Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/206



"My husband is very heroic," said Mrs. Black. "For instance, he will give up his visit to the club to play jackstraws with my old mother, and she is his mother-in-law, you know."

"I think I can beat that," remarked Mrs. Gray. "When my milliner's quarterly bill comes in my husband smiles as he writes a check, and never thinks of looking at the items."

"I can give you a better example than either of those!" exclaimed Mrs. White. "When the morning paper comes at breakfast-time my husband always offers me the first reading of it."

An informal vote awarded the last speaker's husband the medal of heroism.

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DOMINANT ELEMENTS

Every animate or inanimate structure responds to some chord or note of music, called, I believe, the dominant. We have all felt some building vibrate in unison with the pulsation of some note of a musical instrument; we have felt "creepy" shivers run through us as some musical chord is sounded. It is well known that animals are strangely affected by certain harmonies. Some day, when civilization has advanced, I believe that these evidences of psychological structure will be better understood. It will be recognized that vice and virtue are in accord with different harmonies, and yield to the power of different dominants; and, when once the classification is made, and the disclosures of the dominant understood, then the extent and influence of the dominant will be a psychological test to define the character and ruling passions of men's nature, and to decide the fitness of men for the various pursuits of life, and even for life itself. (Text.)—, American Magazine.

(813)

Dominion of Man—See.

Doors, Opening Human—See.

DOUBLE MEANINGS, DANGER OF

The last great martyr to the double meaning in our Constitution, mentioned below, was Lincoln. It was a clause that protected the most gigantic evil of history:

An American historian says of the Constitution of the United States: "Our Constitution in its spirit and legitimate utterance is doubtless the noblest document which ever emanated from the mind of man. It contains not one word hostile to liberty But yet ingloriously, guiltily, under sore temptation, we consented to use one phrase susceptible of a double meaning, 'held to service or labor.' (Article IV Section 2.) These honest words at the North mean a hired man, an apprentice. At the South they mean a slave, feudal bondage. So small, apparently so insignificant, were those seeds sown in our Constitution which have resulted in such a harvest of misery."

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DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS

Charles Wagner, in "The Gospel of Life," remarks thus on the double nature of men:

Duplicity, rending apart, partition of the will and of the heart, lamentable division—that is our life! It is not a continuous chain; it is only links broken and dispersed. We are peace-loving, just, truthful, sober, chaste, disinterested; but we are also malicious, unjust, cunning, intemperate, impure. We are like those ships that carry to the colonies, along with the Bibles and religious tracts, cannon, alcohol, and opium; or those poets full of contrary talents, who play turn by turn on the sacred lyre and on the strident conch-shell.

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DOUBT ISSUING IN PEACE

The peace of God descends more softly shed Than light upon the deep, And sinks below the tumult of my years Deeper than dreams or sleep.

And somehow, as of dusk was born the star Whose fire is on the sea, Another star from doubt's profounder dark Is risen and shines on me. (Text.)

—, Harper's Magazine.

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DOUBTS, DISSOLVING

Crossing the Atlantic, a vessel is often encircled by small ice-floes, looking like a flock of white sheep on the blue ocean. When they started on their course southward, those ice-floes were great frozen masses. But the warm Gulf Stream played on them beneath, and the sun melted them from above, till they dwindled as they en