OPINION. very glad to have passed over. Yet the most beautiful part of private life, the silent revolutions in men's souls, the most quiet heroism on earth, are all to be found twined together in one continued chain of finely-wrought action and meditation, constituting the secret history of a great cause. Consider the growth of opinion in any one man's mind; how crudely the opinion is formed at first in his thought; how he is affected by discussion with friends, by controversy with sincere opponents, by some remote analogy in present life or in past history; how, strange to say, when his mind has apparently been disengaged from the subject, he finds, all of a sudden, great growth or change of opinion has been going on in him, so that it seems as if he had been thinking while he had been sleeping. Then, if the mind of this man is of deep and fertile soil, how all the beautiful influences of literature, of natural scenery, of science, and of art, enlarge and modify the growing opinion, hardly now to be called by so small a name as an opinion, but a cause; how this thought is modified by chance remarks from his fellows, which were not meant to influence him-those remarks which tell so much upon most of us, because the moral we draw from them is all our own. Then consider how the ordinary motives and occurrences of life affect the growth of this great cause; how it is lapped in the indolence of public and private men, now strangled by cares, now overpowered by the loud noises of really unimportant events; now oppressed by a vicious conservation, now fairly conquered by sophistry; so that, like some great subterranean river, it is forced to descend into the soil, burying itself in the hearts of the few faithful until, being a divine thing, it emerges clear and beautiful as ever, and unobservant men suppose that it has sprung up amongst them for the first time. Soon it enters on a larger career, is at one time furthered, at another hindered, by men's vanity; partakes largely of love, of honour, and ambition; enters into the intrigues of courts, of senates, of administrations; is borne out in fleets and armies, and comes forth to conquer or to die. Helps. OPINION-Diversity of. OPINION. OPINION-Evil attending. Opinion is more often the cause of discontent than nature. Epicurus. OPINION-Fallacy of There are numbers of circumstances which attend every action of a man's life, which can yet ought to be known, and well weighed, never come to the knowledge of the world,before sentence with any justice can be passed and a different sense of things, from what his upon him. A man may have different views, judges have; and what he understands and feels, and what passes within him, may be a secret treasured up deeply there for ever. A man, through bodily infirmity or some com. plexional defect, which perhaps is not in his power to correct, may be subject to inadver tencies-to starts-and unhappy turns of temper; he may lie open to snares he is not always information and proper helps, he may labour aware of; or, through ignorance and want of in the dark: in all which cases he may do many things which are wrong in themselves, and yet be innocent;-at least, an object rather to be pitied than censured with severity and ill-will. These are difficulties which stand in everyone's way, in the forming a judgment of the character of others, It is interesting and useful, though often very painful, to retire into ourselves, after the first tumult of excited feelings has subsided, and consider the probable consequences of our words and actions. We may indeed frequently be mistaken, and magnify or diminish the importance of what has occurred; or look forward deavouring to connect the past and the future, to events that may never happen; but by en we strengthen a habit of thoughtfulness, and of the sufferings which so frequently arise, are able to trace more easily the secret sources apparently from the ignorance or selfishness of our fellow-creatures, but in reality from some error in ourselves. Sewell. OPINION-Force of. Whenever a painful duty comes before us, we must not think what the world will say, but we must set our faces as a flint, and go through with it. Human respect has been the ruin of many souls. It is the close connection of moral cowardice, that fruitful source of everything that is base and wicked. And it must be remarked that this is especially the sin of civilization. In earlier times, when every man's hand is openly against his neigh bour, he cares less what that neighbour thinks of him; but as peace prevails, credit is generated, character assumes a new value, a corSir John Herschel. porate public opinion begins to act; and then There is no accounting for the difference of minds or inclinations, which leads one man to observe with interest the development of phenomena, another to speculate on their causes; but were it not for this happy disagreement, it may be doubted whether the higher sciences could ever have attained even their present degree of perfection. the temptation is to refer things to an en- Opinion is the rate of things, I have a better fate than kings, cellency of virtue itself, consists in adopting Because I think it so. Katharine Philips. OPINIONS-Forming. OPPORTUNITIES-Pursuit of The person who is in continual pursuit of affections, either by conferring or acknowopportunities for exercising the benevolent ledging kindness, will overlook a thousand trifling causes of offence, which might have awakened resentment in the breast of another; while those in whom the selfish passions prevail will be equally insensible to numberless "The public voice;" nay, those who dare not instances of kindness, which would have filled There Social opinion is like a sharp knife. OPINIONS-Correct. As beauty does not consist in taking what lies immediately before you, so neither, in our pursuit of taste, are those opinions which we first received and adopted, the best choice or the most natural to the mind and imagination. In the infancy of our knowledge we seize with greediness the goodness that is within our reach; it is by after consideration, and in consequence of discipline, that we refuse the present for a greater good at a distance. The nobility or elevation of all arts, like the ex the hearts of others with gratitude and joy; just as a person who is eager in the chase will disregard the beauties of the