Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/814



On one of the battle-fields of South Africa a young chaplain found a Highlander sorely wounded and with life ebbing quickly away. He asked him to allow him to pray, but the soldier said gruffly, "No, I don't want prayers. I want water." The chaplain secured, with great difficulty, some water, and then asked the refreshed man if he might read a psalm. "No," said the soldier again. "I am too cold to listen to a psalm." The chaplain instantly stript off his coat and wrapt it tenderly round the wounded soldier. And then, touched by the chaplain's sympathy, the man turned and said, "Chaplain, if religion makes men like you, let's have that psalm." When Christians prove themselves loving and considerate for the sick and suffering, even the hardest heart melts.

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WIVES OF GREAT MEN

It is an oft-quoted saying of Dr. Johnson that "a man in general is better pleased when he has a good dinner on the table than when his wife talks Greek." Racine had an illiterate wife and was accustomed to boastfully declare that she could not read any of his tragedies. Dufresny married his washer-*woman. Goethe's wife was a woman of mediocre capacity. Heine said of the woman he loved, "She has never read a line of my writings and does not even know what a poet is." Therese Lavasseur, the last flame of Rousseau, could not tell the time of day. "How many of the wise and learned," says Thackeray, "have married their cooks! Did not Lord Eldon, himself the most prudent of men, make a runaway match? Were not Achilles and Ajax both in love with their servant-maids? Seven hundred people sat up all night to see the beautiful Duchess of Hamilton get in her carriage, but would one in a thousand lose a wink of sleep to get a glimpse of the learned wife of the pundit Yainavalka, who discoursed with the Indian in Sanskrit on the vexed problems of life?—The Interior.

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Woman Suffrage—See.

WOMANLY WIT

Foster, the State news paragrapher of the Cleveland Press, published a paragraph to this effect: "A Marion girl started her graduating essay as follows: 'I am fairly worried out with the incessant pratings of the lords of creation on the duties and sphere of woman.'" The paragraph closed with the somewhat dangerous assertion that the editor would bet a new spring hat that the author of that discourse on woman's sphere could not bake a loaf of bread. Two days later Mr. Foster received from Marion a large box. It contained sundry light loaves of bread and cake marvelously toothsome. An accompanying affidavit bore the solemn oath of the sweet girl graduate (who possesses the pretty name of May Williams) that she had, unaided, made the wheat-bread marked "Exhibit A," the two specimens of corn-*bread marked "Exhibit B," and the chocolate, "Exhibit C." The notary's seal of office was affixt to the affidavit, and it was settled beyond a doubt in Mr. Foster's mind that his wager had been accepted. He therefore went out and lavished his week's salary on a new spring hat.

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WOMAN'S SPHERE

She's a woman with a mission; 'tis her heaven-born ambition to reform the world's condition, you will please to understand. She's a model of propriety, a leader in society, and has a great variety of remedies at hand. Each a sovereign specific, with a title scientific, for the cure of things morbific that vex the people sore; For the swift alleviation of the evils of the nation is her foreordained vocation on this sublunary shore. And while thus she's up and coming, always hurrying and humming, and occasionally slumming, this reformer of renown, Her neglected little Dicky, ragged, dirty, tough, and tricky, with his fingers soiled and sticky, is the terror of the town.

(Text.)—Tit-Bits.

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WOMAN'S STRENGTH

There is no physical reason why a woman should be more feeble or diseased than a man. Stanley was furnished with two hundred negro women to carry his stuff into the interior of Africa, and he found them the best porters he had employed, altho he felt very doubtful about accepting their services when first proposed. The Mexican Indian woman is able to carry her household goods on her back with two or three babies on top when a change of location is desirable. Meanwhile her husband trudges bravely along carrying his gun. On the continent of Europe most of the heavy work is done by women. In Vienna women and dogs are