Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac

“ William (afterwards Archdeacon) Coxe, which appeared in 1797. More valuable is the biographical sketch by Gay's nephew, the Rev. Joseph Baller, prefixed to "Gay's Chair" (1820) ; but the standard authorities on Gay's life are [pg ix] Mr. Austin Dobson ("Dictionary of National Biography," Vol. XXI., 1890) and Mr. John Underwood ("Introductory Memoir" to the "Poems of John Gay" in the "Muses' Library," 1893) .
Among Gay's correspondents were Pope, Swift, Lady Suffolk, Arbuthnot, the Duchess of Queensberry, Oxford, Congreve, Parnell, Cleland, Caryll and Jacob Tonson, the publisher. ”

“ Financially, the man pressed by dire want, fancies the earth is ready to come to an end, whereas, the man with substantial wealth treads in a garden of flowers. The pangs of hunger find a lodging place in the stomach of a pessimist, while a royal good dinner is the joy of an optimist. The man in jail looks through a darkened glass, but his jailer sees all things bright and clear.
Optimism is a comparative virtue; pessimism a relative vice. Love is the destroyer of pessimism, while bankruptcy withers optimism at a touch. ”

“ To a man who never lifts his eyes to the gleaming stars, or raises them beyond the brittle straws that clog his feet? To the man who dares, life is a tumult of happiness, of radiant love, of a joyous household, a fortress of friends. His hair turns gray, his limbs grow weak, and his eyes are dim, but around his bedside hover the deeds he has done, his nostrils snuff in the incense of his successes, and he dies content that he will still live in the posterity that he has dared raise up to follow in his footsteps. ”

“ Waste no Time Dreaming of the Past You are living in the present preparing for the future. The past is dead and you should let the past bury the past.
The man who dreams of the past and forgets his future, is like a man who rises in the morning not of today but of yesterday. He is going backward when his face is put in front pointing always forward. ”

“ From the sun worshiper of the East to the red man of the West, from the philosopher to the child there is in him that natural inclination to bow with reverence to that all majestic, all powerful source of this which we call life. “The greatest harm one may do in life is to destroy it.” ”

“ These greatest rights—those of the mother from the husband—are so numerous, so all-comprehending, that they cannot be given in detail. They imply simply that he should look upon her as a part of himself and show it instinctively and as a matter of course. She has the right to claim from him that he should always be to her as he was before marriage, save that the relationship is closer and more familiar. What proportion of husbands remember this? How often does there come a time after marriage when the husband forgets that they are one? ”

“ No man can accomplish everything in one short life, and the best we can do is all that is required of us. Look upon every man as a fellow worker, not in a vale of tears, but as cultivating a pleasant valley blooming with flowers. ”

“ Gaylord noted with pride several roses in a crystal vase. He leaned forward to smell their fragrance.
"Well, you look mighty sharp. Where ya going, Gay?"
Gaylord jumped to stiff attention. The words brought him back into the room. He had been so absorbed he had not been aware of his father sitting in a large, carved upholstered chair. The words startled him, but instead of Blake who had been so vividly on his mind, there sat his father, Clayton Le Claire, who was the personification of things he had always longed for, assurance and polish. ”

“ Her dues from him are the greatest of all. They are the greatest in the world. If she has borne him children she has done for him the utmost that one human being can do for another. She has, literally, given him herself. ”

“ Back of and aiding aptitude, is the humanity demanded of every man of either of these professions. When life hangs in the balance the doctor is called upon to display the tenderest humanity. If a man is to be sent to poverty through loss of his liberty or property the lawyer must exhibit all the refinements of skill and humanity without regard to his fees. The human soul striving to reach the eternal goal of rest, peace, and happiness, appeals to the highest heart throbs of the clergyman. ”

“ Gaylord had turned and his face was plain to them now. "It sure is."
"Why is she talking to Gay ... He's too sweet a boy to mess around with her type." Joy felt as if she should be embarrassed for him.
"He is sweet ... too shy for me though. Still, the last time he took me home in his new car he was kind of cute. He is good-looking. Bet in a couple of years he'll really come out. I think his mother's spoiled him. He's sure got a good-looking dad. I could go for Clayton Le Claire. He seems much younger than he is. He's not too old is he?" ”

