has been collecting his thoughts for a few moments:
"It must be thus; but I will go to bed before it is too late." He had gazed the entire night and was not aware of it.
(511)
See Absorption, Mental.
CONCERT, LACK OF
Crazy people never act together, says the
superintendent of a large asylum for the
insane, quoted in The Medical Times. "If
one inmate attacks an attendant, as sometimes
happens, the others would look upon
it as no affair of theirs and simply watch it
out. The moment we discovered two or
more inmates working together we would
know they were on the road to recovery."
It is on this account that there are so few
concerted mutinies in insane asylums; so
that the number of attendants does not have
to be large.
(512)
Conclusion, A Reasonable—See Ethical Principle.
CONDEMNED, THE
"Vessels fitted unto destruction"—how
many may be unconsciously so marked by
their Maker! A vessel is condemned as unseaworthy;
her sails are sold, her spars and
rigging, and when all that can be moved is
gone, the dismantled hulk is moored in some
coaling station. There, black from stem to
stern, with a great white number painted on
her side, she floats until her timbers rot to
pieces—
Anchored forever—sea-lord once, and free—
Fouled by the creeping weeds that work unseen,
Lashed by the mocking winds that erst we braved,
Dread we the coming of the Southern night.
Stars that we tamed to guide our prows of old
Laugh in their sky of purple tapestry—
Ay, laugh: we are condemned of man to die! (Text.)
—Margaret Gardiner, Century.
(513)
CONDESCENSION
A learned counsel (Mr. Brougham, as
some say), when the judges had retired for
a few minutes in the midst of his argument,
in which, from their interruptions and objections,
he did not seem likely to be successful,
went out of court, too, and on his
return stated he had been drinking a pot
of porter. Being asked whether he was not
afraid that this beverage might dull his intellect,
he replied: "That is just what I
want it to do, to bring me down, if possible,
to the level of their lordships' understanding.
(Text.)—James Croake, "Curiosities
of Law and Lawyers."
(514)
See Greatness; Personality, Influence
of.
Conditions Before the Advent of Missionaries—See
Missionary Work, Value
of.
Conditions Modify Rules—See Devotion
to the Helpless.
CONDITIONS SUGGEST COURSES
During the last years of his life a brain
disease, of which he had shown frequent
symptoms, fastened its terrible hold upon
Swift, and he became by turns an idiot and
a madman. He died in 1745, and when his
will was opened it was found that he had
left all his property to found St. Patrick's
asylum for lunatics and incurables. It
stands to-day as the most suggestive monument
of his peculiar genius.—William J.
Long, "English Literature."
(515)
CONDUCT, CANONS OF
Coleridge lays down three canons of criticism in literature, which hold equally in conduct and endeavor:
First, What has the author attempted to
do? Second, Is it worth doing? And, third,
Has he done it well?
(516)
CONDUCT, PAST, UNCONSIDERED
Paul's doctrine, that he who offends in one point is guilty of the whole law, is illustrated in this anecdote:
A notary public was convicted of forgery
and sentenced to be hanged; and being asked
if he had anything to say why sentence of
death should not be passed, remarked that
it was very hard that he should be hanged
just for one line, considering the thousands
of harmless sheets he had written in the
course of his life. (Text.)—Croake James,
"Curiosities of Law and Lawyers."
(517)
CONFESSION
One of the duties of the writer during the
first days of his clerkship was to "lock up."
One morning in the very first week of his
employment he found the door unlocked and
a policeman standing guard. Had he for-
