Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/736

 he said: "That has no beauty about it at all." But the friend with him put it in the hollow of his hand and shut his hand, and then in a few moments opened it, and he said: "What a surprize! There was not a place on it the size of a pinhead that did not gleam with the splendor of the rainbow." And then he said: "What have you been doing with it?" His friend answered: "This is an opal. It is what we call the sympathetic jewel. It only needs contact with the human hand to bring out its wonderful beauty."

Doctor Dunning adds: "All childhood needs is that the human hand should touch it, and it will gleam with all the opalescent splendor that can shine from heavenly minds."

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There are songs enough for the heroes, Who dwell on the heights of fame; I sing of the disappointed, Of one who has missed his aim.

I sing with a tearful cadence, Of one who stands in the dark, And knows that his last, last arrow Has bounded back from the mark.

For the hearts that break in silence, With a sorrow all unknown; For those who need companions, Yet must walk their way alone.

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SYMPATHY BY PLEASURE-GOERS

London to-night (May 6, 1910), with King Edward lying dead, is a despairing city. While the sun shone a dash more brilliantly than it has yet done on any day this year, the people seemed to extract the utmost particle of hope which the medical bulletins could be made to convey. But evening came cold, dismal, with rain drizzling from heavy skies, and the crowds lost heart. Long before the final news came—soon, indeed, after the issue of the later reports announcing that the King's condition was most grave and that the hoped-for improvement had not set in, the streets were practically empty.

It was curious to see how outside one theater where a popular success is running the queue which had formed alongside the pit and gallery doors melted away before the doors were opened. It was evident that these people, to whom a visit to a theater is such a treat that they stand for hours waiting to secure a seat, had no heart for musical comedy while their King lay at death's door.—The New York Times.

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Sympathy, Impelling—See.

SYMPATHY IN TEACHING

In music you learn more in a week from a sympathetic teacher, or at least from some one who is so to you, than from another, however excellent, in a month. You will make no progress if he can give you no impulse.

What a mystery lies in that word "teaching!" One will constrain you irresistibly, and another shall not be able to persuade you. One will kindle you with an ambition that aspires to what the day before seemed inaccessible heights, while another will labor in vain to stir your sluggish mood to cope with the smallest obstacle. The reciprocal relation is too often forgotten.—

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SYMPATHY, LACK OF

Nothing is so likely to cause a man to lose his head as the conscious lack of sympathetic encompassment. Sometimes a single man will upset a sermon.

I remember such a one who for many months was the plague of my life. He had taken offense at some public utterance of mine, and thereafter in his eyes I was persona non grata, a fact which he took a sort of savage satisfaction in making manifest in season and out of season, especially the latter.

He would seem to be deeply interested in the opening exercises, but the moment when I rose to preach he would double up as if in pain, or avert his face and look wistfully toward the window as if murmuring to himself. "Oh, that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away and be at rest." And then instead of "afflatus" I would be taken with a bad spell of "flat us." It does not take many such hearers to kill a man.—, Christian Endeavor World.

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SYMPATHY, PRACTICAL

A little boy was riding in a street car, and, observing a kindly looking woman, he snug-