“ Compensations are in the train of the man who dares. Compensation is a higher, nobler word than wealth, riches, money, or jewels. Money is a good thing to possess, and wealth is not to be despised, but the love of money is the root of all evil. Have you never noticed that the harder a man strives to get money the farther he gets away from it? ”

“ She may not get a faultless complexion—few people have this gift—but she can get that soft texture of skin, that buoyancy of spirit, that brightness of eye with the soul showing through. Let these be her models and the imitation will be of real worth. ”

“ The extreme optimist is too happy to be of any use on earth; the pessimist sends us all to perdition and is afraid to walk under a ladder lest it fall on him, while the indifferent is of no use because he does not take any interest in the things around him. ”

“ You blast a reputation heedlessly and without its being of any value to you. You shut it out for life from all that it holds dear and valuable. For what? Perhaps to gratify your lust for gossip.
You will not get off so easily as you think by ruining or attempting to ruin another’s reputation. You weaken yourself. ”

“ By owning land you become a landlord, and you gain that opportunity by thrift and economy.
Land is the soundest investment in the world, and it has always been one of the great objects and hopes of the people of the earth to own a small slice of its surface.
If you own land, you acquire a sense of responsibility to the community where it is located. You are invested with a dignity which you can not obtain in any other way. You possess a sense of security and independence that nothing else will give you. ”

“ It is quite certain that the evils said to be afflicting the people of the earth can never be cured by optimistic fancies, no more than can the racking pains and galling sores of the bedridden be healed by their concealment, or by covering them with a blanket of joy. ”

“ If she had only realized that the quality she was stamping out was a radiant, winged, rare, inspired and inspiring touch of nature springing out of a fullness of life, a superabundance of health, she might have made her child a queen among women, a leader, a creature admired and adored. ”

“ We easily trace in Gay's career the unsatisfied overweening poetic soul, like a Charybdis, insatiable of adulation. In 1716, the Earl of Burlington cheered him at his seat in Devon; in 1717, he accompanied Mr. Pulteney to Aix; in 1718, Lord Harcourt soothed his spirits. Then he made money, which burnt holes in his pockets. He called his friends together, to ask how he should invest. His poetic friends Pope and Swift advised him to sink it in an annuity. ”

“ He builds his castle with hope and cements its walls with imperishable faith in his own powers, and anchors it with good works. He says: “I will not die until I have won,” and he dares to cast his hopes into one throw of the dice—and wins, and in the winning lives. What is life to a clod? ”

“ The road to and up the slope of the hill of life is roomy enough and to spare for everybody, and there need not be any crowding. But the way is strewn with wrecks, many submerged before beginning their journey, others lodged in some cranny half way up, and others start up so bravely and so rashly that they can not stop at the summit where the prize is situated, but their momentum carries them over and down to the bottom on the other side. ”

“ LIFE AND ALL IT IMPLIES, ALL ITS INCIDENTS, HAPPINESS, RENOWN, COMPENSATIONS, ARE IN THE TRAIN OF THE MAN WHO DARES. HE MAY EVEN SCALE THE WALLS OF PARADISE TO GAIN A CROWN OF ETERNAL GLORY.
Life and all it implies are in the train of the man who dares. ”

“ When any work is begun, a certain amount of vital energy is started up and continues working until it is stopped. That energy is like the movement of a clock pendulum—it keeps on moving back and forth as long as it is kept wound up. ”

“ EDUCATE YOUR CHILDREN It can not be doubted that education is the father and mother of opportunity and success in life.
You may know this from your own deficiencies, therefore, give those belonging to you a chance at opportunity and success by educating them.
You bring helpless beings into the world; you see them growing up amid modern surroundings that demand education, and it can not be possible that you will permit them to become weeds in the human garden—useless incumbrances to be thrown out upon the garbage heap.
It is the right of your children to be educated to fit some sphere in life. ”

