirloin and two apple dumplings."


National Traits

It takes one hour to know a Frenchman, one month to know a German, almost a lifetime to know an Englishman — well.

The Too Sensitive Woman

1910

Those Easily Offended Bring Upon Themselves Many Sorrows That Are Unnecessary

Many are the sorrows of the easily offended. Should she be invited nowhere, it is for spite; should she, on the other hand, be asked to social events, it is for policy, and everyone will avoid her when she gets there.

No one in the world cares anything for her; her friends are false and her enemies many, though all undeserved. Every remark made about her contains a hidden innuendo, and any persons talking whispers in her hearing are gossiping about her.

She believes no proofs of affections, but is haunted always by the thought that the most trusted are the least trustworthy. She takes nothing for granted, but asks permissions and favors that others would never dream of as subjects for question.

And her thoughts are very real ones. It is easy to sneer at the too sensitive woman, but her life is wretched, and there is no one to throw on her the spiritual cold water she needs.

Let her only learn that there are others in the world besides herself, that she for her part has many virtues which must necessarily endear her to her acquaintances, and that if she would have confidence she will gain fidelity, and there will be an end of her, now, and forever!

Glossomancy New Science

1914

Reads Character by the Shape of the Tongue

PARIS, Aug. 1. — Glossomancy, or reading the character by the shape of the tongue, is a new science which has just come before the public and is creating quite a furor.

The glossomancers, or glossomancists, assert that a long tongue shows frankness; a short tongue, dissimilation; a broad tongue, unreservedness; a narrow tongue concentration.

When the tongue is long and broad the owner is inclined to be gossipy. When the tongue is long and narrow, he is moderately open and frank.

Those who possess short and broad tongues are untruthful; those whose tongues are short and narrow are sly as well as bad-tempered.

Bowlegged Fellows Are Not Likely to Face Poverty

1919

Bad Luck for Turn-In Toes

There is an old saying that a bandy legged boy will never lack warm stockings, meaning that he will never be in want of money, so that folk whose friends are apt to be rude about their manner of walking may find consolation therein, says a writer in London Answers.

On the other hand, persons who walk in a fashion which quickly wears down their heels are likely one day to be in need of cash, while knock-kneed folk, though they have the ability to get wealth, have not the power to attract love — so it is said.

A long stride and a swinging walk are good — they imply that there may be ups and downs, but good fortune will never get far away, and will come out on top eventually.

Bad luck follows in the train of those who habitually turn in their toes, however, and an ancient adage has it that the man who always walks on the tips of his toes is likely to end his days in prison.

So watch your step!

Clothing Makes the Man

1905

Historical Personages Stripped of Accustomed Raiment Seem Unreal

A meeting of the Custom Cutters' Association of America was held in Philadelphia the other day. J. O. Madison of New York, in explaining the part that clothes play in making the man, said:

"An undraped Caesar never could have quelled rebellion with a speech, nor could, undressed, our great Washington have awed his friends with his impressive dignity. What do we know of Moses, not knowing how he was dressed? And how much greater would our interest be in Aristotle if we knew the kind of clothes he was in the habit of wearing?

"What do we know of Nero or of Judas, ignorant, as we are, of what their clothes were like? And if we knew how St Patrick clothed himself how much more feelingly would the Christian world do reverence to his memory. We know that Adam wore a fig leaf, and he seems, because of this historic fact, more real than if we knew him only as the man whose appetite for apples made tailoring necessary."

Rides to His Death in Locomotive Cab

1920

Engineer Stakes His Life in Effort to Save Train

MUSKOGEE, Oklahoma — Joe Lambert of Denison, Texas, engineer on Missouri, Kansas & Texas southbound passenger train No. 7, was killed when his train crashed into the rear of a southbound freight which had been forced to stop when it struck a company motor car in a heavy fog one and a quarter miles south of Muskogee.

Lambert stayed with his engine when he saw the caboose of the freight loom up out of the fog and was crushed between the tender and dock of the engine, as the cab crumpled up in the impact. His fireman jumped and was uninjured.

No one else was injured, but passengers on the passenger train, a thru fast train from Kansas City to Dallas, were severely jolted.


