Anonymous

“ It is true that I have learned many curious and unsuspected facts concerning my birth, parentage, history, and opinions; but, on the other hand, I am humiliated by the knowledge of what texture a great deal of my reputation is made. Sometimes I am even confounded with Graves, whom, as an author, I detest; my "Tin Trumpet" being ascribed to him, and his "Drippings from the Living Rock" being admired as mine! At such times, it is very difficult to preserve my incognito. I have wondered that nobody ever reads the truth in my indignant face. ”

“ Nevertheless, greatness has its drawbacks. I appeal to all distinguished authors, from Tupper to Weenie Willows, to confirm the truth of this assertion. I have sometimes, especially of late, doubted seriously whether it is a good thing to be distinguished. Alas! my dear young gentleman and lady, whose albums would be so dismally incomplete without my autograph ("accompanied with a sentiment") , would that you could taste the bitter with the sweet,—the honey and aloes of an American author's life! At first, it is exceedingly pleasant. ”

“ A life passed among books, thinking, talking, living only for books, is the most amusing and improving life; and to make this possible, the acquisition of a library should be the first object of any one who makes any claim to the possession of luxuries. (My madness only allows me to make one exception,—I do acknowledge the solemn duty of laying in a stock of old Madeira.) ”

“ And, in truth, I begin to think I must be mad, when I find myself, like the man shut up with eleven obstinate jurymen, alone in thinking England a gay, beautiful, happy country, teeming with every gratification of art or nature, and inhabited by a manly, generous, and intelligent race; and that life in Paris, as Americans live it, is a senseless rush after excitement, where comfort is abandoned for unreal luxury, and society for vicious boon-companionship. ”

“ Although my earliest notoriety was achieved in very much the same way,—that is, by a series of comic sketches, as many of my admirers no doubt remember,—I soon perceived the unstable character of my reputation. I was at the mercy of the next man who should succeed in inventing a new slang, or a funnier way of spelling. These things, in literature, are like "fancy drinks" among the profane. They tickle the palates of the multitude for a while, but they don't wear like the plain old beverages. ”

“ Henry Ward Beecher spoke wisely when he advised all men to seek life assurance. He says:—
"It is every man's duty to provide for his family. That provision must include its future contingent condition. That provision, in so far as it is material, men ordinarily seek to secure by their own accumulations and investments. But all these are uncertain. The man that is rich to-day, by causes beyond his reach is poor to-morrow. A war in China, a revolution in Europe, a rebellion in America, overrule ten thousand fortunes in every commercial community. ”

“ The field, now occupied by such a crowd, (I name no names,) was at that time nearly clear; and I managed to shift my costume before the public fairly knew what I was about. I found, indeed, that a combination of the two styles enabled me to retain much of my old audience while acquiring the new. It was like singing a hymn of serious admonition to a lively, rattling tune. One is diverted: there is a present sense of fun, while a gentle feeling of the grave truths inculcated lingers in one's mind afterwards. The pious can find no fault with the matter, nor the profane with the manner. ”

“ Life-assurance companies may be divided into three classes,—the stock, the mutual, and the mixed. In the stock company, the management is in the hands of the stockholders, or their agents, with whom the applicant for insurance contracts to pay so much while living, in consideration of a certain sum to be paid to his representatives at his death; and here his connection with it ceases; the profits of the business being divided among the stockholders. In the mutual company the assured themselves receive all the surplus premium or profit. ”

“ Another form is denominated the Endowment Policy, in which the amount assured is payable when the party attains a certain age, or at death, should he die before reaching that age. This policy is rapidly gaining favor, as it provides for the man himself in old age, or for his family in case of his death. It is also fast becoming a favorite form of investment. We can show instances where the policy-holders have received a surplus above all they have paid to the company, with compound interest at six per cent, and no charge whatever for expenses or cost of insurance meanwhile. ”

“ It is not that any man contemplates the commission of suicide; but every one feels that, if there should be laid upon him that most fearful of all afflictions, insanity, or if, when suffering from disease, he should, in the frenzy of delirium, put an end to his existence, every principle of equity demands that the faithful payments of years should not be lost to his family. ”

“ But, on the contrary, when the dividends have been anticipated, as in the note system, by giving a note for part of the premium, the policy-holder insuring in this way, although he may at first receive a larger policy than he has the ability to pay for in cash, may lose the chief benefit of life insurance. For should he become unable, either by age, disease, or loss of property, to continue the payment of his premiums, his policy must lapse, because there is no accumulation of profits to his credit on which it can be continued. ”

“ But in life assurance there are no risks or contingencies. Other investments may fail. A house may burn down. Banks may break; and their stock be worthless. Bonds and mortgages may be seized for debt, and all property or evidences of property may fall into the bottomless gulf of bankruptcy. But money secured to your family by life assurance will go to them without fail or interruption, provided you have used due discretion in the selection of a sound and honorable assurance company. ”

“ One of my first admirers was a gentleman of sixty, who called upon me with a large roll of manuscript. He had retired from business two years before, so he informed me, and, having always been a great lover of poetry, he determined to fill up the tedium of his life of ease by writing some for himself. Now everybody knows that I am not a poet,—the few patriotic verses which I wrote during the war having simply been the result of excitement,—and why should he apply to me? ”

