may place a pleasant sarcasm attributed to Ellesmere, and apparently intended as a reminder for stump-orators:  ’How exactly proportioned to a man’s ignorance of the subject is the noise he makes about it at a public meeting.’  Not altogether out of connection here may be this brief sentence:—­’Next to the folly of doing a bad thing, is that of fearing to undo it.’  In the following, we have a brief sufficient argument against the indulgence of unavailing sorrow or anxiety:—­’It has always appeared to me, that there is so much to be done in this world, that all self-inflicted suffering which cannot be turned to good account for others, is a loss—­a loss, if you may so express it, to the spiritual world.’  There is plain truth, too, in the next, though it is not likely to be much remembered by those who are most in need of it:—­’An ill-tempered man often has everything his own way, and seems very triumphant; but the demon he cherishes, tears him as well as awes other people.’  In another place, and from another point of view, he indicates the admirable benefits of human, sympathy.  ‘Often,’ says he, ’all that a man wants in order to accomplish something that is good for him to do, is the encouragement of another man’s sympathy.  What Bacon says the voice of the man is to the dog—­the encouragement of a higher nature—­each man can in a lesser degree afford his neighbour; for a man receives the suggestions of another mind with somewhat of the respect and courtesy with which he would greet a higher nature.’  Speaking with reference to the pursuits of men of literary and artistic genius, it is written:  ’Almost any worldly state in which a man can be placed is a hinderance to him, if he have other than mere worldly things to do.  Poverty, wealth, many duties, or many affairs, distract and confuse him.’  One sentence more is all that can be added here; and if it seems to be suggested by an aphorism of Bacon, it is equal to it in pith and penetration:—­’Every felicity, as well as wife and children, is a hostage to fortune.’

These sentences have been gathered chiefly from Friends in Council, though a few of them are taken from Companions of my Solitude.  The two books are informed with the same spirit; and to a meditative person, one could not recommend a choicer store of reading.  Those, however, to whom the works are as yet unknown, may wish to see some longer and more connected extract.  It is difficult to decide upon what ought to be presented, where almost everything is exquisite; yet as a choice must be made, we will take some sentences from an essay on ‘Despair,’ wherein the writer offers a few remedial suggestions against the burden of remorse:—­