Due to the poor eyesight of our Shipping Reporter , he snapped up the above large book , with others, believing it might contain rollicking yarns about the sea. However, upon later perusal , he discovered it is full of the sayings of 400 prominent people , compiled by Reverend J.B.McClure (l832-1895) , of Chicago, where it was published by the Thomas W. Jackson Company .
Mind you , the waterfront roundsman said there was a strong nautical touch in the dramatic, coloured frontispiece which is of a woman , in a flowing gown , arms outstretched , looking up to the night sky , a large anchor nearby, in a rocky , seaside setting .
The title page explains the best thoughts of the writers quoted embrace beautiful maxims for the conduct of life and lucid expositions of holy writ across 528 pages, including a long list of proverbs , with illustrations from the great art galleries of the world.
A previous owner's name , Merna Hintz , caused the Shipping Reporter to do some online checking , and it seems she was Merna Anna Hintz, born Chicago , Cook County , Illinois, l942, late of Home Hill, North Queensland, who died January 2024 . Her married name Bitter
A Presbyterian, Reverend McClure, wrote several books during his life ,was the associate editor of The Interior and joint founder with Professor Daniel Swing of The Alliance and a member a publishing firm.
He did not live to finish the above book for which he had been gathering material for many years. It was passed on to Charles Carroll Albertson to turn into Pearls.
As is to be expected ,there is much about the Bible , Christ , "the superiority of the Christian faith" , all interspersed with the sayings of prominent writers, politicians and philosophers , including Shakespeare, Chaucer ,Longfellow , Plutarch .
There is a section dealing with books that quotes Bacon and a lengthy poem by Margaret E. Sangster entitled The Pleasant World of Books. Elsewhere John Wesley is quoted as saying a reading people will always be a knowing people .
Gambling is depicted as terrible as is demon grog . The " new ideas" about the rights of dumb animals , the rights of children , the rights of the " heathen myriads " must be repeated until they shall become a mode of modern thought.
There is an extensive section on the importance of the home in which there is a quote which said that if a husband spent most of the night absent from the home , by choice, not necessity, then he was not the head of the household, but only the cashier.
If a wife passed the care of the household to servants , and then spent five nights of the week at the opera or theatre, she may clothe her children with satins and laces and ribbons that would confound a French milliner , but they would only be orphans.
In dealing with America, it ran a quote saying that in its discovery, it was ordered by Providence that the two great divisions of the American hemisphere should have fallen to the two main races best fitted to "conquer and colonize them ".
The northern section consigned to the Anglo-Saxon race whose orderly, industrious habits found an ample field for development under its colder skies and more rugged soil.
The southern portion , with its rich tropical products and treasures of mineral wealth was the " bait" that attracted the enterprising Spanish . It went on to say how different might have been the result if Columbus had taken a more northerly direction and landed his band of adventurers on the shores of what is now Free America !
Words of Wisdom to the Young is the heading on a section which opens with a Disraeili pronouncement : The history of heroes is the history of youth.
The final message on the last page is to be courageous , strive with manly power against sickly phantasies ( fantasies ) and enter more hopefully into active life so that your talents may be more useful to others , and thus to yourself.
Taking all this advice aboard, the Shipping Reporter, no youngster, decided to sally forth , get a stronger pair of glasses so he better knows what the titles on books relate to and also to push aside bothersome scavengers who get in the way when he is rummaging through boxes at garage sales.
(Wisdom. America. Reporter.)
