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Begbie, Harold, 1871-1929

"The Bed-Book of Happiness"

.. I still shall stay,
And firmly answer--No.

MARK'S BABY
[Sidenote: _Mark Twain_]
"Mark, one day, was found at home, in his library, dandling upon his
knee, with every appearance of fond 'parientness,' the young Twain--so
young as not yet to be able to 'walk upright and make bargains.' Mrs.
Twain, on showing the visitor into the sanctum, and finding her spouse
thus engaged, said:
"'Now, Mark, you _know_ you love that baby--don't you?'
"'Well,' replied Mark, in his slow, drawling kind of way,
'I--can't--exactly--say--I--love it,--_but--I--respect--it!_'"

THE WISDOM OF G.K.C.
[Sidenote: _G.K. Chesterton_]
Jesus Christ made wine, not a medicine, but a sacrament. But Omar makes
it, not a sacrament, but a medicine. He feasts because life is not
joyful; he revels because he is not glad. "Drink," he says, "for you
know not whence you come nor why. Drink, for you know not when you go
nor where. Drink, because the stars are cruel and the world as idle as a
humming-top. Drink, because there is nothing worth trusting, nothing
worth fighting for. Drink, because all things are lapsed in a base
equality and an evil peace." So he stands offering us the cup in his
hands. And in the high altar of Christianity stands another figure in
whose hand also is the cup of the vine.


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