prospect which surrounds him, and know no more of the country through which he passed, than if he Bowdler. had never seen it. OPPORTUNITY-Right Choosing of. The moment comes- Uttered out of time, or concealed in its season, good savoureth of evil. Tupper. OPPORTUNITY-Improvement of. You do well to improve your opportunity; to speak in the rural phrase, this is your sowing time, and the sheaves you look for can never be yours, unless you make that use of it. The colour of our whole life is generally such as the three or four first years in which we are our own masters, make it. Then it is that we may be said to shape our own destiny, and to OPPORTUNITY. treasure up for ourselves a series of future successes or disappointments. Cowper. OPPORTUNITY-Neglect of. ORCHARD. cannot abide the storm without flinching or quailing, strips himself in the sunshine, and lies down by the wayside to be overlooked and forgotten. He who but braces himself to the Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis struggle when the winds blow, gives up when offer'd, they have done, and falls asleep in the stillness that follows. Shall never find it more. Shakspeare. Thou, when my dire and bloody resolutions, Like sick and froward children, Were rock'd asleep by reason, or religion, Thou, like a violent noise, com'st rushing in, And mak'st them start, and wake to new unquietness. Denham. OPPOSITION-Utility of. A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against and not with the wind. Even a head-wind is better than none. No man ever worked his passage anywhere in a dead calm. Let no man wax pale, therefore, because of opposition. Opposition is what he wants, and must have, to be good for anything. Hardship is the native soil of manhood and self-reliance. He that OPPRESSION-Hatred of. J. Neal. Elate he stood, with frank and earnest mien, With features augur'd all his tongue alleged, And tones wing'd home each barbed shaft they edged, And with spontaneous sallies bright and bold. Resistless streams of oratory roll'd. Movi In ever-changing composition mix'd. Such, falling frequent through the chiller night, ORDER-Advantages of. Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the state. As the beams to a house, as the bones to the microcosm of man, so is order to all things. Southey. There are persons who are never easy unless they are putting your books and papers in order-that is, according to their notions of the matter, and hide things, lest they should be lost, where neither the owner nor anybody else can find them. This is a sort of magpie faculty. If anything is left where you want it, it is called litter. There is a pedantry in housewifery, as well as in the gravest concerns. Abraham Tucker complained that whenever his maid-servant had been in his library, he could not set comfortably to work again for several days. ORDER-Limits of. Hazlitt. will be bravely eccentric, and scorn the beaten road, from universal benevolence. Goldsmith. ORIGINALITY-Meaning of. People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance i in my favour. Goethe. ORGANIZATION (Animal) - Adaptability of. Very curious is the power of adaptation to an external medium possessed by the organism. In an atmosphere so vitiated that a vigorous animal instantly perishes if plunged into it, an animal of the same species can live for some time, and will quite recover if restored to a purer atmosphere. In an air-tight glass bell jar a sparrow was placed. After he had remained there two hours another sparrow was introduced, and was instantly suffocated by the foul air; nevertheless the original occupant remained another hour in the glass, after which he was withdrawn, nearly dead. The fresh air and warmth revived him. In a little while he If had recovered sufficiently to fly. When he had recovered all his vigour, he was again placed in the atmosphere from which he had been withdrawn, and immediately died. the reader remembers what a suffocating sensation has seized him on entering a crowded room, or one full of smokers, and how, after a few minutes, he has grown so used to the atmosphere as to be almost unconscious of any discomfort, he will understand how a depression of the functions in a vitiated atmosphere tends to establish a sort of equilibrium between his organism and the atmosphere. ORPHAN-Curse of an. An orphan's curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high. Claude Bernard. ORPHAN-Innocence of an. Coleridge. How steadfastly he fix'd his eyes on me,- What could I do? I took the bantling home- ORPHAN-Tears of an. That his bones, When he has run his course, and sleeps în blessings, PAINTING. However they have writ the style of gods, And made a pish at chance and sufferance. Shakspeare. PAIN-Sensations of. The brute animals have all the same sensations of pain as human beings, and, consequently, endure as much pain when their body is hurt; but in their case the cruelty of torment is greater, because they have no mind to bear them up against their sufferings, and no hope to look forward to, when enduring the last extreme of pain, their happiness | consisting entirely in present enjoyment. PAIN-Uses of Chalmers. Pain has been the means of increasing our knowledge, our skill, and our comforts. Look to the discoveries made in Science, in Botany, in Chemistry, in Anatomy; what a knowledge have we gained of the structure and uses of plants, while we were seeking some herb to soothe pain or cure disease !-what a knowledge have we gained of drugs, and salts, and earths, useful for agriculture or for the fine arts, while we have been seeking only to find an ointment or a medicine; we bave sought a draught to allay the burning thirst of a fever, and we have found a dozen delicious beverages to drink for our pleasure or relief. We studied anatomy to find out the seat of disease, and how to attack it, and we found what we did not seek, a thousand wonderful works of God! a thousand most curious contrivances, most admirable delights! We found a model for the ribs of a ship-we found a pattern of a telescope in the eye-we found joints, and straps, and knittings, and valves which have been copied into the workshop of the mechanic, and the study of the philosopher. Yes, we may thank our liability to pain for these-for if pain had not existed, who can tell whether these things would have been so soon, if at all, discovered? Sharpe. |