Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/118

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110
"BONES AND I."

barter new lamps for old, perhaps humbly on her knees, entreating permission to make the unequal exchange. In all the relations of life, but chiefly in those with which the affections are concerned, we constantly see gold for silver offered with both hands.

That "it is better to give than to receive" we have Scriptural warrant for asserting. That—


"Sure the pleasure is as great
In being cheated as to cheat,"


we learn from Butler's quaint and philosophical couplets. I am not going to assert that the man who puts down sovereigns and takes up shillings has really the worst of it; I only maintain that the more freely he "parts" with the former, the more sparing will he find the latter doled out to him in return.

Perhaps the strongest case in point is that of parent and child.