Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/440



"At six in the morning Mr. Jefferson was startled by a violent thumping at his door. With slowly returning consciousness, he remembered that he had left no call on the night before, and naturally became indignant. His sleep was spoiled for the morning, so he arose and appeared before the clerk.

"'See here,' he demanded, 'why have I been called at this unearthly hour?'

"'I don't know," replied the clerk. 'I'll ask Mike.'

"The porter was summoned. 'Mike, there was no call for Mr. Jefferson. Why did you disturb him?' he was asked.

"Taking the clerk by his coat-sleeve, the Irishman led him to one side. 'He was shnoring loike a horse, sir,' he explained, 'and I'd heered by the b'yes how onct he were after slapin' for twinty years, so, says I to myself, it's a coomin' on to him agin, an' it's yer juty to git the crayther out o' the house instantly!'"

(1860)

See ;.

Literary Workman—See. LITERATURE AND MIND EXPANSION  When Coleridge was a boy of eight, his father on a starry night explained to him the size and number of the heavenly bodies with their vast movements. He looked for surprize and wonder in the boy. But the poet tells us that he felt no special wonder, because his mind, through long, happy days of reading fairy-stories, had grown accustomed to feelings of the vast, and to having criteria for belief other than those of his senses. Literature accustoms the mind to feelings of sublimity, wonder, intricacy, and the constant workings of higher laws. These are noble contributions to the religious consciousness.—, "Proceedings of the Religious Education Association," 1904. (1861)  LITERATURE AS AN INSPIRATION   Literature is but one of the forms of art through which man's aspiration, his ideals, are revealed. The soul of man takes the hues of that which environs it. It is literature which inspires; not linguistics, rhetoric, and grammar, valuable as these may be for other purposes. Witness the tributes of Darwin and Mill to the power of imaginative literature; these men mourned the fact that other things deprived them of that great power of culture of the feelings which the love of literature brought. Barrie has said that a young man may be better employed than in going to college; but when there, he is unfortunate if he does not meet some one who sends his life off at a new angle. "One such professor," says he, "is the most any university may hope for in a single generation." He says, "When you looked into my mother's eyes, you knew why it was that God sent her into the world; it was to open the eyes of all who looked to beautiful thoughts, and that is the beginning and end of literature." After having opened the eyes of people to beautiful thoughts, we must be willing to wait, for moral results do not come immediately.—, "Proceedings of the Religious Education Association." (1862)  LITERATURE, CURRENT   Current literature is like a garden I once saw. Its proud owner led me through a maze of smooth-trodden paths, and pointed out a vast number of horticultural achievements. There were sixty-seven varieties of dahlias, there were more than a hundred kinds of roses, there were untold wonders which at last my weary brain refused to record. Finally I escaped, exhausted, and sought refuge on a hillside I knew, from which I could look across the billowing green of a great rye-field, and there, given up to the beauty of its manifold simplicity, I invited my soul. It is even so with our reading. When I go into one of our public reading-rooms, and survey the serried ranks of magazines and the long shelves full of "Recent fiction, not to be taken out for more than five days"—nay, even when I look at the library tables of some of my friends—my brain grows sick and I long for my rye-field.—The Outlook.

(1863)

Literature in Advertising—See.

Literature in Prisons—See.

Literature, Short-lived—See.

Little Deeds of Kindness—See.

Little Evils—See.

LITTLE GIFTS

An Australian missionary was addressing a band of children on the needs of the people among whom he was working. A