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And in spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations. Amaryllis fleeing desired that her hiding-place should be known; and that love will find out the way "over the mountain and over the wave" may be said without hyperbole in this age of steam.
The good Herodotus, without portraits and without maxims, but abounding in details the most capable of interesting and pleasing, would perhaps be the best of historians, if only these details did not so often degenerate into puerilities. Livy is unsuited to youth, because he is political and a rhetorician.
There are various honourable exceptions to this rule, but these exceptions are scarce; and if there has been of late years a bishop of Cadiz, an admirable model of all Christian virtues, there are many others, such as that of Barcelona, impregnated with the maxims of the most absurd ultramontanism, and who are the declared enemies of all that contributes to make human society moral and enlightened.
However, of the innumerable maxims in rhyme, there are many which might well have a place in the later pieces of Corneille. Kyd, one of the predecessors of Ben Jonson, and mentioned by him in terms of praise, handled the Cornelia of Garnier. This may be called receiving an imitation of the ancients from the third or fourth hand.
It was one of the elder Maxwell's maxims, Never let difficulties overcome you, but rather strive to conquer them; let the head direct the hand, and the hand, like a well-disciplined soldier, obey the head as chief.
Little original in itself if we mean by that that one might recompose it almost entirely by the aid of older maxims the morality of the Gospels remains, nevertheless, the highest creation of human conscience the most beautiful code of perfect life that any moralist has traced.
A pocket Bible, and a small volume of the "Select Edition of Franklin's Maxims," a book in high favor with the good people of the Cape, were got of a bookseller in Barnstable, a queer wag, who had got rich by vending a strange quality of literature and taking fish in exchange.
To these considerations was added a sort of charm, not easily explained, and by no means justifiable, produced by the very temerity and hazardness accompanying this attempt. I thought, with scornful emotions, on the bars and hinderances which pride, and caprice, and delusive maxims of decorum, raise in the way of human intercourse.
The wharves, the shipping, the river, the boat and oarsmen, and the country dinner we had at the house at Sellers Point, all made a strong impression on me, but above all I remember my father; his gentle, loving care for me, his bright talk, his stories, his maxims and teachings. I was very proud of him and of the evident respect for and trust in him every one showed.
There is one sure way of giving freshness and importance to the most commonplace maxims that of reflecting on them in direct reference to our own state and conduct, to our own past and future being. A reflecting mind, says an ancient writer, is the spring and source of every good thing.
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