* * * * * [Sidenote: The turn of the tide.] When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you, till it seems as if you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that’s just the place and time that the tide’ll turn. SAM LAWSON’S STORIES. [Sidenote: Little things.] “Some seem to think the Lord don’t look out only for gret things; but, ye see, little things is kind o’ hinges that gret ones turns on. They say, take care o’ pennies, an’ dollars’ll take care o’ themselves. It’s jest so in everything; and ef the Lord don’t look arter little things, He ain’t so gret as they say, any way.” LITTLE FOXES. [Sidenote: Sincerity and courtesy.] Truth before all things; sincerity before all things; pure, clean, diamond-bright sincerity is of more value than the gold of Ophir; the foundation of all love must rest here. How those people do who live in the nearest and dearest intimacy with friends who, they believe, will lie to them for any purpose, even the most refined and delicate, is a mystery to me. If I once know that my wife or my friend will tell me only what they think will be agreeable to me, then I am at once lost, my way is a pathless quicksand. But all this being premised, I still say that we Anglo-Saxons might improve our domestic life, if we would graft upon the strong stock of its homely sincerity the courteous grace of the French character. * * * * * [Sidenote: Flattery.] Flattery is _insincere_ praise, given from interested motives, not the sincere utterance to a friend of what we deem good and lovely in him. HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS. [Sidenote: Household fairies.] In fact, nobody wanted to stay in our parlor now. It was a cold, correct, accomplished fact; the household fairies had left it,—and when the fairies leave a room, nobody ever feels at home in it. No pictures, curtains, no wealth of mirrors, no elegance of lounges, can in the least make up for their absence. They are a capricious little set; there are rooms where they will _not_ stay, and rooms where they _will_, but no one can ever have a good time without them. SUNNY MEMORIES OF FOREIGN LANDS. [Sidenote: Cathedrals.] Cathedrals do not seem to me to have been built. They seem, rather, stupendous growths of nature, like crystals, or cliffs of basalt. * * * * * [Sidenote: French conversation.] Conversation of French circles seems to me like gambols of a thistledown, or the rainbow changes in soap-bubbles. One laughs with tears in one’s eyes. One moment confounded with the absolute childhood of the simplicity, in the next one is a little afraid of the keen edge of the shrewdness. * * * * * [Sidenote: The Germans.]