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"Wit consists in the epigrammatic expression of a commonplace truth, and the dullest remark on the worth of money is almost as sure of successful appreciation as the dullest remark on the worthlessness of women. Certainly I am a wit without knowing it." Here the farmer touched him on the shoulder touched it, did not slap it, as he would have done ten minutes before and said,

She was resolved she would never squander the money for which she worked early and late, on a baggage who had thrown herself away on a beggar, while she had a daughter single, who might yet raise her family by a great match. I am sorry to say that Mrs. Bragwell's anger was not owing to the undutifulness of the daughter, or the worthlessness of the husband; poverty was in her eyes the grand crime.

For Hooker had to defend much that was indefensible: he had to defend a great traditional system, just convulsed by a most tremendous shock a shock and alteration, as Bacon says, "the greatest and most dangerous that can be in a State," in which old clews and habits and rules were confused and all but lost; in which a frightful amount of personal incapacity and worthlessness had, from sheer want of men, risen to the high places of the Church; and in which force and violence, sometimes of the most hateful kind, had come to be accepted as ordinary instruments in the government of souls.

And the next day Fra Paolo is commanded before the Signoria to meet the Provveditor of the Mint being the only man who hath dared speak his mind before the Signoria had proved the worthlessness of Bragadin's promise. And our fine gold-maker exchangeth his palace for a prison; for the test of the crucible is all too easy for Fra Paolo, who speaketh naught that he knoweth not."

This they conceive to be best done by depriving the dead body of all ornaments and outward honours. For, stripped in this manner, they conceive it to approach the nearest to its native worthlessness or dust. Such funerals, therefore, may excite in the spectator a deep sense of the low and debased condition of man.

Experience however had taught the Mercians the worthlessness of raids like these and Offa resolved to create a military border by planting a settlement of Englishmen between the Severn, which had till then served as the western boundary of the English race, and the huge "Offa's Dyke" which he drew from the mouth of Wye to that of Dee.

There was English fortitude and courage, the endurance born of faith, and the higher evolution from English obstinacy, but there was for all of them, deep self-distrust and abasement; a sense of worthlessness that intensified with each generation; and a perpetual, unhealthy questioning of every thought and motive.

On the contrary, the infuriated animal, on finding itself baulked by the worthlessness of the fabric composing the skirt of the shikaree, spitefully tossed the piece of cloth from its trunk; and, rearing itself on its hind-legs, threw its body into an erect attitude, with its fore-feet resting high up against the rock.

If, in regard to a particular case of distress, for example, we have come to a deliberate conviction of the worthlessness of the individual, and have determined to withhold our aid, we refuse to see him, and we decline hearing from another any thing more of his history; we say, we have made up our mind not to allow our compassion to be any more worked upon in his favour.

The emptiness of mere official rank, when unsustained by merit, was shown in the case of Bobadilla. The moment his authority was at an end, all his importance vanished. He found himself a solitary and neglected man, deserted by those whom he had most favored, and he experienced the worthlessness of the popularity gained by courting the prejudices and passions of the multitude.