Page:Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations, 1896.djvu/8

viii correct and will prove of great assistance in finding the context. The number of the line applies to the first in each quotation. The Globe Edition has been the general authority for the text. As far as possible each author’s peculiarities of spelling or composition have been respected.

All the Latin quotations have been traced to the exact book and place in the author quoted from. This department would make a volume of itself equal in size and value to any other of like character, and is believed to include all the noted sayings of the classic writers in that language.

Special attention is called to the quotations under the collective headings, a new feature which much simplifies the work of those seeking quotations in those subjects. They are as follows:

In consulting this volume it is supposed that each reader has one of two objects: either to find a quotation applicable to some topic under consideration, or to find one of which he has not a clear remembrance and of which he desires to know the exact reading. In the first case he will be naturally assisted by the division of the book into chapters under topical headings (see the index of the headings with cross references). If he is writing, for instance, about life or death, love or marriage, he will naturally turn to those headings, but if he is searching for any prominent word he will be sure to find it; or if he cannot remember the reading of the line but knows the author, a reference to the biographies and the pages where that author may be found will give him the line. Bear in mind that the italic letter in the index corresponds with the same letter in the page, thus enabling the searcher to put his finer upon it at once.

It is not supposed that all the beauties of every author are to be found in any book of quotations. All those that make up the current quotations of the day are supposed to be here and such others as, in the judgment of the compiler, are appropriate to the several headings. Shakespeare’s name does not appear in the body of the book, the names of the plays being sufficient to indicate the author.

The book is alphabetically arranged throughout. The authors follow each other alphabetically under each heading and the quotations under each author, save in the proverbs, where the arrangement is according to alphabetical order of lines, and in the modern languages, where the quotations are grouped in the various tongues, the order being French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Everything possible has been done to facilitate search.

There are no quotations from the Bible in this volume, the editor believing that book to be amply provided for by the many works devoted entirely to it.