, _what_ a
beautiful book! Where _did_ you borrow it?" You glance over the
newspaper, with the quietest tone you can command: "_That_! oh! that is
_mine_. Have you not seen it before? It has been in the house these two
months." and you rush on with anecdote and incident, and point out the
binding, and that peculiar trick of gilding, and everything else you can
think of; but it all will not do; you cannot rub out that roguish,
arithmetical smile. People may talk about the equality of the sexes!
They are not equal. The silent smile of a sensible, loving woman will
vanquish ten men. Of course you repent, and in time form a habit of
repenting.

Another method which will be found peculiarly effective is to make a
_present_ of some fine work to your wife. Of course, whether she or you
have the name of buying it, it will go into your collection, and be
yours to all intents and purposes. But it stops remark in the
presentation. A wife could not reprove you for so kindly thinking of
her. No matter what she suspects, she will say nothing. And then if
there are three or four more works which have come home with the
gift-book--they will pass through the favor of the other.

These are pleasures denied to wealth and old bachelors. Indeed, one
cannot imagine the peculiar pleasure of buying books if one is rich and
stupid. There must be some pleasure, or so many would not do it. But the
full flavor, the whole relish of delight only comes to those who are so
poor that they must engineer for every book. They sit down before them,
and besiege them. They are captured. Each book has a secret history of
ways and means. It reminds you of subtle devices by which you insured
and made it yours, in spite of poverty!

Copyrighted by Fords, Howard and Hulbert, New York.

SELECTED PARAGRAPHS

From 'Selections from the Published Works of Henry Ward Beecher',
compiled by Eleanor Kirk.

An intelligent conscience is one of the greatest of luxuries. It can
hardly be called a necessity, or how would the world have got along as
well as it has to this day?--SERMON: 'Conscience.'

A man undertakes to jump across a chasm that is ten feet wide, and jumps
eight feet; and a kind sympathizer says, "What is going to be done with
the eight feet that he did jump?" Well, what _is_ going to be done with
it? It is one of those things which must be accomplished in whole, or it
is not accomplished at all.--SERMON: 'The True Value of Morality.'

It is hard for