“ We give you merely the edge of the field to be filled by you or some one you know and hope to see attain it. It is a thickly sown field, and if you cultivate it, you will be rewarded with an astonishing harvest. ”

“ The eyes of the world are turned toward the inscription, “I will,” on the banner of the man who dares, as he hurdles across all obstacles and brings back to its pedestal, virtue, that has been dragged away into disreputable haunts. ”

“ Yet we find Gay representing himself, in a letter to Swift, as a martyr to morality. "For writing in the cause of virtue, and against the fashionable vices, I am looked upon at present as the most obnoxious person almost in England." If Gay's self-love could so far blind and persuade him, there can be no reader of his collected poems at the present day who can agree with him. There is a far too considerable quantity of his writings which are utterly vile and filthy, and fit only to be bound up with Rochester, or, rather, not to be bound up at all ”

“ But they must be gained, and can not be gained except by the man who dares. Beginning with nothing but his muscles, courage, and high hopes, the boy who dares forces his way through rain and storm, sunshine and shadow; quaffs to the dregs the cup of disappointment and refills it with determination. From the lowest rung of the social or business ladder, he mounts upward rung by rung, gaining here and there a fresh supply of energy, until bursting forth from a chrysalis of helplessness into an initiative, he assumes first place and dares still more to reach after the mastery. ”

“ They sure hate one another, he thought. I don't blame Joy though ... I hate her too. I wish she would leave.
"I never have male trouble ... I have trouble keeping them away from me ..." She turned toward Gaylord. "Honey, I've got to run along. Don't forget ... call me." She grinned at Joy. "Bye ... be careful of Gay ... he's a hot number." She looked back at Gaylord and patted his cheek. "Aren't you, handsome?"
Gaylord was speechless. Stood there statuelike watching her swing her purse, watched her as she almost glided down the sidewalk. ”

“ In Arbuthnot's letter above quoted he writes that Gay owes his life under God ‘to the unwearied endeavours and care of your humble servant; for a physician who had not been passionately his friend could not have saved him.’ Gay himself, writing to Swift on the previous day, had told the same tale. With the Queensberrys he seems to have continued for the rest of his life either in their town house or in their country seat of Amesbury in Wiltshire. They assumed, indeed, formal charge of him, the duke taking care of his money and the duchess watching over the poet himself. ”

“ A quick turn is the best turn in business, and to hold on to a price until you get a fixed profit you have determined on, is like refusing a good job because the wages or salary is lower than you have calculated upon getting. The opportunity slips away. ”

“ The soul must grow; it must develop, and for this it must have a wide space. Do not bind the growth with a too compelling hand. Let cooperation, not coercion, be the stimulus between you.
The whole world is yours and your child’s, dear mother, therefore do not cramp his mental or spiritual gymnastics. There are a thousand outlets, a hundred thousand modes of expression. Find your child’s height and depth; sound him, measure his capacity for learning, pleasure, pain, work, and let him grow in beauty, wisdom and peace ever unfolding into the Infinite. ”

“ Those sudden gusts of passion lead to crime as sure as the sun rises and sets every day. And it is always personal violence, even to the extent of murder that is the result of giving way to such an emotion. No one ever becomes violently angry because he is not a good man. ”

“ It is not a loud voice, a browbeating disposition, or a pompous bearing that bring success, it is the careful close reasoner, the quiet mole that undermines the solid earth foundation of his opponent, and topples it down.
The clergyman is a man of sacrifices. ”

“ There is less hope for those who climb to dizzy heights of optimistic congratulation, than for those plunged in the dark gulf of pessimistic woe, for to the latter there shall come a new heaven and a new earth, and former things shall pass away. ”

“ He dares the professions and becomes a statesman or a scientist influenced by a desire to benefit his fellowmen. In the mercantile, manufacturing, and commercial world, his name is a synonym of honesty and probity, fair dealing, justice and impartiality. The hands and mouths of his less daring fellowmen never depart empty. The train of evils that follow humanity, he knows are mere incidents in life and he does what he can and may to alleviate them, and in their alleviation he finds comfort and joy. ”