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Page 32
Turn not your back to others, especially in speaking; jog not the table
or desk on which another reads or writes; lean not on any one.
Be no flatterer; neither play with any one that delights not to be
played with.
Read no letters, books, or papers, in company; but when there is a
necessity for doing it, you must ask leave. Come not near the books or
writings of any one so as to read them, unless desired.
When another speaks, be attentive yourself, and disturb not the
audience. If any one hesitates in his words, help him not, nor prompt
him, without being desired; interrupt him not, nor answer him till his
speech is ended.
Be not curious to know the affairs of others, neither approach to those
that speak in private.
Make no show of taking great delight in your victuals; feed not with
greediness; lean not on the table; neither find fault with what you eat.
Let your discourses with men of business be short.
Be not immoderate in urging your friend to discover a secret.
Speak not in an unknown tongue in company, but in your own language,
and as those of quality do, and not as the vulgar.
LESSON XLVII
USING THE EYES
The difference between men consists, in great measure, in the
intelligence of their observation. The Russian proverb says of the
non-observant man, "He goes through the forest and sees no firewood."
"Sir," said Johnson, on one occasion, to a fine gentleman, just
returned from Italy, "some men will learn more in the Hampstead stage
than others in the tour of Europe." It is the mind that sees as well
as the eye.
Many, before Galileo, had seen a suspended weight swing before their
eyes with a measured beat; but he was the first to detect the value of
the fact. One of the vergers in the cathedral at Pisa, after filling
with oil a lamp which swung from the roof, left it swinging to and fro.
Galileo, then a youth of only eighteen, noting it attentively,
conceived the idea of applying it to the measurement of time.
Fifty years of study and labor, however, elapsed before he completed
the invention of his pendulum,--an invention the importance of which,
in the measurement of time and in astronomical calculations, can
scarcely be overvalued.
While Captain Brown was occupied in studying the construction of
bridges, he was walking in his garden one dewy morning, when he saw a
tiny spider's-net suspended across his path. The idea occurred to him,
that a bridge of iron ropes might be constructed in like manner, and
the result was the invention of his Suspension Bridge.
So trifling a matter as a straw may indicate which way the wind blows.
It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of
success in business, in art, in science and in every other pursuit in
life.
LESSON XLVIII
THE AFFECTION AND REVERENCE DUE A MOTHER
What an awful state of mind must a man have attained, when he can
despise a mother's counsel! Her name is identified with every idea
that can subdue the sternest mind; that can suggest the most profound
respect, the deepest and most heartfelt attachment, the most unlimited
obedience. It brings to the mind the first human being that loved us,
the first guardian that protected us, the first friend that cherished
us; who watched with anxious care over infant life, whilst yet we were
unconscious of our being; whose days and nights were rendered wearisome
by her anxious cares for our welfare; whose eager eye followed us
through every path we took; who gloried in our honor; who sickened in
heart at our shame; who loved and mourned, when others reviled and
scorned; and whose affection for us survives the wreck of every other
feeling within. When her voice is raised to inculcate religion, or to
reprehend irregularity, it possesses unnumbered claims of attention,
respect and obedience. She fills the place of the eternal God; by her
lips that God is speaking; in her counsels He is conveying the most
solemn admonitions; and to disregard such counsel, to despise such
interference, to sneer at the wisdom that addresses you, or the aged
piety that seeks to reform you, is the surest and the shortest path
which the devil himself could have opened for your perdition. I know
no grace that can have effect; I know not any authority upon earth to
which you will listen, when once you have brought yourself to reject
such advice.
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