~Hand.~--Other parts of the body assist the speaker, but these speak
themselves. By them we ask, we promise, we invoke, we dismiss, we
threaten, we entreat, we deprecate; we express fear, joy, grief, our
doubts, our assent, our penitence; we show moderation, profusion; we
mark number and time.--_Quintilian._
The Greeks adored their gods by the simple compliment of kissing their
hands; and the Romans were treated as atheists if they would not perform
the same act when they entered a temple. This custom, however, as a
religious ceremony, declined with Paganism; but was continued as a
salutation by inferiors to their superiors, or as a token of esteem
among friends. At present it is only practiced as a mark of obedience
from the subject to the sovereign, and by lovers, who are solicitous to
preserve this ancient usage in its full power.--_Disraeli._
~Handsome.~--They are as heaven made them, handsome enough if they be good
enough; for handsome is that handsome does.--_Goldsmith._
~Happiness.~--The foundation of domestic happiness is faith in the virtue
of woman; the foundation of political happiness is confidence in the
integrity of man; the foundation of all happiness, temporal and eternal,
is reliance on the goodness of God.--_Landor._
To remember happiness which cannot be restored is pain, but of a
softened kind. Our recollections are unfortunately mingled with much
that we deplore, and with many actions that we bitterly repent; still,
in the most checkered life, I firmly think there are so many little rays
of sunshine to look back upon that I do not believe any mortal would
deliberately drain a goblet of the waters of Lethe if he had it in his
power.--_Dickens._
That man is never happy for the present is so true that all his relief
from unhappiness is only forgetting himself for a little while. Life is
a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to
enjoyment.--_Johnson._
It is a lucky eel that escapes skinning. The best happiness will be to
escape the worst misery.--_George Eliot._
That all who are happy are equally happy is not true. A peasant and a
philosopher may be equally _satisfied_, but not equally _happy_.
Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A
peasant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a
philosopher.--_Johnson._
Happiness doats on her work, and is prodigal to her favorite. As one
drop of water hath an attraction for another, so do felicities run into
felicities.--_Landor._
Sensations sweet, felt in the blood, and felt along the
heart.--_Wordsworth._
Great happiness is the fire ordeal of mankind, great misfortune only the
trial by water; for the former opens a large extent of futurity, whereas
the latter circumscribes or closes it.--_Richter._
Prospective happiness is perhaps the only real happiness in the
world.--_Alfred de Musset._
Nature and individuals are generally best when they are happiest, and
deserve heaven most when they have learnt rightly to enjoy it. Tears of
sorrow are only pearls of inferior value, but tears of joy are pearls or
diamonds of the first water.--_Richter._
How many people I have seen who would have plucked cannon-balls out of
the muzzles of guns with their bare hands, and yet had not courage
enough to be happy.--_Theophile Gautier._
All mankind are happier for having been happy, so that, if you make them
happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of
it.--_Sydney Smith._