An old man answering to the name of Joseph Wilmot, was brought before
the police court. His clothes looked as if they had been bought second
hand in his youthful prime.
"What business?"
"None; I'm a traveler."
"A vagabond, perhaps?"
"You are not far wrong: the difference between the two, is,
that the latter travel without money, and the former without
brains."
"Where have you traveled?"
"All over the continent."
"For what purpose?"
"Observation."
"What have you observed?"
"A little to commend, much to censure, and very much to laugh
at."
"Humph! What do you commend?"
"A handsome women that will stay at home, an eloquent divine
that will preach short sermons, a good writer that will not
write too much, and a fool that has seen enough to hold his
tongue."
"What do you censure?"
"A man who marries a girl for fine clothing, a youth who
studies law while he has the use of his hands, and the people
who elect a drunkard to office."
"What do you laugh at?"
"At a man who expects his position to command the respect
which his personal qualities and qualifications do not merit."
He was dismissed.
1203
Every man is a volume, if you know how to read him.
--_W. E. Channing._
1204
As no man is born without faults, the best is he who has the fewest.
1205
Burns, the poet, when in Edinburgh one day, recognized an old farmer
friend, and courteously saluted him, and crossed the street to have a
chat; some of his new Edinburgh friends gave him a gentle rebuke, to
which he replied:--"It was not the old great-coat, the scone bonnet,
that I spoke to, but the man that was in them."
1206