of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind. His note-books impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a Christianity intrenched in establishments and forms some vigour of wild virtue. Ralph Waldo Emerson. We are all too gross, too materialistic, too earthly, to comprehend even so much as the rudiments of the life of heaven. And yet it is a perfect simplicity. The happy life of heaven is the life of purified affections, of guileless hearts, of love and trust, beautiful as those that often win us so in little children. John Page Hopps. Beauty heightened by simplicity is ineffable, and nothing is so adorable as a beauteous, innocent maiden, who walks along unconsciously, holding in her hand the key of Paradise. Victor Hugo. What wondrous life is this I lead! Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, The mind, that ocean where each kind To a green thought in a green shade. Andrew Marvell. Let the question be, not what is popular or expedient, but what is honest, and let that be done though the heavens fall. This is the rule of that best society which makes no ostentatious display, and indulges in no sham tastes or sham enthusiasms, or other unrealities, but is distinguished by simplicity and genuineness. Samuel Smith Harris. Just to let thy Father do What He will; Just to know that He is true, And be still. Just to follow hour by hour As He leadeth; Just to draw the moment's power As it needeth. Just to trust Him, this is all! Then the day will surely be Peaceful, whatso'er befall, Bright and blessed, calm and free. F. R. Havergal. If there were only thousands of men fighting in the coat of Henry Thoreau! - possessing a similar Spartan spirit, as upright a life, as independent and simple! Have you felt the cool sense of power and safety that lies in the possession of four or five arts or trades, such as farming, gardening, teaching, editing, typography, wood-chopping? William S. Kennedy. No man can gauge the value in English life at this present critical time of a steady stream of young men, flowing into all professions and all industries from our public schools, who have learnt resolutely to use those words so hard to speak in a society such as ours, “I can't afford;" who have been trained to have few wants and to serve these themselves, so that they may have always something to spare of power and of means to help others; who are careless of the comfits and cushions of life," and content to leave them to the valets of all ranks. 66 Come hither, come hither, come hither! No enemy But winter and rough weather. Shakespeare. The simplest ideas are sometimes the most incommunicable. Mankind are SO prone to mystery that they create it, and expect to find it where it does not exist; moreover, simplicity is the first thing that is lost, and the last that is regained. Acton. Not his the soldier's sword to wield, Nor his the helm of state, Nor glory of the stricken field, In common ways, with common men, He served his race and time. J. G. Whittier: "Halleck.” Be simple and modest in your deportment, and treat with indifference whatever lies between virtue and vice. Marcus Aurelius. She walks in beauty, like the night One shade the more, one ray the less |