“A snail’s pace,” hitherto a remarkably indefinite phrase, has at last been exactly defined, thanks to the experimental philosophers of the Terre Haute Polytechnic. After putting half a dozen of them through their paces, and making all necessary differentiations, it was ascertained that a snail can travel exactly a mile in fourteen days. Hence, it will be seen that it is about nip and tuck between the snail and the boy when you send the latter to a grocery past a vacant lot where the other boys are engaged in a game of baseball.—Cincinnati Enquirer.
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SMALL ANNOYANCES
James Drummond, in “Parables and Pictures,” says:
We have heard of a battle against cannibals gained by the use of tacks. They had taken possession of a whaling vessel and bound the man who was left in care of it. The crew, on returning, saw the situation, and scattered tacks upon the deck of the vessel, which penetrated the bare feet of the savages, and sent them howling into the sea. They were ready to meet lance and sword, but they could not overcome the tacks on the floor. We brace ourselves up against great calamities. The little tacks of life, scattered along our way, are hard to bear.
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SMALL BEGINNINGS
“Despise not the day of small things.” “Great oaks from little acorns grow.”
A boy used to crush flowers to get their color, and painted the white side of his father’s cottage in Tyrol with all sorts of pictures, which the mountaineer gazed at as wonderful. He was the great artist, Titian.
An old painter watched a little fellow who amused himself making drawing of his pots and brushes, easel and tools, and said, “That boy will beat me some day.” So he did, for he was Michelangelo.