The volume herewith presented is the natural result of the compiler's
habit of transferring and classifying significant passages from known
authors. No special course of reading has been pursued, the thoughts
being culled from foreign and native tongues--from the moss-grown tomes
of ancient literature and the verdant fields of to-day. The terse
periods of others, appropriately quoted, become in a degree our own; and
a just estimation is very nearly allied to originality, or, as the
author of _Vanity Fair_ tells us, "Next to excellence is the
appreciation of it." Without indorsing the idea of a modern authority
that the multiplicity of facts and writings is becoming so great that
every available book must soon be composed of extracts only, still it is
believed that such a volume as "Pearls of Thought" will serve the
interest of general literature, and especially stimulate the mind of the
thoughtful reader to further research. The pleasant duty of the
compiler has been to follow the expressive idea of Colton, and he has
made the same use of books as a bee does of flowers,--she steals the
sweets from them, but does not injure them.
To the observant reader many familiar quotations will naturally occur,
the absence of which may seem a singular omission in such a connection
and classification, but doubtless such excerpts will be found in the
"Treasury of Thought," a much more extended work by the same author, to
which this volume is properly a supplement. Of course care has been
taken not to repeat any portion of the previous collection.