Some readers delight in abstracts and epitomes. — JOHNSON. We have been at a great feast of languages, and have stolen all the scraps.-SHAKESPEARE. To select well among old things is almost equal to inventing new ones. -ABBÉ TRUblet. Under the veil of these curious sentences are hid those germs of morals which the masters of philosophy have afterwards developed into so many volumes. — PLUTARCH. If these little sparks of holy fire which I have thus heaped together do not give life to your prepared and already enkindled spirit, yet they will sometimes help to entertain a thought, to actuate a passion, to employ and hallow a fancy. - JEREMY TAYLOR. 4278 PREFACE. It is a source of gratification to know from whence come familiar sayings upon vital subjects, and such quotations, whether trite or otherwise, assume positive interest from the fact of the individuality imparted to them by a knowledge of their authorship. Sentiments, like notes of hand, are calculated in value as much by the indorsement as by the face. Commercial paper, like printed thought, is thus rendered bankable, the one on change, the other in the circles of refined society. In selecting these paragraphs of "Notable Thoughts About Women," the compiler has been exercised by a catholic. spirit, and has indulged in no partiality of sentiment, in many instances quoting those to which he could not personally subscribe, but which, nevertheless, merit presentation, because of the sources from whence they emanate. Nor does he assume to have exhausted the special field from which these excerpts have been culled; indeed, their accumulation has been quite incidental, while perusing a desultory course of reading, always characterized, however, by a habit of noting and classifying vital truths, striking thoughts, and epigrammatic sentences, wherever found. In one sense the work is believed to be unique, as no similar collection has ever been offered to the public. The most casual reader who will adopt the practice of noting down, and placing under appropriate heads, the bright, terse, and significant expressions in which the best authors abound, shall presently find that a choice treasury of thought is the result. M. M. B. |