"_Ars longa, vita brevis;_"[1] and indeed "man wants but little here
below, nor wants that little long."[2] An oriental writer has told us
that "all flesh is grass," to which a Scots poet[3] has replied,
that "A man's a man for a' that." There is a Greek aphorism, not
sufficiently well known, which says [Greek: gnôthi seauton]. This
has been ably rendered by POPE in the words "Know thyself."[4]
Proverbially "piety begins at home," but it is wrong to deduce from
this that education ends when we leave school; "it goes on through
life."[5]
Books are an educational force. They "have often been compared to
friends,"[6] whom we "never cut."[7] They "are better than all the
tarts and toys in the world."[8] It is not generally known that
"English literature is the inheritance of the English race,"[9] on
whose Empire, by the way, "the sun never sets." We even have "books
in the running brooks," as the Bard of Avon[10] tells us; so that not
only "he that runs," but he that swims, "may read."
"Knowledge for the million,"[11] is the "_fin de siècle_"[12] cry of
the hour. But "life is real, life is earnest,"[13] and we have no time
to study original thinkers such as CONFUCIUS and TUPPER. "_Altiora
Peto_"[14] is a saying for the leisured class only. The mass must get
its wisdom second-hand and concentrated. If "reading maketh a full
man,"[15] this kind of reading maketh a man to burst. Hence the "sad
in sweet"[16] of the book of quoted platitudes. Yet, of course, "there
are great ways of borrowing. Genius borrows nobly."[17] And it is well
to have "the courage of" other people's "opinions."
But reading is not all. You must "use your head."[18] And you must,
and can, keep it too. For a good man's head is not like a seed-cake
that passes in the using. And, again, remember the proverb that
"manners makyth man"; though this is not the true cause of the
over-population of our islands. In social life much will depend on the
way in which you behave to others. "Never lose your temper, and if you
do, at any rate hold your tongue, and try not to show it"[19]--except,
one may add, to a doctor.
Many people cannot say "No!" Others early learn to say "No!" when
asked to do disagreeable things. "_Mens sana in corpore_ sano." If the
last word is pronounced _Say No_, this constitutes a word-play. There
are some bad word-plays in SHAKSPEARE. I disapprove of humour, new or
old.
"No man who knows what his income is, and what he is spending, will
run into extravagance."[20] PLUTARCH tells us of a man whose income
was £500, and he spent £5000 a year knowingly. This must have been an
exceptional case. There is an obscure dictum that "money is the root
of all evil." "Gold! gold!"[21] said an ill-known poet, and, on the
other hand, "Hail, independence!"[22] said another. "If thou art rich,
thou'rt poor"[23] is on the face of it an untruth.
[Footnote 1: "Principia Latina."]
[Footnote 2: Goldsmith.]
[Footnote 3: Burns.]
[Footnote 4: "Essay on Man."]
[Footnote 5: Lubbock.]
[Footnote 6: Lubbock.]
[Footnote 7: "Punch."]
[Footnote 8: Macaulay.]
[Footnote 9: Lubbock.]
[Footnote 10: Shakspeare.]
[Footnote 11: Calverley.]
[Footnote 12: Oscar Wilde.]
[Footnote 13: Longfellow.]
[Footnote 14: Lawrence Oliphant.]
[Footnote 15: Bacon.]
[Footnote 16: Browning.]
[Footnote 17: Emerson.]
[Footnote 18: Lubbock.]
[Footnote 19: Lubbock.]
[Footnote 20: Lubbock.]
[Footnote 21: Park Benjamin.]
[Footnote 22: Churchill.]
[Footnote 23: Shakspeare.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: A PRECISIAN.
_Professor Erasmus Scoles_ (_of Epipsychidion Villa, St. John's
Wood_). "CAN YOU TELL ME, CONSTABLE, WHETHER THERE ARE ANY
MORE--ER--_ATLANTES_ TO COME UP TO-NIGHT?"
_D. 134._ "ANY MORE '_OW MUCH?_"]
* * * * *