INDEX.

LACONIC MANUAL, ETC.

APHORISMS INTRODUCTORY.

SENSIBLE men show their sense by saying much in few words. Noble actions are the substance of life; good sayings its ornament and guide.

Seneca. He that lays down precepts for the governing of our lives, and moderating our passions, obliges humanity not only in the present, but in all future generations.

Johnson. The excellence of aphorisms consists, not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in few words.

Swift. Abstracts, abridgments, summaries, etc., have the same use with burning-glasses, to collect the diffused rays of wit and learning in authors, and make them point with warmth and quickness upon the reader's imagination.

Thacher. Maxims should be axioms. A good maxim is never out of season. one is never out of mind.

Ed. Just as a bad

Precepts and maxims are of great weight, and a few useful ones at hand, do more toward a happy life, than whole volumes of cautions, that we know not where to find.

Ed. A proverb is said to be "much light concentrated in a flash." Many laconics, however, are only a flash in the pan. Ib. Laconics, like poetry, have a license; but most authors carry this into licentiousness.

Ib. Aphorisms of prime excellence, carry the day with generous minds, against all the powers of sophism. "Great is the truth," etc.

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ABSENCE

ACCIDENTAL.

2. ABSENCE.

The absent party is always in the wrong.

Ed. To be absent from home is inconvenient; to be absent from friends, painful; to be absent-minded is calamitous; but to be absent from good company, and places, is commonly a crime as well as a calamity.

3. ABSURDITY.

Spring. There is no absurdity more monstrous than that truth and moral rectitude are at war, each with the other.

A theoretical practitioner, having engaged to teach an Irishman the art of swimming, after several observations on the subject, directed him to go into the water. The facetious son of Erin responded, "I have no notion to go into the water, till you have made me a good swimmer." Ed. This anecdote exemplifies the absurdity of grasping at an end, without using the means.

Ed. The essence of absurdity is sin. Errors are only the drapery, sin the substance of absurdity.

4. ACCURACY.

Accurate knowledge is the basis of correct opinions. The want of it makes most people's opinions of little value.

Ed. Accuracy and Consistency, rare pearls, of immense value, and more difficult to attain than to catch a weasel asleep.

Ib. Accuracy is twin brother to honesty, and inaccuracy to dishonesty.

5. ACQUAINTANCE.

Lavater. Never say you know a man, till you have divided an inheritance with him.

Williams, T. An Irishman being asked why he was smiling, said, “I have seen my cousin from Cork, to-day." Well, what good news from home? The answer was, "I only saw him across the street, and when I ran up to him, I found he was not the man I took him to be." Ed. The moral is: A closer inspection, and more intimate acquaintance, usually occasion disappointment.

6. ACCIDENTAL, FORTUITOUS.

Success and failures are often attributed to partial, transient