~Invective.~--Invective may be a sharp weapon, but over-use blunts its
edge. Even when the denunciation is just and true, it is an error of art
to indulge in it too long.--_Tyndall._
~Invention.~--Invention is a kind of muse, which, being possessed of the
other advantages common to her sisters, and being warmed by the fire of
Apollo, is raised higher than the rest.--_Dryden._
Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of
those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the
memory. Nothing can be made of nothing: he who has laid up no materials
can produce no combinations.--_Sir J. Reynolds._
~Irony.~--Irony is to the high-bred what billingsgate is to the vulgar;
and when one gentleman thinks another gentleman an ass, he does not say
it point-blank, he implies it in the politest terms he can
invent.--_Bulwer-Lytton._
~Irresolution.~--Irresolution is a worse vice than rashness. He that
shoots best may sometimes miss the mark; but he that shoots not at all
can never hit it. Irresolution loosens all the joints of a state; like
an ague, it shakes not this nor that limb, but all the body is at once
in a fit. The irresolute man is lifted from one place to another; so
hatcheth nothing, but addles all his actions.--_Feltham._
Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our
choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all
our unhappiness.--_Addison._
Irresolute people let their soup grow cold between the plate and the
mouth.--_Cervantes._
~Irritability.~--Irritability urges us to take a step as much too soon as
sloth does too late.--_Cecil._
An irritable man lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way,
tormenting himself with his own prickles.--_Hood._
~Ivy.~--The stateliest building man can raise is the ivy's food at
last.--_Dickens._
The ivy, like the spider, takes hold with her hands in king's palaces,
as every twig is furnished with innumerable little fingers, by which it
draws itself close, as it were, to the very heart of the old rough
stone. Its clinging and beautiful tenacity has given rise to an
abundance of conceits about fidelity, friendship, and woman's love,
which have become commonplace simply from their appropriateness. It
might also symbolize the higher love, unconquerable and unconquered,
which has embraced this ruined world from age to age, silently spreading
its green over the rents and fissures of our fallen nature.--_Mrs.
Stowe._