Think

Thought engenders thought. Place one idea upon paper - another will follow it, and still another, until you have written a page. You cannot fathom your mind. There is a well of thought there which has no bottom. The more you draw from it the more clear and fruitful it will be. If you neglect to think yourself, and use other people's thoughts - giving them utterance only, you will never know what you are capable of. At first your ideas may come out in lumps - homely and shapeless; but no matter, time and perseverance will arrange and refine them. Learn to think and you will learn to write - the more you think the better you express your ideas.

A Slight Mistake

Many years ago a Hamburg merchant wrote to his correspondent at Lisbon and requested him, among other commissions, to send one or two monkeys. The letter was written in the Italian, in which language o signifies or. The o coming between the numerals 1 and 2, his friend read 102. He therefore sent by the first vessel 84 monkeys, and excused himself in his letter by saying that he could find no more; but that he would not fail to let him have the others at the first opportunity.

Excessive Politeness

Queen Elizabeth was once making a journey in England, and on her approaching the city of Coventry, the mayor, with a numerous cavalcade, went out to meet her. On their return they had to pass through a wide brook, and the mayor's horse, being thirsty, attempted several times to drink, but his cavalier prevented him. The queen, observing it, said to him: "Pray, Mr. Mayor, permit your horse to drink." The mayor, bowing, very humbly, replied: "Madam, it would be the height of presumption for my unworthy horse to drink, till your majesty's royal steed has satisfied his thirst."

Silent Contempt

"What do you mean to do with K.?" said a friend to Theodore Hook, alluding to a man who had grossly vilified him. "Do with him;" replied Hook, "why I mean to let him alone most severely."

A Technical Distinction

When the Earl of B------was brought before Lord Loughborough, to be examined upon application for a statute of lunacy against him, the Chancellor asked him, "How many legs has a sheep?" "Does your Lordship mean," answered B------, "a live sheep or a dead one?"

"Is it not the same thing?" said the Chancellor.

"No, my lord," said Lord B------, "there is much difference; a live sheep has four, a dead one but two: there are but two legs of mutton - the others are shoulders."

A Traitor's Reward

Graveston, who betrayed the Spaniards at Bergen-op-Zoom to Queen Elizabeth, afterwards came to England to give her majesty an account of his success and to claim his reward. The queen gave him a thousand crowns, but said at the same time, "Get you home, that I may know where to send when I want a thorough paced villian."

An Irishman's Plea

"Are you guilty or not guilty?" asked the clerk of arraigns to a prisoner the other day. "An' sure now," said Pat, "what are you put there for but to find that out?"

Master Of The House

Oh, Mary, what is there for dinner to-day?

Mary

I think, sir, it's cold meat, sir.

Master Of The House

H'm! Tell your mistress, Mary, when she conies in, that I may possibly be detained in the city on business, and she is on no account to wait dinner for me.

Master

Thomas, can you tell me the meaning of the word "deride?"

Thomas

Yes sir; it means to ride down hill.

A Melancholy Truism

In these days half our diseases come from the neglect of our body in the overwork of the brain. In this railway age the wear and tear of labor and intellect go on without pause or self-pity. We live longer than our forefathers, but we suffer more than a thousand artificial anxieties and cares. They fatigued only the muscles, we exhaust the finer strength of the nerves; and, when we send impatiently to the doctor, it is ten to one but what he finds the acute complaint, which is all that we perceive, connected with some chronic mental irritation, or some unwholesome inveteracy of habit. - Sir Bulwer Lytton.

One And Two Are Three

A young student came during the holidays from college to see his parents. Having one evening two pigeons for supper, he said to them, "I can prove by the rules of logic and arithmetic that those two pigeons are three." "Do so, my dear," said the father. Thereupon he began. "This is one, and that is two, and one and two make three." The father replied, "As you have done it so nicely, your mother shall have the first pigeon, I will keep the second, and you may take the third."

Humane Driver Rewarded

A poor Macedonian soldier was one day leading before Alexander a mule laden with gold for the king's use. The beast being so tired that he was not able either to go or to sustain the load, the driver took it up and carried it, though with great difficult}7. Alexander seeing him just sinking under the burden and going to throw it on the ground, cried out, "Friend, do not be weary yet - try to carry it right through to your tent, for it is all your own."

Conspicuous By Absence

"Did you observe any thing particular about the prisoner?" Witness - "Yes, his whiskers." Counsel - "What did you observe with reference to his whiskers?" Witness - "That he had none!'

Peter The Great

When the Ambassador of Peter the Great was arrested for debt in London, in Queen Anne's reign, the Czar expressed his astonishment and indignation that the persons who had thus violated the respect due to the representative of a crowned head, were not immediately put to death. His astonishment was considerably increased, when he was told that the sovereign of the country had no power to dispense with the laws, to which he was himself subject.

Query

Two boys amusing themselves at "snatch-apple," in a room thirteen feet high, find that by standing twelve feet from each other, the apple, which is suspended from the ceiling by a string, and in a right line between them, when put in motion, just touches each of their watery mouths. Required, the area of the section described by the string and apple, the perpendicular height of each boy's mouth from the ground being five feet?