1915

Self-Control

One valuable way of practicing self-control is in checking grumbling, and in unnecessary display of vexation at petty inconveniences.

A workman has fulfilled his task imperfectly, some order is wrongly executed, some one keeps you waiting unreasonably; people are careless or forgetful, or do what they have in hand badly. Try not to be disturbed, be just, and show the persons to blame where they are wrong, even (if it be needful) make them do the thing over again properly; but refrain from diffuse or vehement expressions of displeasure.

A naturally quick, impetuous person will find that to cultivate a calm external habit is a great help towards gaining the inward even spirit he needs. — H. Sidney Lear.

Ways of the Popular Girl

1915

She Is Always Optimistic; Loyal to Her Friends and Finds World Good Place to Live In

She smiles when things go wrong, and does not consider every little disappointment a calamity.

She shares her pleasures with others and keeps her troubles to herself.

She never makes the faults of her friends a subject of conversation; is slow to criticize, and can always find something kind to say about everyone.

She accepts favors gracefully and returns them gladly.

She does not shift her responsibilities on to others, but cheerfully lends a hand to lighten her neighbor's load; strives to keep on the sunny side, but is ever ready with helpful sympathy for those who walk in the shade.

She is loyal to her friends, tender and devoted to those she loves, and generous to all; and she finds the world a good place to live in.


The Second Stage

"Young Gadson and Miss Doppel have reached the second stage of their courtship."
"What is that?"
"They have stopped playing the Victrola and have started to reading poetry together."

Paul de Kock — A Great Novelist's Oddities

1874

During the whole life of Paul de Kock he never left the suburbs of Paris, simply because he was mortally afraid of meeting with an accident in traveling. He never, in his long career, rode in a carriage, and the idea of entering a railway car seemed frightful to him.

He was so notional that he could not write with any pen except coarse goose quills, which he cut himself, and one day, when he had to sign a document, at the "mairie" of his "rondissement," he took his old goose quill to write his name with it. He wrote a very fine hand, but very legible. He never read his own proofsheets, because typographical errors, which he considered inexcusable, owing to the legibility of his copy, made him exceedingly angry.

Most romantic was his first interview with the woman who afterward became his wife. One day in the winter time a sleigh drove past the little Belleville where Paul de Kock kept bachelor's hall. In the sleigh sat a young woman. The horse ran away and the young woman was thrown out. The fall had stunned her, and De Kock carried her kindly into his house and cared for her. She proved to be the daughter of a well-to-do hack-driver, was only eighteen, and very pretty. Paul de Kock fell at once in love with her, and four or five days afterwards his betrothal with M'lle. Jeanne Perrin was duly celebrated.

Note: Paul de Kock is mentioned in James Joyce's Ulysses as an author Molly Bloom read. "Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock's. Nice name he has."

Your Eyes and Others' Eyes

1900

Upturned eyes are typical of devotion.

Wide open eyes are indicative of rashness.

Small eyes are supposed to indicate cunning.

Side-glancing eyes are always to be distrusted.

Brown eyes are said by occulists to be the strongest.

The downcast eye has in all ages been typical of modesty.

People of melancholic temperament rarely have clear blue eyes.

The proper distance between the eyes is the width of one eye.

Eyes of which the whole iris is visible belong to erratic persons.

Eyes with long, sharp corners indicate great discernment and penetration.

The white of the eye showing beneath the iris is indicative of nobility of character.

Gray eyes turning green in anger or excitement are indicative of a choleric temperament.

An eye the upper lid of which passes horizontally across the pupil indicates mental ability.

When the upper lid cover half or more of the pupil the indication is of cool deliberation.

Unsteady eyes, rapidly jerking from side to side, are frequently indicative of an unsettled mind.

Eyes of any color with weak brows and long, concave lashes, are indicative of a weak constitution.

Eyes that are wide apart are said by physiognomists to indicate great intelligence and a tenacious memory.

Wide-open, staring eyes in weak countenances indicate jealousy, intemperance, and pertinacity, without firmness. — St. Louis Star.

