Crankisms

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Crankisms, by Lisle de Vaux Matthewman

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Title: Crankisms
Author: Lisle de Vaux Matthewman
Illustrator: Clare Victor Dwiggins
Release Date: December 5, 2006 [EBook #20024]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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[Transcriber's Note:
Illustrations are explained at the end of the text.]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Crankisms
By Lisle de Vaux MATTHEWMAN
Pictured By Clare Victor DWIGGINS
* MCMI * HENRY T. COATES & CO. PHILADELPHIA

Copyright, 1901, by Henry T. Coates & Company. All rights reserved.

If I may be permitted to offer a suggestion, the Crankisms should be read in the spirit in which sermons are listened to--with the object of discovering whom they hit. This will furnish amusement, for what is more entertaining than trying the cap on others?
The settings speak for themselves; but the author desires to express his indebtedness to the artist for having infused life into and lent grace to dead bones of words, and for having, in many cases, given to those words a deeper and more subtle meaning than they themselves could be made to express.
L. de V. M.
May, 1901.

1
The kisses of an enemy are deceitful, but not as deceitful as the advice of the friend who is always counseling you for your own good.
2
The best and the worst in man respond only to woman's touch--unfortunately for man.
3
Men reason; women do not. Woman has no logic, and judging from the use it is to man, is better off without it.
4
The present arrangement of society refuses to many the means to live, while forbidding them the right to die when they wish.
5
Woman generally tries to attract a man's eye, and then blames him for being caught by prettiness and superficial charms. But she rarely tries to appeal to his better self.
6
The man who is pockmarked has most to say against freckles.
7
Charity covers a multitude of sins which are committed in her name.
8
Life is full of golden opportunities for doing what we do not want to do.
9
Never compliment a woman and you will earn her undying enmity. Respect is rarely appreciated by her; but compliments are always at a premium, even counterfeits being accepted as greedily as the real.
10
When we grow old we walk unfeelingly over that which we, in our youth, madly chased.
11
The biggest fool is the one who thinks he can fool others with impunity without them knowing and resenting it.
12
When we get what we want we are always disappointed to find that it is not what we wanted.
13
Like does not always worship like: Beauty often worships the Beast.
14
We were all in the front row when modesty was served out--at least we think so.
15
Because some men are ruined by intemperance it does not follow that all should become abstainers, any more than because some men are ruined by marriage all men should remain single.
16
What men see in women or women in men to admire is generally a puzzle to those who know the men and women in question intimately.
17
The only compliment which a woman really dislikes is that which is paid to another.
18
Things have changed since Shakespeare's time: men's evil deeds we write in sympathetic ink; their virtues on marble tombstones.
19
Our own weaknesses we regard as misfortunes from which we cannot escape; the weaknesses of others we consider crimes.
20
No matter how well we do, we are sure to be anxious to impress upon others that what we have achieved is trifling-- compared with that of which we are capable.
21
A woman is not a woman merely by reason of her sex, any more than an angel is of necessity an angel of light.
22
We are quite able, while hating sin, to pity and be charitable to the sinner--when we happen to be the sinner concerned.
23
The commonly accepted idea that a woman of beauty is of necessity lacking in mental qualities, must have originated in the head of some woman who possessed neither.
24
The Devil is not as black as he is painted. In fact, he is more like us than we care to admit.
25
Faithful are the wounds of a friend; and as it is more blessed to give than to receive, we prefer to do the wounding.
26
The naked truth and a naked lie Are shocking alike to society.
27
A man often envies another man his physical qualities--rarely his mental. As we have no soul mirror we cannot see the reflection of our spiritual deformities.
28
It is easy to have conscientious scruples when they