sick. In his "Confessions" Tolstoi says that for ten years he went from banquet to banquet, drinking rich wines, feasting, following his tailor, concocting flatteries, lies, sleeping by day and dissipating at night, and he adds, "My observation is that no galley-slave or apostle like Paul has to toil as hard as a society man and a society woman," and both have lost their beauty, their happiness and their health before the life course is half run. So pleasure makes its disciples become galley-slaves. But pleasure promised a velvet path, air heavy with roses, the wine and nectar of Venus and Bacchus. Pleasure promised perfumed bowers, days of happiness, nights of laughter and song. But pleasure is a deceiver. (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.
(2977)
Sleeping in Church—See Self-blame.
SLOWNESS
"A snail's pace," hitherto a remarkably indefinite
phrase, has at last been exactly defined,
thanks to the experimental philosophers
of the Terre Haute Polytechnic. After
putting half a dozen of them through
their paces, and making all necessary differentiations,
it was ascertained that a snail can
travel exactly a mile in fourteen days. Hence,
it will be seen that it is about nip and tuck
between the snail and the boy when you send
the latter to a grocery past a vacant lot
where the other boys are engaged in a game
of baseball.—Cincinnati Enquirer.
(2978)
SMALL ANNOYANCES
James Drummond, in "Parables and Pictures," says:
We have heard of a battle against cannibals
gained by the use of tacks. They had
taken possession of a whaling vessel and
bound the man who was left in care of it.
The crew, on returning, saw the situation,
and scattered tacks upon the deck of the
vessel, which penetrated the bare feet of the
savages, and sent them howling into the sea.
They were ready to meet lance and sword,
but they could not overcome the tacks on
the floor. We brace ourselves up against
great calamities. The little tacks of life,
scattered along our way, are hard to bear.
(2979)
SMALL BEGINNINGS
"Despise not the day of small things." "Great oaks from little acorns grow."
A boy used to crush flowers to get their
color, and painted the white side of his
father's cottage in Tyrol with all sorts of
pictures, which the mountaineer gazed at as
wonderful. He was the great artist, Titian.
An old painter watched a little fellow who amused himself making drawing of his pots and brushes, easel and tools, and said, "That boy will beat me some day." So he did, for he was Michelangelo.
(2980)
Small Duties—See Helpfulness.
SMALL EVILS HARDEST TO BEAR
Gerald Gould expresses in verse a sentiment that many will indorse:
It is the slow and softly dropping tears
That bring the furrows to man's face; the years,
Falling and fall'n vain,
That turn the gold to gray upon his head;
And the dull days to disappointment wed,
And pain that follows pain
That make life bitter in the mouth, and strew
The dead with roses, but the quick with yew.
Better a wide and windy world, and scope
For rise and downfall of a mighty hope,
Than many little ills;
Better the sudden horror, the swift wrong,
Than doubts and cares that die not, and the long
Monotony that kills:
The empty dawns, pale stars, and narrow skies,
Mean hopes, mean fears, mean sorrows, and mean sighs.
(Text.)
—The Spectator.
(2981)
Smallness and Bigness Compared—See Destructiveness.
Smiles—See Love's Carefulness; Trouble.
SMILES AND FROWNS
We would all be willing to help in the pleasant task described in these verses:
If I knew the box where the smiles are kept,
No matter how large the key
Or strong the bolt, I would try so hard,
'Twould open I know for me.
Then over the land and sea broadcast
I'd scatter smiles to play,
That the children's faces might hold them fast
For many and many a day.