Right Words and Their Uses

1914

It is said there are three ways in which one's personality is revealed to the world. The first is by one's appearance, face, manner, carriage and dress. These things appear to the eye. The second is the revelation in notes, letters, handwriting and spelling. The third and most important is in one's speech, that is, in the way of saying what one has to say. This is a test of one's education and good breeding.

Cultured people are keenly critical of those who make mistakes in pronunciation or grammar. A well-trained ear for music is very sensitive to false notes. A well-trained ear for correct sounds in language is sensitive in the same way.

Good advice was given by Lord Chesterfield in one of his letters to his son: "Never use favorite words, nor hard words, but take great care to speak correctly and grammatically and to pronounce properly."

Everyone realizes the necessity of practicing music, drawing, or any other art in order to become proficient, yet there in great neglect of the effort to practice the correct use of the English language.

Observation and memory should help one to correct bad habits in speech. Whenever an unfamiliar word or pronunciation is heard it is well to refer to a good dictionary, discover the meaning and proper pronunciation. This will stamp it indelibly in the mind. No study is more fascinating that that of words. The habit of spending time over a dictionary is to be encouraged.

It is incorrect to say donate for give, transpire for happen, loan for lend, preventative for preventive.

Care should be taken to pronounce address with the accent on the last syllable, and to pronounce catch to rhyme with match, not to say ketch.

Tuesday, new, duty and avenue are pronounced with the broad, clear "u," not Toosday, noo, dooty, avenoo.

It is illiterate to add letters where they do not belong and to say heighth for height, acrost for across.

A careless fault, as well as a breach of good form in expression, is to say "I am going to quit work," or "quit this place," instead of "stop work," or "leave this place."

Often we find careless speakers using the expression, "The two first houses." It is correct to say, "first two." There cannot be "two first." A moment's thought makes this clear in the mind.

An erroneous expression is "Between you and I." The rule that prepositions govern the objective case should be familiar to everyone.

A common error is in such sentences as "These kind of things." "Those sort of entertainment." The form should be: "Things of this kind." "Entertainments of that sort."

French derivatives should be avoided and good Anglo-Saxon words used. Therefore it is best to say station not depot; begin not commence.

Judge Names 13 Mistakes in Life

1914

San Francisco. Jan. 5. — Here are what Presiding Judge Paul J. McCormick has announced as "Thirteen Mistakes of Life," easily made and not readily rectified, as a result of his long experience on the bench and at bar:

To attempt to set up your own standard of right and wrong and expect everybody to conform to it.

To try to measure the enjoyment of others by your own.

To expect uniformity of opinions in this world.

To fail to make allowance for inexperience.

To endeavor to mold all dispositions alike.

Not to yield in unimportant trifles.

To look for perfection in our own actions.

To worry ourselves and others about what cannot be remedied.

Not to help everybody, wherever, however and whenever we can.

To consider anything impossible that we cannot ourselves perform.

To believe only what our finite minds can grasp.

Not to make allowance for the weaknesses of others.

To estimate by some outside quality, when it is that within which makes the man.

Character In the Eyebrows

1907

An arched eyebrow does not indicate the highest order of intelligence, but is expressive of great sensibility. Scant growth of the eyebrows denotes lack of vitality. On the contrary, heavy, thick eyebrows indicate a strong constitution and great physical endurance. They are not beautiful on a woman's face, however much they may signify either mental or bodily vigor, and when they are not only heavy, but droop and meet at the nose they are disagreeable and are said to accompany an insincere and prying nature. Long, drooping eyebrows, lying wide apart, indicate an amiable disposition. Where the eyebrows are lighter in color than the hair the indications are lack of vitality and great sensitiveness.

Faintly defined eyebrows placed high above the nose are signs of indolence and weakness. Very black eyebrows give the face an intense and searching expression. When natural, they accompany a passionate temperament.

Very light eyebrows rarely are seen on strongly intellectual faces, although the color of the eyebrows is not accepted simply as denoting lack of intelligence. The form gives the key to the faculties and their direction. Red eyebrows denote great fervor and ambition; brown, a medium between the red and black. — Exchange.

