New-York tribune., 1912-04-14
FAMILY MOTTOS

MADAME DE GENLIS, the Maria
lNl Edgeworth of France, used to say that
everyone should go through life with a
motto attached to his name not an inherited
motto. however; but motto OF his own de-
vising. Truly or falsely borne, this would be
an indication of the ideal held in view by the
bearer, and the measure OF his success or
failure. Her own mission in life being the
writing of books for children, she adopted
the motto Consume Myself to Give Light,
with lighted candle for her emblem.
The self elected motto Of Dowager Queen
Alexandra is Nothing Like Perseverance.
| When she was in Copenhagen some years
ago her attention was attracted to the Won
derful cures in cases of lupus wrought by
lamp invented by her Countryman, Flnsen.
AT her own expense she ordered one OF these
lamps for the London Hospital. This first
lamp cost her five hundred dollars. The
hospital now has an installation OF thirteen
| lamps On the beam across the ceiling OF the
ward is painted the motto, Nothing Like
Perseverance.
The ingenious and prolific French drama
tist, Eugene Scribe, invented for the panels
of his carriage a crest with motto. The
crest an inkstand with two pens crossed
above it, was happily indicative of the name
and occupation of the successful scribe.
! Less happy but equally characteristic was
! the motto, Hence Fortune and Liberty.
Truly enough Scribe's pen had given him
wealth and independence. Yet the motto is
too evidently the boast of dramatiSt who
! had, consciously and primarily, used his art
as a means of making money.
Bismarck never appropriated to himself,
though he did invent, the phrase Blood and
Iron" which has been so generally asSo-
ciated with his name. Long before he had
become a parsonage in European politics.
when he was only PruSsian Minister at st.
Petersburg, he did adopt motto, which
after leaving the Russian Capital he prompt
" dropped. Unlike most diplomats ac-
credited to the Russian court, he went much
into local society, familiarzng himself with
Russian ways of thought and modes OF lv-
ing. What seems to have struck him most
forciblv was the haphazard, indifferent man
ner, the calm disregard of consequences, IN
which everything was done Russian phi
losophy, 50 it must have appeared to the keen
Young observer, was summed up in a word
used on all occasions, "Nitchevo!' Liter
ally this means nothing" 1t is used IN the
sense, 1T matters nothing.
All have learned that Russian NihliSm
has a profounder meaning than was then
dreamed of by Western observers. We
know now that it has moral roots in Russian
national character. There were NihiliStS in
the Ncar-East who might have taken for
their motto the Western saying, There is
nothing new and nothing true and it doesn't
signify, long before political Nihilism, aim
! ing at the destruction OF all things, came into
| being; and one OF the foremost OF RusSlas
social NihlistS, 50 long at least as he moved
in Russian society, was Herr Won Bismarck
with his Nihilistic motto "Nitchevo!"
The motto of the French Republic, Lib
ertv Equality, Fraternity" was a gradual
growth an evolution. The first cry was for
| liberty; the other two demands were grad
ually and separately added. In its entirety
the phrase seems TO have originated with
Mormora, a printer, who used it in his news
! paper.
Sydney Smiths readiness in suggesting
mottos for his friends is well known. When
a noblcwoman asked him for a motto for the
collar of her dog Spot, he proposed Out,
damned Spot" but he reports that she did
not deem it sentimental enough. The motto
he suggested for The Edinburgh Review
! is classic, even though it was rejected by
the fellow founders of that publication:
"Tenui muSa mcditatorur avcna "; that IS,
! in the Smithian translation, I'VE Cultivate
/ "