“ An insurance upon life is defined as "a contract by which the underwriter, for a certain sum proportioned to the age, health, profession, and other circumstances of the person whose life is the object of insurance, engages that that person shall not die within the time limited in the policy ”

“ No books are more delightful to sight and touch than the Baskerville classics. This Catullus of mine is printed on the softest and glossiest post paper, with a mighty margin of two inches and a half at the side, and rich broad letters,—the standard n is a tenth of an inch wide,—of a glorious blackness in spite of their ninety-two years of age. The classics of all languages have never been more fitly printed than by Baskerville ”

“ One of the subjects which for some time has commanded the public attention is that of Life Assurance: the means by which a man may, through a moderate annual expenditure, make provision for his family when death shall have deprived them of his protection. ”

“ I beg the readers of the Atlantic to listen to my humble confession of madness, as it culminated in this box.
It is this. The most valuable property a man can possibly have is books; if he has a hundred or a thousand dollars to spare, he had better at once put it into books than into any "paying investments," or any horses, clothes, pictures, or opera-tickets. ”

“ The advocates of the stock plan contend that, by a low rate of premium, they furnish their assured with a full equivalent for that division of profits which is the special boast of other companies. In a corporation purely mutual, the whole surplus is periodically applied to the benefit of the assured, either by a dividend in cash, or by equitable additions to the amount assured without increase of premium, or by deducting from future premiums, while the amount assured remains the same. ”

“ A fine, clean, fresh copy,—one of those brave old Teutonic classics of the last century, less exquisitely printed than the Elzevirs, less learnedly critical than the later Germans, but perfectly trustworthy and satisfactory, and attracting every one's eye on a library shelf, by the rich sturdiness of their creamy binding, that smacks of the true Dutch and German burgher wealth. The model of them all is Oudendorp's Cæsar. But there is nothing very great about Pliny's Panegyric, and a man must be a very queer bibliomaniac who would buy up all the vellum classics of the last century he saw. ”

“ Dionysius Green is all, and more than all, one would anticipate from reading his charming works. Benevolence beams from his brow, fancy sparkles from his eyes, and genial sympathy with all mankind sits enthroned upon his lips. It was a rare pleasure to me to listen to his conversation, and I could but wish that the many thousands of his admirers might enjoy the privilege of an interview with so Distinguished a Character!"
This work was published before January 1, 1928, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ You are like a newly-hatched chicken, or a pup at the end of his nine-days' blindness. You are petted, and stroked, and called sweet names, and fed with dainties, and carried in the arms of the gentlemen, and cuddled in the laps of the ladies. ”

“ The great commentator on English law, Sir William Blackstone, defines suicide to be "the act of designedly destroying one's own life. To constitute suicide, the person must be of years of discretion and of sound mind."
In a case submitted to the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Chief-Justice Nelson settled the whole question. A life company resisted payment of the amount specified in their policy, on the ground that the assured had committed suicide by drowning himself in the Hudson River. ”

“ Contrasting a bijou edition with a magnificent one, it may be noted that in the Elzevir the four words and two stops, "Moriar: die ergo verum," occupy just an inch, exactly the space of the one word "compositis" in the Baskerville; but the printing of each is in its way exquisite.
Just about a century after the Elzevirs, and contemporary with Baskerville, an English publisher of the name of Sandby, who appears to have been, as we should say, the University printer and bookseller at Cambridge, projected a series of classics, which are highly prized on large paper and not despised on small. ”

“ On the other hand, there has been a rapid accretion of funds, in some instances to the amount of many millions of dollars. The characteristics of a good company are security and assurance at cost. It should sell, not policies merely, but assurance; and it should not make a profit for the capitalist out of the widow and orphan. ”

“ Being a Distinguished Character, it would be a neglect and a slight if I were left alone for two minutes. And the people seem to think that the most delightful topic of conversation which they can select is—myself. How weary of myself I become! ”

“ To decide which of these is most advantageous to the assured, we must consider the subject of premiums, and understand whence companies derive their surplus, or, as it is sometimes called, the profits. This is easily explained. As the liability to death increases with age, the proper annual premium for assurance would increase with each year of life. ”

“ The distressed aspirant for literary fame, who only requests that you shall read and correct his or her manuscript, procure a publisher, and prefix a commendatory notice, signed with your name, to the work, writes that he or she is at last undeceived in regard to the character of authors. "I thank you, Mr. Green, for the lesson! The remembrance of your former struggles is happily effaced in your present success. It is hard for a heart throbbing with warmth to be chilled, and a guileless confidence in human brotherhood to be crushed forever! ”

“ The policy was subscribed by individual underwriters, and an able author observes that the case singularly illustrates the connection which probably once existed between life and maritime insurance, and shows how naturally the latter may have sprung from the former.
No business, with the exception, perhaps, of the express system and of photography, has grown in the United States so rapidly as that of life assurance. There is scarcely a State that has not one or more companies organized [Pg 310] for the prosecution of this business. ”

“ It is difficult to say what people won't write about, when they write to a Distinguished Character.
There is a third class of correspondents, whose requests used to astonish me profoundly, until I surmised that their object was to procure an autograph in a roundabout way. One wants to know who is the publisher of your book; one, whether you can give the post-office address of Gordon Cumming or Thomas Carlyle; one, which is the best Latin Grammar; one, whether you know the author of that exquisite poem, "The Isle of Tears" ”