IMMORTALITY. IMPORTUNITY. The debt of nature when He makes the claim. IMPATIENCE-Grasps at all. IMMORTALITY-Reflections on. Immortal! What can strike the sense so strong, stars. IMMORTALITY-Thoughts on. Impatience is a quality sudden, eager, and insatiable, which grasps at all, and admits of no delay; scorning to wait God's leisure, and attend humbly and dutifully upon the issues of his wise and just Providence. South. IMPERFECTIONS-of Human Nature. I have known several persons of great fame for wisdom in public affairs and councils, governed by foolish servants. I have known great ministers, distinguished for wit and learning, who preferred none but dunces. I have known men of valour cowards to their wives. I have known men of cunning perpetually cheated. I knew three ministers, who would exactly compute and settle the accounts of a kingdom, wholly ignorant of their own economy. Walpole. IMPERTINENCE-in Conversation de spised. That man is guilty of impertinence, who con siders not the circumstances of time, or engrosses the conversation, or makes himself the subject of his discourse, or pays no regard to the company he is in. Tully. IMPERTINENCE-Treatment of Receive no satisfaction for premeditated im- ¦ pertinence; forget it,-forgive it, but keep him inexorably at a distance who offered it. Lavater. Doth this soul within me, this spirit of thought, and love, and infinite desire, dissolve as well as the body? Has Nature, who quenches our bodily thirst, who rests our weariness, and IMPLACABILITY-Characteristic of. perpetually encourages us to endeavour onwards, prepared no food for this appetite of Implacability is known only to the savage. immortality? Leigh Hunt IMPARTIALITY-Desirableness of. Of all the blessings which are bestowed upon the good there is none perhaps more expedient for us, or more to be requested of God, than a spirit of impartiality with respect to ourselves, together with that accurate discernment, that suspicious severity, that care to distinguish between real probity and the false appearance of it, and that caution not to be imposed upon by hypocrisy and dissimulation, which we usually exert, when we scan the actions and the pretensions of other people. This is the best security against the dangerous illusions of self-love. The lower we place ourselves, the higher we shall rise in the favour of God; and the readier we are to censure our own defects, the nearer we shall be to repentance and amendment. IMPATIENCE-dries the Blood. Jortin. Julius Caesar. IMPORTUNITY-Success of. In general it is not very difficult for little minds to attain splendid situations. It is much more difficult for great minds to attain the place to which their merit fully entitles them. In the first place, elevation of sentiment is almost always an insurmountable obstacle to fortune; it is an effectual barrier against a thousand easy and certain means of advancement; talents are even adverse to advancement, unless they be accompanied with vast intrepidity of soul; with a sort of courage that men of truly honest and upright hearts do not wish to possess. For if, on the one hand, they multiply our means of attaining the proposed end, they, on the other, place before our eyes, in but too forcible a point of view, the obstacles we have to surmount. This inconvenience is great, and the multiplication of our means is not always an advantage. I am persuaded that in carefully examining the conduct of those who have attained to any extraordinary fortune, wa shall be tempted to believe there is nothing so sure of succeeding as not to be overbrilliant, IMPROVEMENT—Alteration an aid to. IMPROVEMENT-Moral. Horace. as to be entirely wrapped up in oneself, and endowed with a perseverance which, in spite of all the rebuffs it may meet with, never relaxes in the pursuit of its object. It is incredible what may be done by dint of importunity alone; and where shall we find the man of real talents who knows how to be importunate enough? He is too soon overcome with the disgust inspired by all matters which have interest only for their object, with the desire of perpetual solicitation; he is too much alive to all the little movements visible on the countenance of the person solicited, IMPROVIDENCE-Characteristics of. and he gives up the pursuit. The fool sees DoDe of these things, feels none of these things he pursues his object with unremitted ardour, and at length attains it. IMPOSSIBLE. Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools. Napoleon I. Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist; but by ascending a little, you may often look over it altogether. So it is with our moral improvement: we wrestle fiercely with a vicious habit, which could have no hold upon us if we ascended into a higher moral atmosphere. Helps. Baron de Grimm. It has always been more difficult for a man to keep than to get; for, in the one case, fortune aids, which often assists injustice; but in the other case, sense is required. Therefore, we often see a person deficient in cleverness rise to wealth; and then, from want of sense, roll head-over-heels to the bottom. Basil. IMPUDENCE-Characteristics of. We are invited to dinner together, O that's a precious mannikin. Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he Saw you but once, though you should meet him at Church in the midst of prayers. He is one IMPULSE-Religious. Ben Jonson Act upon your impulses, but pray that they may be directed by God. Emerson Tennent. INACTION-Curse on. Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction. Goethe. INCONSTANCY-of Man. Inconstancy's the plague that first or last INDECISION-Corrupting Influence of. Indecision is that slatternly housewife by whose fault chiefly the moth and the rust are allowed to make such dull work of life; corrupting all the gleam and gloss of earth's perishable treasures. Edith Clarel. Richer than doing nothing for a bauble; Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk. Shakspeare. INDIFFERENCE. The time was that I hated thee; And yet it is not that I bear thee love. Thy company, which erst was irksome to me, I will endure; But do not look for further recompense. Ibid. INDIFFERENCE-to Beauty. If she undervalue me, Were her tresses angel gold, To convert them to a braid, Job. If the mine be grown so free, Sir Walter Raleigh. INDIGESTION-Evils of. How many serious family quarrels, marriages out of spite, alterations of wills, and secessions to the Church of Rome, might have been prevented by a gentle dose of blue pill? What awful instances of chronic dyspepsia are presented to our view by the immortal bard in the characters of Hamlet and Othello! I look with awe on the digestion of such a man as the present King of Naples. Banish dyspepsia and spirituous liquors from society, and you would have no crime, or at least so little that you would not consider it worth mentioning. Kingsley. INDISCRETION-Mischief of. An indiscreet man is more hurtful than an ill-natured one; for, as the latter will only attack his enemies, and those he wishes ill to, the other injures indifferently both friends and foes. INDUSTRY-Advantages of. Addison. It There is no art or science that is too difficult for industry to attain to; it is the gift of tongues, and makes a man understood and valued in all countries, and by all nations. is the philosopher's stone, that turns all metals, and even stones, into gold, and suffers no want to break into its dwelling. It is the northwest passage, that brings the merchant's ships as soon to him as he can desire. In a word, it conquers all enemies, and makes fortune itself pay contribution. Lord Clarendon. Sloth makes all things difficult, but Industry all easy; and he that riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night; while Laziness travels so slowly, that Poverty soon overtakes him. Franklin. INDUSTRY-Benediction attending. A divine benediction is always invisibly breathed on painful and lawful diligence. Thus, the servant employed in making and blowing of the fire (though sent away thence as soon as it burneth clear) oft-times getteth by his pains a more kindly and continuing heat than the master himself, who sitteth down by the same; and thus persons, industriously occupying themselves, thrive better on a little of their own honest getting, than lazy heirs on the large revenues left unto them. Fuller. INDUSTRY-Blessings of. At the working-man's house Hunger looks in, but dares not enter? nor will the bailiff or the constable enter: for Industry pays debts, but Despair increaseth them. Franklin. People may tell you of your being unfit for some peculiar occupations in life; but heed them not. Whatever employ you follow with perseverance and assiduity will be found fit for you; it will be your support in youth, and your comfort in age. In learning the useful part of any profession, very moderate abilities will suffice - great abilities are generally injurious to the possessors. Life has been compared to a race; but the allusion still improves by observing that the most swift are ever the most apt to stray from the course. INDUSTRY-Bread of. Goldsmith. The bread earned by the sweat of the brow is thrice blessed, and it is far sweeter than the tasteless loaf of idleness. Crowquill. INDUSTRY-Habits of. industry, provides for them better than by A man who gives his children habits of giving them a fortune. Whately. INDUSTRY-Virtues of. The chiefest action for a man of spirit, Is never to be out of action; we should think In the trenches for the soldier; in the wakeful study For men of that profession; of all which Webster. Virtue, though chained to earth, will still live free, And bell itself must yield to industry. Ben Jonson. INFANCY. INFANCY-Mystery of. There is no sentiment more natural to thoughtful minds than that of reverence for childhood. Many sources, both of mystery and love, meet in the infant life, A being so fresh from non-existence seems to promise us some tidings of the origin of souls; a being so visibly pressing forward into the future makes us think of their tendency. While we look on the "child as the father of the man," yet cannot tell of what kind of man, all the possible varieties of character and fate appear for the moment to be collected into that diminutive consciousness; that which may be the germ of any is felt as though it were the germ of all; the thread of life, which from our hand that holds it runs forward into distant darkness, entwines itself there into a thousand filaments, and leads us over every track and scene of human things; here through passages where poverty crawls, there to the fields where glory has its race; here to the midnight lake where meditation floats between two heavens, there to the arid sands where passion pants and dies. Infancy is so naturally suggestive, it is the representative of such various possibilities, that it would be strange did we not regard it with a feeling of wonder. Martineau. INFANT-Mother's Address to her. Look at me, with thy large brown eyes, Philip, my king! For round thee the purple shadow lies With love's invisible sceptre laden; Till thou shalt find thy queen-handmaiden, Oh, the day when thou goest a-wooing. When those beautiful lips are suing, For we that love, ah! we love so blindly, I gaze from thy sweet mouth up to thy brow, Ay, there lies the spirit, all sleeping now, That may rise like a giant, and make men bow As to one god-throned amidst his peers. My soul, then thy brethren higher and Let me behold thee in coming years! INFANT-Beauties of an. I saw the whole room,-I and Marian there Alone? She threw her bonnet off, Then sighing as 'twere sighing the last time, Approach'd the bed, and drew a shawl away: You could not peel a fruit you fear to bruise More calmly and more carefully than so,Nor would you find within, a rosier flush'd Pomegranate There he lay upon his back. Were hot and scarlet as the first live rose While we stood there dumb,- The light upon his eyelids prick'd them wide, But smiled on, in a drowse of ecstasy, So happy (half with her and half with Heaven) He could not have the trouble to be stirr'd, But siniled and lay there. Like a rose, I said: As red and still indeed as any rose, Content, in blowing, to fulfil its life. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. |