Evangeline Weed — Making Personality to Order

1922

BOSTON — A medley of public officials, business men, manufacturers, debutantes and society matrons have worn a path to the studio of a modest and demure young woman in Beacon St.

They go to her filled with worldly knowledge and material experience of years but conquered by one of the greatest of man's weaknesses — self-consciousness.

She diagnoses their cases like a physician, cures them and endows them with man's greatest boon — personality.

She is Miss Evangeline Weed, proprietor of the Personality Institute, the first project of its kind.

Miss Weed numbers among her clients three mayors, two state senators, three representatives and many business men. These men, though successful, are handicapped by self-consciousness and unable to realize their full powers because of undeveloped personality.

—The Lima News, Lima, Ohio, Aug. 26, 1922, p. 1.

Alleged Arch Swindler Makes Friends With Victims

MAYBRAY MAKES FRIENDS -- MANY BELIEVE IN HIM

Alleged Arch Swindler, Though in Jail, Makes Good Headway Toward Freedom

A lot of people have decided that J. C. Mabray, alleged king of the wrestlers swindling gang, is not the archangel of the devil he was painted when first arrested.

Mabray is still confined in the hospital ward of the county jail, and two of his best friends of late days have been Ham DeFord, chairman of the county board of supervisors, and a nameless man who was swindled by the Mabray gang, it is alleged, at Keokuk.

DeFord is not exactly an easy man to win over by the gift of speech, being of the Abraham Lincoln hardy, rough and ready order, but since a memorable day a couple of months ago, when he spent a forenoon in talk with the alleged swindler, he makes the most of every opportunity to talk with Mabray in jail, or rather, to allow Mabray to talk to him.

A Keokuk man who was the victim of race horse swindlers, believed to belong to the Mabray gang, spent a day in the federal prisoner's cell, and when he came out told the jailers he was convinced Mabray had nothing to do with the swindling game.

"He's too nice a man," he asserverated. "I believe he's on the square."

And he went away with that belief firmly imbedded in his mind.

Another one of Mabray's victims, whose name is not public, is a wealthy banker in a small town near Omaha. He refuses to join in the prosecution of the alleged swindler. He lost $13,000 but he's ashamed of the transaction, and refuses to allow his name to be mixed with it. Federal authorities figure that there are dozens of such victims of the game who are taking the same attitude, too much ashamed of the game by which they were caught to attempt to recover their money.

Ready to Talk

Maybray's most noticeable characteristic is his readiness to talk on any subject, his ready gift of speech, and his seeming innocence of wrong motives. He is so eloquent on many subjects that federal sleuths may he could have made a fortune at any business as readily as he got away with the money of his "Mikes."

--The Des Moines News, Des Moines, Iowa, July 22, 1909, page 3.


From lengthier family news column, looking a hundred years ahead to Good Friday in 2016:

The birthday of Douglas, son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Nelson, was celebrated today, Good Friday. Douglas was born April 21 on Good Friday. This year is the first time April 21 has fallen on Good Friday since his birth. Looking up the dates of the years to come, Mrs. Nelson finds that her son's birthday will not occur again on Good Friday until 2016.

"Bryan to Be in Storm Lake" read a headline in last week's Buena Vista Vidette. Well, guess it's all right. The darn lake ain't much good, anyway, and if the people want to turn it into a pickle factory it's none of our business. -- Estherville Democrat.

--The Evening Tribune, Albert Lea, Minnesota, April 19, 1916, page 15.

Comment: There seems to be a lot of confusion as to when Easter is. I googled it and you basically need a degree in advanced math to figure it out. But finally I found one site that appeared to know when the actual date is. They were right for this year, let's put it that way, and didn't have future Easters in May. Anyway, if they are correct, then Mrs. Nelson had it wrong about 2016. Although, if the sources were as confusing in 1916 as they are now, she no doubt thought she was right. And maybe she was, because it looks like some of the rules about this calculation have changed over time. I'm just glad I don't work for a calendar company as the guy in charge for getting this right on millions of dollars worth of calendars. They look at March, April, and even May and I've got five or six different Easters every year. I'm out of there and the entire Christian world is mad at me.