The American Joe Miller: A Collection of Yankee Wit and Humor — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The American Joe Miller: A Collection of Yankee Wit and Humor
John Stuart Mill · en
Everything is beautiful when it is little (except souls!)--little
pigs, little lambs, little birds, little kittens, little children.
Little Martin boxes of houses are generally the most happy and cozy;
little villages are nearer to being atoms of a shattered paradise
than anything we know of. Little fortunes bring the most content, and
little hopes the least disappointment. Little words are the sweetest
to hear, and little charities fly furthest and stay the longest on
the wing. Little lakes are the stillest, little hearts the fullest,
and little farms the best tilled. Little books the most read, and
little songs the best loved. And when Nature would make anything
especially rare and beautiful, she makes it little--little pearls,
little diamonds, little dews. Agar's is a model prayer, but then it
is a little prayer, and the burden of the petition is for little.
The Sermon on the Mount is little, but the last dedication discourse
was two hours. The Roman said, "_Veni, vidi, vici_"--I came, saw,
conquered; but despatches now-a-days are longer than the battles they
tell of. Everybody calls that little which they love best upon earth.
We once heard a good sort of a man speak of his little wife, and we
fancied she must be a perfect _bijou_ of a woman. We saw her; she
weighed two hundred and ten; we were surprised. But then it was no
joke--the man meant it. He could put his wife in his heart, and have
room for other things besides; and what was she but precious, and what
could she be but little? We rather doubt the stories of great argosies
of gold we sometimes hear of, for Nature deals in littles altogether.
Life is made up of littles, death is what remains of them all. Day
is made up of little beams, and night is glorious with little stars.
_Multum in parvo_--much in little--is the great beauty of all that we
love best, hope for most, and remember longest.
SPEAKING HIS DEEP EMOTIONS.--155.
"My dear Ellen," said Mr. Softfellow to a young lady whose smiles
he was seeking, "I have long wished for this sweet opportunity, but
I hardly dare trust myself now to speak the deep emotions of my
palpitating heart; but I declare to you, my dearest Ellen, that I love
you most tenderly; your smiles would shed--would shed----" "Never mind
the wood-shed," said Ellen, "go on with that pretty talk."
SPIRITUALISM EXTRAORDINARY.--156.