4. IV.
LINCH-PINS.
I want to bet 3 Dollars, that no man ever
matched himself agin the Devil, but what he got
beat.
And I want to bet one dollar and seventy-five
cents more, that thare is no villin on airth so grately
mean az he who reccommends a vice that he has too
mutch prudence to indulge in himself.
I hav held, that if a man iz virtuous, he kan't be
ignorant; and i still hold it.
Aim hi, if you strike low. The man who undertakes
tew jump 375 feet ahed, will sertinly make a
good try.
I never knu a man who was alwus anxious tew
repent uv his sins before he had committed them,
who didn't want the sharpest kind ov watching.
“Don't put oph till to-morrow what kan be did
to-day.” It is better even to do a foolish thing at
onst, if you have positiffly made up yure mind to
do it.
I never bet enny stamps on the man who iz
always telling what he would have did if he had bin
thare; I hav notised that this kind never git thare.
Faith don't appear to me tew be ennything more
than tip top good sense; all the faith thare is in
this world now wont keep a man from falling to the
bottom of a well if he lets go ov the curb to spit on
hiz hands.
When i git to not having enny good luck, it duz
seem to me that i kan hav more ov it than enny man
i ever knu, and not half try; i suppose it seems jist
so to you, my friend, don't it?
I kant think ov enny talent now, that iz so apt to
descend from father to son, untarnished, as the gift
ov exaggeration.
“Thare aint ennything nu under the sun.” The
old feller in Connekticut, who carried the same
old jack-knife for 43 years, and wore out 9 new
handles, and 12 setts ov blades, sez so.
Thare aint, after all, but one right way to dew
things. I hav seen kows that you could milk on
both sides, but they wan't more than haff broke.
A man may hav a perfek right to be born single,
but I dought whether he haz a right tew continny
on so.
I take it, that the excellence of human natur
consists in lifting the greatest amount ov sorrow with
the least amount ov grin.
Them who make the most blow, hav the least
fragranse—it iz jess so with the hollerhauk.
The best edukashun a man receives in this life,
he gits just before he dize, and it mostly consists in
forgetting what he haz larnt before.
The world looks with kold respek upon an ackt
ov justiss, but heave up their hats at a display ov mersy
Yet the one iz the strength ov virtue, while the
other iz most often its gratest weakness.
A mind that haz more imaginashun than sense iz
like a goose—fust rate tew fli down hill.
I don't think the world haz enny Civilizashun tew
spare, but i think she haz more than she kan manage
well.
Poetri, tew be excellent, wants tew be like natur,
but about 4 times az big.
