Know’st thou not all germs of evil
    In thy heart await their time? 
  Not thyself, but God’s restraining,
    Stays their growth of crime.

  —­Whittier.

  ’Tis fearful building upon any sin;
  One mischief enter’d, brings another in: 
  The second pulls a third, the third draws more,
  And they for all the rest set ope the door: 
  Till custom take away the judging sense,
  That to offend we think it no offence.

  —­Smith.

See also Lies.

SINGERS

A quartette is where all four think the other three can’t sing.

SKEPTICS

The heavy black clouds had massed in the east and west, the lightning was flashing fiercely between the heavy incessant rolling of the thunder.

Francis was terribly frightened, and his fond mother had gathered her young hopeful and tried logically to calm his fears.

“Don’t be afraid, darling.  There’s nothing to fear.  God sends the thunderstorm to clear the air, water the flowers, and make it cooler for us.  Now, don’t cry, dear; it won’t harm you, and everything will be better when it’s over.”

The little fellow listened intently, and as his mother finished he looked up at her gravely and said:  “No, no, mother; you talk exactly the way you did last week when you took me to the dentist to have the tooth pulled.”

  This a sacred rule we find
  Among the nicest of mankind,—­
  To doubt of facts, however true,
  Unless they know the causes too.

  —­Churchill.

SLANG

A Franklin professor says slang has its place, and he might have added that the place seems to be everywhere.

“Do Englishmen understand American slang?”

“Some of them do.  Why?”

“My daughter is to be married in London, and the earl has cabled me to come across.”

SMILES

Smile!  Never let your face look like a funeral; look like a search warrant.  The bud that cannot blossom dries up in the stock.  Smile, if you have to force it.

When your voice sounds like a benediction, when your face looks like an old lemon, folks are sure to sidestep you.

What you give out you are reasonably sure to take in.

Look for a fight and someone will put a black circle round your left eye.

Remember this:  The face is more legible than an open book.  You can read the face at a distance and get it all at a glance.  The book compels you to thumb the leaves.

Smile, you son-of-a-gun, smile!

If I Knew

If I knew the box where the smiles are kept,
No matter how large the key,
Or strong the bolt, I would try so hard
’Twould open, I know, for me. 
Then over the land and sea, broadcast,
I’d scatter the smiles to play,
That the children’s faces might hold them fast
For many and many a day.