(239) 
A similar effect is produced by salting our conversation with over¬ 
much wit. 
In the beginning it may please, but after awhile it cannot fail to 
disgust. 
Wit, ffis true, is the flavor of the mind, but only when it is, as an 
English author says, combined with sense and information; when it is 
softened by benevolence and restrained by 'principle; when it is in the 
hands of a man who can use it and despise it—who can be witty and some¬ 
thing more than witty—who loves honor, justice, decency/ good-nature, 
morality, and religion, ten thousand times better than wit:—wit is then a 
beautiful and delightful part of our nature. Indecent joking betrays sad 
poverty of invention, at the very least—yea, o woeful absence of ingenuity, 
“a plentiful lack of wit.” 
Clean wit is the flavor of the mind. Neither Boeotian brine nor Gas¬ 
con foam yields true Attic Salt! 
<§)pil^©rt3\rel. 
An aromatic plant. The Spikenard of the ancients is a species of 
valerian, the Nardostachy, Jatamansi , and the Valeriana Dioscoridis. 
The Handmaid of the Lord. 
“While the king was at his repose my Spikenard sent forth the odor thereof” 
(Canticle of Canticles, i. 11). 
‘And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me 
according to thy word” (St. Luke i. 38). 
f HE Spikenard is a little shrub which never raises itself aloft, like 
the cedars of Lebanon, but always remains in its lowliness, throw¬ 
ing out its perfume with so much sweetness that it gladdens 
