eaks. As Zeno advises, he dips
his tongue in his mind before he allows it to talk. It is said that a
fool thinks _after_ he has spoken, and a wise man _before_.

He does not pry with a curious and inquisitive spirit into the affairs
of others. If they are wise not to reveal, he is wise not to inquire.

He is no blabber, to divulge secrets committed to his bosom for security
by confiding friendship.

He speaks not evil of the absent, unless in case of self-defence, or as
a witness, or in vindication of righteousness and truth; and when he
does, he adheres closely to fact, and evinces the absence of envy,
malice, or vindictiveness in his motives.

He guards against the exhibition of his own wisdom, knowledge, goodness,
as a boaster or egotist. He is no more a self-flatterer than a flatterer
of others.

He does not mark the failings of those who talk with him or around him
in company, and take them up in carping criticism or biting ridicule.

He does not dogmatize, wrangle, quibble, as though he was an autocrat or
a pugilist. He thinks and lets think. He is as willing for others to
talk their views in their way as he wishes them to be willing that he
should do the same.

He is no censor or grumbler. He remembers that he shall be judged, and
judges not others. In everything he gives thanks. If things and persons
are not as he thinks they should be, he tries to make them better,
rather than spend his words and time in useless complaining.

He is no willow to bend before every breeze of opinion, nor an oak to
stand unmoved in every change of the intellectual atmosphere. He
maintains his conscientious convictions with manly dignity and
independence, but not with a dogged tenacity which snaps at every
resistance, and holds on simply because he will.

He blends the grave and joyous in his conversation. He is neither a
jester nor a hermit; neither a misanthrope nor a fool. "Sorrowful, yet
alway rejoicing," he "weeps with them that weep, and rejoices with them
that rejoice." He is like the heavens; he has sunshine and cloud, each
in its season, seemly, appropriate, useful.

"Though life's valley be a vale of tears,
A brighter scene beyond that vale appears,
Whose glory, with a light that never fades,
Shoots between scattered rocks and opening shades;
And while it shows the land the soul desires,
The language of the land she seeks inspires.
Thus touched, the tongue receives a sacred cure
Of all th