vigor. I watched for the light to go out in my classmate's room. In fifteen minutes it was all dark. "There is his margin," I thought. It was fifteen minutes more time. It was hunting out fifteen minutes more of rules and root derivatives. How often, when a lesson is well prepared, just five minutes spent in perfecting it will make one the best in the class. The margin in such a case as that is very small, but it is all-important. The world is made up of little things. (Text.)
(1971)
MARKING TIME
Too much of human effort consists of merely going through motions without ever getting forward:
Bicycle races without leaving the starting-*place,
which are said to be the latest craze
in places of amusement in Paris, are described
in Popular Mechanics. Says this
paper: "The wheel is fixt in a frame fastened
to the floor. When the rider begins
to pedal, a belt from the rear wheel drives
a small electrical generator. The current
thus produced is conducted to a motor on
wheels and carrying a flag. The track on
which the motor travels is marked in distances,
and each foot of track requires as
much work by the rider as would have carried
the bicycle one mile had it been free to
run as under ordinary conditions of use."
(Text.)
(1972)
MARKS, COVERING
When the physician prescribed blisters to
Marie Bashkirtseff to check her consumptive
tendency, the vain, cynical girl wrote: "I
will put on as many blisters as thee like.
I shall be able to hide the mark by bodices
trimmed with flowers and lace and tulle, and
a thousand other delightful things that are
worn, without being required; it may even
look pretty. Ah! I am comforted." (Text.)
(1973)
MARKS OF CHARACTER
Admiration is sometimes exprest about the
peaceful faces of nuns, sisters of charity,
and similar devotees of the secluded life.
But if you polish a piece of stone and keep
it in a cabinet it will be smooth. The same
stone set into a foundation will soon show
marks of the weather. So marks on the
face, lines of care, traces of sorrow, usually
show that one has been doing something;
has been of some use; has been developing
character.
(1974)
Marks, Removing—See Reminders, Unpleasant.
MARRIAGE
Look at marriage as a divine plan for
mutual compensation—each making up for
the deficiencies of the other, somewhat as
the two lenses of crown-glass and flint-glass
combine in the achromatic lens. What one
has the other has not, and so, by association,
each gets the advantage of the other's capacity,
and finds relief from conscious lack
and incompetency.—A. T. Pierson.
(1975)
Marriage and Divorce—See Birth-rate in France; Divorce.
MARRIAGE CUSTOM, BRUTAL
The marriage ceremony of the Australian
savages consists often in the simple process
of stunning a stray female of a neighboring
tribe by means of a club, and then dragging
her away an unresisting captive, just as the
males of the larger species of seal are said
to attack and temporarily disable their intended
mates—Felix Oswald, Good Health.
(1976)
MARRIAGE RACING
A writer in the New York Commercial Advertiser, describing certain curious marriage customs, says:
In some cases the ceremony takes the form
of what is called bride-racing. The girl is
given a certain start and the lover is expected
to overtake her. An observer among
the Calmucks assures us that no Calmuck
girl is ever caught "unless she have a partiality
for her pursuer." Per contra, Mr.
Kennan tells us of a bride-race among the
Koriacks (northern Asia) which he witnest,
where the girl went scampering, pursued
by her lover, through a succession of
compartments, called pologs, in a large tent.
So nimble was the maid that she distanced
her pursuer, but—she waited for him in the
last polog! All of which goes to prove that
the wise men of old knew what they were
talking about when they said that the race
is not always to the swift.
(1977)
MARRIAGE RELATIONS IN THE EAST
The third relation in Confucius' teaching
is that of "Husband and Wife." Confucius
expressly teaches that husband and wife are
very "different" beings, which is in startling
contrast to the teachings of Christ, who
