The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1878-04-04
Sparks From George Eliot--M'd-
Hemdrch.
CCoLLATED BY MRS. 9. r. =

49,
Is there n voked creature without
its private opinions:
one must b. poor t. know the lux
ury of giving.
Plainness has its peculiar tempta-
tions and y~icesduite as much as beauty.
To know intense JOY without a strong
bodily frame, one must nave an enthu-
siastic sou.
That low estimate Of possibilities
which we rather hastily arrive at as
an inference from III own failure.
Has anyone ever pinched into It's
pilulous smallness, the cobweb of pre-
matrimonial mountaineering:
Mortals are easily tempted to pinch
the life of their neighbors buzzlng
glory. and think that such killing Is
no murder.
Failure after long perseverance Is
much grander than never to have a
striving good enough to be called a
failure.
Goodness is of a modest nature. easily
discouraged, and when much elbowed
in early life by unabashed vices. Is apt
to retire into extreme privacy.
What delight there is in frank kind
ness and companionship between a
man and a woman who have no pas
49,, - Ill, ~ onpfocs
The soul of man, when its gets fair
ly rotten, will bear you all sorts OF
poisonous toad-stools, aud no eye can
see whence came the seed thereof.
1t is one of the most odious things
i'm a girls life that there must always
be some supposition of falling in love
coming between her anl any MAJ who
is kind to her, and to whom she is
grateful.
Our passions do not live apart in
locked chambers, but, bring their pro
visions to a common table, and mess
together, feeding out of the common
store according to their appetite.
In courtship everything is regarded
the smallest sample of virtue or ac-
compliShment is taken to guarantee
delightful stores which the broad leis-
ure Of marriage is to reveal.
Will not a tiny speck very close to
our vision blot out the glory of the
world and leave only a margin by
which we see the blot: l know no
| speck so troublesome as self.
1t is in these acts called trivialities
the seeds of JOY are forever wasted,
until men and women look round with
haggard faces at the devastation their
own wish has made.
The energy that would animate a
crime is not more than is wanted to
inspire a resolved submission, when
the noble habit of the soul reasserts
itself.
We are all Inundated by the sudden
discovery of a fact which has existed
very comfortably and perhaps been
staring at us in private while we have
been making up our world entirely
without it.
By desiring what is perfectly good
even when we don't quite know what
it is and cannot DO what We would, we
are part of the divine power against
evil.
1t is All uneasy lot at best, to be
what we cali highly taught, and yet
not to enjoy;to be present at this great
spectacle of life and never 10 be liber-
ated from a small hungry shivering
self, never to be fully possessed by the
glory we behold, never to have our
consciousness rapurously transferred
into the vividness of a thought, the
ardor of a passion, the energy Of an
action, but to be always scholarly and
uninspired, ambitious and timid. scru-
pulous and dim-sighted.
Anyone watching keenlv the stealthy
conveyance of human lots. sees a
a slow preparation OF effects from one
life on another which tells like a cal
culated irony on the indifference or
the frozen stare with which we look
at our u~nintroduced neighbor. Destiny
stands by, sarcastic with our dramatis
persona folded in her hand.
Eyes of heavenly blue deep enough
to hold the most exquisite meanings an
ingenious beholdercould put into them.
and deep enough 10 hide the meanings
of the owner if they should happen to
be less exquisite.
Pure white daInask is preferred for
table linen, as it shows TO ADVANTAGE
the colored china SO much used.