some for me--" All sweet names that one loves to roll under his tongue.

I have not any great number of these herbs in my own garden, but, when I
go among those I do have, I like to call them by their familiar names as
I would a dignified doctor or professor, if ever I knew him well enough.

It is in this want of balance and quietude that the age fails most. We
are all for action, not at all for reflection; we think there are easy
ways to knowledge and shortcuts to perfection; we are for laws rather
than for life.

And this reminds me inevitably of a mellow-spirited old friend who lives
not a thousand miles from here--I must not tell his name--whose greatest
word is "proportion." At this moment, as I write, I can hear the roll of
his resonant old voice on the syllable p-o-r--prop-o-rtion. He is the
kind of man good to know and to trust.

If ever I bring him a hard problem, as, indeed, I delight to do, it is a
fine thing to see him square himself to meet it. A light comes in his
eye, he draws back his chin a little and exclaims occasionally:
"Well--well!"

He will have all the facts and circumstances fully mobilized, standing
up side by side before him like an awkward squad, and there's nothing
more awkward than some facts that have to stand out squarely in
daylight! And he inquires into their ancestry, makes them run out their
tongues, and pokes them once or twice in the ribs, to make sure that
they are lively and robust facts capable of making a good fight for
their lives. He never likes to see any one thing too large, as a church,
a party, a reform, a new book, or a new fashion, lest he see something