A First Impressionist.
THE TRUISMS OF LIFE.
(By the Right Hon. the Author of "The Platitudes of Life," M.P., F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D.)
Chapter I.—De Omnibus Rebus.
"Ars longa, vita brevis;"[1] and indeed "man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long."[2] An oriental writer has told us that "all flesh is grass," to which a Scots poet[3] has replied, that "A man's a man for a' that." There is a Greek aphorism, not sufficiently well known, which says γνῶθι σεαυτόν. This has been ably rendered by Pope in the words "Know thyself."[4] Proverbially "piety begins at home," but it is wrong to deduce from this that education ends when we leave school; "it goes on through life."[5]
Books are an educational force. They "have often been compared to friends,"[6] whom we "never cut."[7] They "are better than all the tarts and toys in the world."[8] It is not generally known that "English literature is the inheritance of the English race,"[9] on whose Empire, by the way, "the sun never sets." We even have "books in the running brooks," as the Bard of Avon[10] tells us; so that not only "he that runs," but he that swims, "may read."
"Knowledge for the million,"[11] is the "fin de siècle"[12] cry of the hour. But "life is real, life is earnest,"[13] and we have no time to study original thinkers such as Confucius and Tupper. "Altiora Peto"[14] is a saying for the leisured class only. The mass must get its wisdom second-hand and concentrated. If "reading maketh a full man,"[15] this kind of reading maketh a man to burst. Hence the "sad in sweet"[16] of the book of quoted platitudes. Yet, of course, "there are great ways of borrowing. Genius borrows nobly."[17] And it is well to have "the courage of" other people's "opinions."
But reading is not all. You must "use your head."[18] And you must, and can, keep it too. For a good man's head is not like a seed-cake that passes in the using. And, again, remember the proverb that "manners makyth man"; though this is not the true cause of the over-population of our islands. In social life much will depend on the way in which you behave to others. "Never lose your temper, and if you do, at any rate hold your tongue, and try not to show it"[19]—except, one may add, to a doctor.
Many people cannot say "No!" Others early learn to say "No!" when asked to do disagreeable things. "Mens sana in corpore sano." If the last word is pronounced Say No, this constitutes a word-play. There are some bad word-plays in Shakspeare. I disapprove of humour, new or old.