[PW] Re: ? "Use what talent you possess"

[Dennis Lien]

At 12:48 PM 1/9/2007, you wrote:
>This quote appears with no attribution in the Grand Traverse Herald, 
>Traverse City, Michigan on 16 July 1874. The newspapers of this time often 
>printed small morality quotes like this without attribution. Often they 
>are borrowed, sometimes from another newspaper, sometimes from a book, but 
>the author is generally not credited. In this case, the Grand Traverse 
>Herald was the oldest use of the quote I could find in newspapers.
>
>   Use what talent you possess. The woods
>would be very silent if no bird sang there
>but those who sang best.
>
>   If you would like a copy of the page it appears on, just let me know.
>
>"Cramer, Jeff" <Jeff.Cramer at walden.org> wrote:
>   I am trying to find the source for the quotation ¡ÈUse what talent you
>possess¡É which is erroneously attributed to Henry Van Dyke. It appeared in
>the Ladies Repository (Sept. 1874) with no attribution.


I can push the later half of the quotation Sue found back a bit, for
what that's worth:

********************

Title: (The) two vocations; or, The sisters of mercy at home: a tale.
Author:  [Charles, Elizabeth Rundle]
Publication Info: N. Y.,: 1865.
Collection: Making of America Books

page 43:

Dear Jean," she said, " the woods would be very silent if no
bird sang but those that sing best."

"But people have different gifts."

"Undoubtedly: but all have gift enough to do their duty. You
have not sought this work, my child, it lies in your path, and
what we must seek to meet such daily work is not gifts but graces."

**************

Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // d-lien at umn.edu