The sun. (Jacksonville, Fla.) 1905-1908, 1906-02-03
BY Charles BatteI LOOMiS


mouth. Many people still froth at the mouth, but
the froth is apropos of other matters. Significant
name that-fr0th.
No, felowcountrymen, let us be cOntented. It is
not likely that over twenty, at the outside of those
Americans who are living will ever add uster to
the Presidential char-or even sit in it. Let the
rest of us 60 about our business with cOnentment,
and every four years let elevate of the twenty
with good grace and for four years thereafter let
every man mind his own bllsness--and that he
has business to mindand this country will stride
forward as it has not yet strdden-or is it strobe?
DO you intend to become an essayist, gentle
writer? Then learn the art of apt and opposite quo!
tatlon Quotations are not more desirable to stock
broker than they should be to YOU Cultivate Bart
lett.
TO plant in the bare sands of an arid imagination
the borrowed flowers of the successful gardeners of
literature is to prepare parterre that shall please
even the critical. For when man not variously
learned comes passage that he has himself read
in the original setting, his vanity is tickled.
Tickle your readers vanity often enough and he
is yours and will sound your praises. "A nightin.
gale dies for shame if another bird sings BETTER but
you who are not nightingale might die for shame
if it were not for the singing of that large chorus of
English birds that make your songs possible "iomer
himself must beg if he wants means" and if Homer
begs, who are you that says, "to beg am ashamedY'
See only that you beg at the right gates, and you
shall enjoy borrowed richness that in the minds of
many passes for homemade garment of great value.
"SOme books are to be tasted, others to be swal-
lowed" and others quoted. Reading maketh full
man." not only that, but "out of the funess of the
heart the mouth speaketh," and he who has read
much and remembered much write we'll.
discretion of speech is more than eloquence,"
and the most discreet man is the who knows
where to borrow to advantage. There be those who
write original essays of which the pest that may be
said is, at is his own Better far the essay that
glitters and sparkles with thousand gems flched
from the worlds great lapidaries
"Brevity is the soul of w.t. but it does not follow
that every postal card contains an epigram. The
safest way to insure wit in your essay is to pick it
where you find it, and ten chances to that will
not be in your own brain. Better the wit of others
than no wit at all-which might be provcrb, but is
not
Shakespeare has well said, "There is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it So" IL
this but applied to your essay, writer! what an
excellent thing it would be! But it lies not within
your own gray matter to compass it. Again, with
the bard, you say, 81 must become borrower" and
you walk down the pleasant gardens, plucking here
and there flower of fancy until your little essay
stuns the eye with color. "IIere's richness"
Nothing that you say but has been well said
BEFORE therefore quote it, fsng it, if you will, with
your poor thought to decrystaze it and make it
u new thing.
"IIere are few of the unpeasantst words that
ever blotted paper" DO not use them then. Make
your essay light, graceful full of the whipped cream
of human kindness
"Silence is the perecest herald of joy, says viii
again. but had he kept silence, what joy the Anglo
Saxon had missed, and how weak in quotation
had been thy essay! Has not this Shakespeare
said whats mine is yours" Therefore, do not
scrupe to take it if it will make light where dark
ness regned."
"Who would write well must first have loved"
There you 1t is not nominated in the bond"
what you must have loved; therefore it may as well
hn hnol ot hpr Nou huyn InI od hnn
you have gathered Of their honey; now let it drop
from off your stylus and sweeten this essay over
which you labor.
A sxteenth-century writer says, "They lard their
lean books with the fat of others works" There
you have an old precedent, so fear not. You are in
good company. You do but take what others have
taken before. Quote you meyer well, you do but