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Page 34
Shallow men believe in luck; strong men in pluck.
If there is honor among thieves, they stole it.
Have a time and place for everything, and do everything in its time and
place.
You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make
it.
You will always find those men the most forward to do good, or to
improve the times, who are always busy.
Trifles make perfection, yet perfection is no trifle.
LESSON L
COUNTENANCE AND CHARACTER
We know men by their looks; we read men by looking at their faces--not
at their features, their eyes, their lips, because God made these; but
a certain cast of motion, and shape and expression, which their
features have acquired. It is this that we call the countenance.
And what makes this countenance? The inward and mental habits; the
constant pressure of the mind; the perpetual repetition of its acts.
You detect at once a conceited, or foolish person. It is stamped on
his countenance. You can see on the faces of the cunning or
dissembling, certain corresponding lines, traced on the face as legibly
as if they were written there.
As it is with the countenance, so it is with the character. Character
is the sum total of all our actions. It is the result of the habitual
use we have been making of our intellect, heart and will. We are
always at work, like the weaver at the loom. So we are always forming
a character for ourselves. It is a plain truth, that everybody grows
up in a certain character; some good, some bad, some excellent, and
some unendurable. Every character is formed by habits. If a man is
habitually proud, or vain, or false, he forms for himself a character
like in kind.
The character shows itself outwardly, but it is wrought within. Every
habit is a chain of acts, and every one of those acts was a free link
of the will. For instance, some people are habitually false. We
sometimes meet with men whose word we can never take, and for this
reason they have lost the perception of truth and falsehood. They do
not know when they are speaking the truth and when they are speaking
falsely. They bring this state upon themselves. But there was a time
when these same men had never told a lie.
A good character is to be more highly prized than riches.
SELECTION XVI
THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET
1. How dear to the heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view!
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild-wood,
And every loved spot which my infancy knew;
The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it,
The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell;
The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it,
And e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well:
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket.
The moss-covered bucket, which hung in the well.
2. That moss-covered vessel I hail as a treasure;
For often, at noon, when returned from the field,
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,
The purest and sweetest that nature can yield.
How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing,
And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell;
Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing,
And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well:
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket arose from the well.
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