That it shall be for another day; we are tired.
To Inform One’self of a Person
How is that gentilman who you did speak by and by?
Is a German.
I did think him Englishman.
He is of the Saxony side.
He speak the french very well.
Tough he is German, he speak so much well italyan,
french, spanish and english, that among the Italyans,
they believe him Italyan, he speak the frenche as
the Frenches himselves. The Spanishesmen believe
him Spanishing, and the Englishes, Englishman.
It is difficult to enjoy well so much several languages.
The last remark contains a general truth; but it ceases
to be a truth when one contracts it and apples it
to an individual—provided that that individual
is the author of this book, Sehnor Pedro Carolino.
I am sure I should not find it difficult “to
enjoy well so much several languages”—or
even a thousand of them—if he did the translating
for me from the originals into his ostensible English.
Good little girls ought not to make mouths at their
teachers for every trifling offense. This retaliation
should only be resorted to under peculiarly aggravated
circumstances.
If you have nothing but a rag-doll stuffed with sawdust,
while one of your more fortunate little playmates
has a costly China one, you should treat her with
a show of kindness nevertheless. And you ought
not to attempt to make a forcible swap with her unless
your conscience would justify you in it, and you know
you are able to do it.
You ought never to take your little brother’s
“chewing-gum” away from him by main force;
it is better to rope him in with the promise of the
first two dollars and a half you find floating down
the river on a grindstone. In the artless simplicity
natural to this time of life, he will regard it as
a perfectly fair transaction. In all ages of
the world this eminently plausible fiction has lured
the obtuse infant to financial ruin and disaster.
If at any time you find it necessary to correct your
brother, do not correct him with mud—never,
on any account, throw mud at him, because it will
spoil his clothes. It is better to scald him
a little, for then you obtain desirable results.
You secure his immediate attention to the lessons
you are inculcating, and at the same time your hot
water will have a tendency to move impurities from
his person, and possibly the skin, in spots.
If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong
to reply that you won’t. It is better and
more becoming to intimate that you will do as she
bids you, and then afterward act quietly in the matter
according to the dictates of your best judgment.
You should ever bear in mind that it is to your kind
parents that you are indebted for your food, and for
the privilege of staying home from school when you
let on that you are sick. Therefore you ought
to respect their little prejudices, and humor their
little whims, and put up with their little foibles
until they get to crowding you too much.
