Let not such discretions be allowed in hallowed places.  Let not poetizers practice on the tombstone.  My uniform advice to all those who want acceptable and suggestive epitaph is, Take a passage of Scripture.  That will never wear out.  From generation to generation it will bring down upon all visitors a holy hush; and if before that stone has crumbled the day comes for waking up of all the graveyard sleepers, the very words chiseled on the marble may be the ones that shall ring from the trumpet of the archangel.

While the governor was buttering another muffin, and, according to the dietetic principle a little while ago announced, allowing it sufficiently to cool off, he continued the subject already opened by saying:  I keep well by allowing hardly anything to trouble me, and by looking on the bright side of everything.  One half of the people fret themselves to death.

Four months ago the air was full of evil prophecies.  If a man believed one half he saw in the newspapers, he must have felt that this world was a failure, not paying more than ten cents on a dollar.  To one good prophet like Isaiah or Ezekiel we had a thousand Balaams, each mounted on his appropriate nag.

First came the fearful announcement that in consequence of the financial depression we would have bread-riots innumerable and great slaughter.  But where have been your riots?  There was here and there a swinging of shillalahs, and a few broken heads which would probably have got broken anyhow; but the men who made the disturbance were found to be lounging vagabonds who never worked even when they had a chance.

Prophecy was also made that there would be a general starvation.  We do not believe that in the United States there have been twenty sober people famished in the last year.  Aware of the unusual stress upon the poor, the hand of charity has been more active and full than ever; and though many have been denied their accustomed luxuries, there has been bread for all.

Weather prophets also promised us a winter of unusual severity.  They knew it from the amount of investment the squirrels had made in winter stock, and from the superabundance of wool on the sheep’s back, and the lavishness of the dog’s hair.  Are the liars ready to confess their fault?  The boys have found but little chance to use their skates, and I think the sheep-shearing of the flocks on celestial pasture-fields must have been omitted, judging from the small amount of snowy fleece that has fallen through the air.  I have not had on my big mittens but once or twice, and my long-ago frost-bitten left ear has not demanded an extra pinching.  To make up for the lack of fuel on the hearth, the great brass handiron of the sun has been kept unusually bright and hot.  And yesterday we heard the horn of the south wind telling that the flowery bands of spring are on the way up from Florida.

The necessity for retrenchment has blessed the whole land.  Many of us have learned how to make a thousand dollars do what fifteen hundred dollars—­