Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/695

 long-lived and healthy, under normal circumstances, while of the brass instrumentalists it was discovered that consumption never claimed a victim among them. Those who have a tendency toward consumption should take easy vocal exercises, no matter how thin and weak their voices may seem to be. They will find a result at times, far surpassing any relief afforded by medicine. Vocal practise, in moderation, is the best system of general gymnastics that can be imagined, many muscles being brought into play that would scarcely be suspected of action in connection with so simple a matter as tone production. Therefore, apart from all art considerations, merely as a matter of health, one can earnestly say to the healthy, "Sing! that you may remain so," and to the weakly, "Sing, that you may become strong."—Boston Musical Herald.

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Singing Stays Panic—See.

SINGLENESS OF PURPOSE

The engineers of Nicholas I showed him their map of a crooked railway line from St. Petersburg to Moscow, explaining that it curved this way and that to take in this and that important interest or city, but the Czar took a ruler and drew a straight line between his two capitals, saying: "Build me that road."

The secret of the Czar's engineering was simply a single purpose to join the old and new capitals of his empire. The engineers thought of one great interest this way, and another that way; but the Czar had no interests but the one. That may have been poor business, but it was good military engineering, and had it continued in Russian military autocratic government, the Japanese, in the late war, would have had harder work.—, "Sermons in Illustration."

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Sisterhood—See.

SIZE, COMPARATIVE

Many a man who looks large in small surroundings, is dwarfed to a pigmy when placed among his superiors:

Since the Statue of Liberty was erected the scale of almost everything material has changed, especially in New York, so that the colossus does not look even large now. It was all very well for the Colossus of Rhodes to straddle the harbor entrance, looking down on the tiny sailing craft, and pigmy buildings of its day; it could not look otherwise than grandiose; but it would have been swallowed up and lost among the sky-scrapers and mammoth ocean-liners of twentieth-century New York, with its huge bridges, lofty towers, and all-around bigness. Nothing counts in a work of art but quality.—Boston Transcript.

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See.

SIZE NOT POWER

John Stuart Mill gives us a wonderful contrast between man's brief day and the enduring ages of Neptune, yet Neptune is a frozen clod, whirling on in eternal ice and darkness. A little ball of ice can not laugh nor love nor sing nor curse nor faint nor die; neither can a big ball of ice named Neptune. It is man alone who is great, as the regent under God. The contrast between the insignificance of man and the greatness of nature is based on the fallacy that bulk is greatness. The truth is that bulk is bulk, and concerns rocks and clods. Size is not power. (Text.)—

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Skill—See.

Skill by Experience—See.

Skill Solving a Problem—See.

SKILL WITH TENDERNESS

Years ago, in Central New York, lived a Dr. Delamater, a noted surgeon. It was before the days of anesthetics. A woman patient consulted him, and after examination he told her, with tears in his eyes, that a painful and dangerous operation was necessary. "Proceed," said the woman. The surgeon's success was complete. "Weren't you afraid when you saw the surgeon affected so?" she was asked later. "No," she said, "that was what helped me. Those tears assured me that the doctor was as tender-hearted as he was skilful. I could trust such a man." (Text.)

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SKY, THE

In landscape-painting the sky, it is said, is the keynote, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment; just as the sky is the source of light in nature, and governs everything. This led John Constable