in ourselves, and more faith in our fellows, and the race will be ripe for
a great burst of light and life.

Macaulay has said that the Puritan did not condemn bear-baiting because it
gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectator. The
Puritan regarded beauty as a pitfall and a snare: that which gave pleasure
was a sin; he found his gratification in doing without things. Puritanism
was a violent oscillation of the pendulum of life to the other side. From
the vanity, pretense, affectation and sensualism of a Church and State
bitten by corruption, we find the recoil in Puritanism.

Asceticism to the verge of hardship, frankness bordering on rudeness, and
a stolidity that was impolite; or soft, luxurious hypocrisy in a
moth-eaten society--which shall it be? And Joseph Addison comes upon the
scene and by the sincerity, graciousness and gentle excellence of his life
and work, says, "Neither!"

* * * * *

The little village of Wiltshire is noted as the birthplace of Addison, who
was the son of a clergyman, afterward the Dean of Lichfield. An erstwhile
resident of Lichfield, Samuel Johnson by name, once said of Joseph
Addison, "Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not
coarse, elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the
volumes of Addison."

For elegance, simplicity, insight, and a wit that is sharp but which never
wounds, Addison has no rival, although more than two hundred years have
come and gone since he ceased to write.