Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

PREFACE.

**I have here made only a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own bat the string that ties them."-Montaigne.

This book contains nothing new. It is a compend of bygone wit and wisdom, ticketed and arranged for convenient reference. Its contents are so various as to appeal to all tastes and comprehensions. Something, doubtless, will be found in it to please and displease every reader. The most erudite person may herein discover some novelty; the most captious find some answering crookedness; and the most careless or indifferent stumble upon something to arrest attention or captivate the fancy.

No merit is claimed by the compiler, except in producing a new combination. For fifteen years past, during leisure hours, the broad field of literature has been culled for spirited excerpts upon all manner of topics, treated by all manner of men, in the hope that the volume may commend itself to all manner of readers.

A selvage of lighter humor and profounder wisdom has been added at the end of the volume as a fitting appendix. This fringe of sense and nonsense, like the tail of a coat, is perhaps not a necessary ornament, and yet the book seems incomplete without it.

ALLENTOWN, PA.

A. W.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][subsumed][merged small][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][subsumed][ocr errors][merged small][subsumed][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]
« ZurückWeiter »