Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1890-11-06
SOME NOTED SAYINGS.
wELL-KNOwN QUOTATIONS THAT HAVE
GAINED POPULARITY, AND THEIR


AUTHORS.
New York Mail and Express.
AIany of the sayings that are so often
quoted in the newspapers and in popular
speech have an American origin. The
eleventh volume of the Stedman-Hutch-
insOn Library of American Literature,
which has just been publised by Messrs.
Charles l.. Webster X Co., gives list OF
the best known of these epigrams and
maxims that are SO useful for illustration.
1t is curious to notice how many of them
have become changed in verbal express
sion and how speaker or writer is some
times credited with what is merely a
repetition of an idea that has be better
expressed in former generation.
Grover Cleveland, for instance, has, to
some extent, had the credit of the author
ship of the dictum, Public office is pub
lie trust" But Stedman gives number
of variations of this saying which show
that it is not a novel one. The exact
words quoted are really from campaign
pamphlet. attributed to Daniel s Lamont
and circulated in 1884 CleveIand'S ver-
sion, i'll his letter of acceptance of the
nomination for Governor in 1882, was
Public officers are the servants and
agents of the people" and in 1881 DOrman
s. Eaton had written " Public office is a
public trust, created only for the public
benefit" Henry Clay gave utterance to
the idea in a speech at Ashland, Ky, in
1929: Government is trust. and the
officers of the government are trustees;
! tln
created for the benefit of the people"
| The well-known expression, a good
| enough Morgan until after election" so
often applicable during a canvass, is an
evolution from Thurlow Weeds reply to
the counsel for the kidnapers of Morgan
during the anti Morgan excitement in
| 1927: That is a good enough Morgan for
us until you bring back the one you carried
| Off >" The phrase, " United we stand,
divided we fall which has been attribu-
| ted to John Dickinson and to Arthur
| Lee, first appeared i'll a cOuplet in The
Liberty Song published in the Boston
| Gazette, of July Is, 176S. "Then join
| hand in hand, brave Americans all; by
uniting we stand, by dividing we fall
Benjamin Franklin expressed similar
idea at the time of the signing of the
/ Declaration of Independence: I'VE must
all hang together, or aSsuredly we shall
| hang separately
The great number of sayings which the
editors have traced to their original
sources, doubtless with much labor, touch
upon variety of subjects We give
some of the most striking and familiar
of them and the names of their authors:
| | am not Nirginian, but an Ameri-
| can.-Patrick Henry in the Continental
] 4 =
We must consult Brother Jonathan
George Washington, referring to his sec
retary and aide, Col. Jonathan Trumbull,
of Connecticut.
Do MT give up the ship-Capt. James
| Lawrence, during the engagement be-
tween the Shannon and the Chesapeake,
! june |, 1873
The rule of my life is to make business
a pleasure and pleasure business
/ Aaron Burr.
! Let our object be our country, our
whole country and nothing but our
! cOuntry.-Daniel Webster, in Grafton at
Bunker Hill, June II, 1925.
! Sir, had rather be right than be Pres
ident.-Henry Clay, in reply to Senator
W. G. Preston, of South Carolina.
Give 'em Jessie!-Republican war cry
in the Presidential campaign of 1856.
So far inferior that they had no rights
which the white man was bound to re-
spect.-ROger Brooke Taney, from opion-
! ion in the bred Scott case in the United
States Supreme Court, 1857.
My dear sir, take any road; you can't go
amiSS: the whole state is one vast insane
aSylum.-James Lewis Petigru, when
asked for guidance to the Charleston in
sane asylum, 1860.
4 ocIr i-+ 70 bo1 oil Tnffo
Davis i'll first message to Confederate
Congress, March, 1861.
Hold the fort. am coming-William
Tecumseh Sherman. Signaled to Gen.
Corse in AllatOOna from the top of Ken
esaw, October 3, 1864.
The Total Depravity of Inanimate
Things. of an essay by Katharine
Kent Child Walker, in the Aldntic Non
thly, September, 1864.
a Mugwump is person educated be-
yond his intellect.-Horace Porter, in the
Cleveland Blaine campaign of 1884.
The art of fiction has in fact become
| finer art in our day than it was with
Dickens and Thackeray. We could not
suffer the confidential attitude of the lat
ter now, nor the mannerisms of the for
mer, any more than we could endure the
prolixity of Richardson or the cOarSeness
of Fielding. Dean Howells in
Century Magazine, November, 1882.
If | were asked what book is better
than cheap book, should answer that
there is one book better than a cheap
bO ok, and this is book honestly come
by-James Russell Lowell, before the
United States Committee on Patents,
January 30, 1886.
Here comes another of the Spellbindersl
I'D g
the Republican stump-speakers for hold
ing their audiences "spell-bound' in Pres
idential campaign of 1888.