The Knickerbocker/Volume 1/Number 1/Laconics
Maxim makers are great thieves—e. g. take Lacon. "There are some persons," says he, "whom you might strip naked and throw off London bridge, and you would meet them next day in Bond-street, well dressed, with swords by their sides, and money in their pockets." He has taken this from Beaumont and Fletcher, who have said it better in "Wit without Money:"
Upon my conscience, bury him stark naked,
He would rise again within two hours, embroider’d.
He would rise again within two hours, embroider’d.
He who enters into a discussion with a prejudice, is like him who went into a shower bath with an umbrella—what good could it do him?
The mind derives its strength from solitude, and its suppleness from society.