Resurgam
Dawns dread and red the fateful morn—
Lo, Resurrection’s Day is born!
The striding sea no longer strides,
No longer knows the trick of tides;
The land is breathless, winds relent,
All nature waits the dread event.
From wassail rising rather late,
Awarding Jove arrives in state;
O’er yawning graves looks many a league,
Then yawns himself from sheer fatigue.
Lifting its finger to the sky,
A marble shaft arrests his eye—
This epitaph, in pompous pride,
Engraven on its polished side:
“Perfection of Creation’s plan,
Here resteth Universal Man,
Who virtues, segregated wide,
Collated, classed, and codified,
Reduced to practice, taught, explained,
And strict morality maintained.
Anticipating death, his pelf
He lavished on this monolith;
Because he leaves nor kin nor kith
He rears this tribute to himself,
That Virtue’s fame may never cease.
Hic jacet—let him rest in peace!”
With sober eye Jove scanned the shaft,
Then turned away and lightly laughed
“Poor Man! since I have careless been
In keeping books to note thy sin,
And thou hast left upon the earth
This faithful record of thy worth,
Thy final prayer shall now be heard:
Of life I’ll not renew thy lease,
But take thee at thy carven word,
And let thee rest in solemn peace!”
Musings, Philosophical and Theological
Seated in his den, in the chill gloom of a winter twilight, comforting his stomach with hoarded bits of cheese and broad biscuits, Mr. Grile thinketh unto himself after this fashion of thought:
I
To eat biscuits and cheese before dining is to confess that you do not expect to dine.
II
“Once bit, twice shy,” is a homely saying, but singularly true. A man who has been swindled will be very cautious the second time, and the third. The fourth time he may be swindled again more easily and completely than before.
III
A four-footed beast walks by lifting one foot at a time, but a four-horse team does not walk by lifting one horse at a time. And yet you cannot readily explain why this is so.
IV
Asked to describe the Deity, a donkey would represent him with long ears and a tail. Man’s conception is higher and truer: he thinks of him as somewhat resembling a man.
V
The bald head of a man is a very common spectacle. You have never seen the bald head of a woman.
VI
Baldheaded women are a very common spectacle.
VII
Piety, like small-pox, comes by infection. Robinson Crusoe, however, caught it alone on his island. It is probable that he had it in his blood.
VIII
The doctrine of foreknowledge does not imply the truth of foreordination. Foreordination is a cause antedating an event. Foreknowledge is an effect, not of something that is going to occur, which would be absurd, but the effect of its being going to occur.
IX
Those who cherish the opposite opinion may be very good citizens.
X
Old shoes are easiest, because they have accommodated themselves to the feet. Old friends are least intolerable because they have adapted themselves to the inferior parts of our character.
XI
Between old friends and old shoes there are other points of resemblance.
XII
Everybody professes to know that it would be difficult to find a needle in a haystack, but very few reflect that this is because haystacks seldom contain needles.
XIII
A man with but one leg is a better man than a man with two legs, for the reason that there is less of him.
XIV
A man without any legs is better than a man with one leg; not because there is less of him, but because he cannot get about to enact so much wickedness.
XV
When an ostrich is pursued he conceals his head in a bush; when a man is pursued he conceals his property. By instinct each knows his enemy’s design.
XVI
There are two things that should be avoided; the deadly upas tree and soda water. The latter will make you puffy and poddy.
XVII
This list of things to be avoided is necessarily incomplete.
XVIII
In calling a man a hog, it is the man who gets angry, but it is the hog who is insulted. Men are always taking up the quarrels of others.
XIX
Give an American a newspaper and a pie and he will make himself comfortable anywhere.
XX
The world of mind will be divided upon the question of baptism so long as there are two simple and effective methods of baptising, and they are equally disagreeable.
XXI
They are not equally disagreeable, but each is disagreeable enough to attract disciples.
XXII
The face of a pig is a more handsome face than the face of a man—in the pig’s opinion.
XXIII
A pig’s opinion upon this question is as likely to be correct as is a man’s opinion.
XXIV
It is better not to take a wife than to take one belonging to some other man: for if she has been a good wife to him she has adapted her nature to his, and will therefore be unsuited to yours. If she has not been a good wife to him she will not be to you.
XXV
The most gifted people are not always the most favoured: a man with twelve legs can derive no benefit from ten of them without crawling like a centipede.
XXVI
A woman and a cow are the two most beautiful creatures in the world. For proof of the beauty of a cow, the reader is referred to an ox; for proof of the beauty of a woman, an ox is referred to the reader.
XXVII
There is reason to believe that a baby is less comely than
