A man might as well hoist a ladder in a village at noonday and
try to steal the town clock without being observed as to expect
to carry off literary ware in our time and not be found out. The
newspaper editor, scissors in hand and mucilage on the table,
sits up to his chin in exchanges from the four winds of heaven.
Beside that, all the world is traveling now. Fares are so cheap
and transportation so rapid that before every preacher, and
before every lecturer, and before every religious exhorter,
there may sit persons from the most unexpected quarter, and
if they heard three years ago something delivered in New
Orleans which you delivered in Brooklyn, the discovery will
be reported. Quote from all books you can lay your hands on.
Quote from all directions. It is a compliment to have breadth
of reading to be able to quote. But be sure to announce it as
a quotation. Ah! how many are making a mistake in this thing;
it is a mistake that a man can not afford to make. Four commas
upside down--two at the beginning of the paragraph, two at the
close of the paragraph--will save many a man’s integrity and
usefulness.--T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
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