He drank his coffee in silence, and went out. After looking into the
workshop he walked slowly away in the direction of the Capitol. The damp
morning air was pleasant to him, and the gloomy streets through which he
passed were agreeable to his state of feeling. He wished Home might
always wear such a dismal veil of dampness, scirocco, and cloud.

A man in a bad humour will go out of his way to be rained upon and blown
against by the weather. We would all like to change our surroundings
with our moods, to fill the world with sunshine when we are happy, and
with clouds when we have stumbled in the labyrinths of life. Lovers wish
that the whole earth might be one garden, crossed and recrossed by
silent moonlit paths; and when love has taken the one and left the
other, he who stays behind would have his garden changed to an angry
ocean, and the sweet moss banks to storm-beaten rocks, that he may drown
in the depths, or be dashed to pieces by the waves, before he has had
time to know all that he has lost.

As we grow older, life becomes the expression of a mood, according to
the way we have lived. He who seeks peace will find that with advancing
age the peaceful moment, that once came so seldom, returns more readily,
and that at last the moments unite to make hours, and the hours to build
up days and years. He who stoops to petty strife will find that the
oft-recurring quarrel has power to perpetuate the discontented weakness
out of which it springs, and that it can make all life a hell. He who
rejoices in action will learn that activity becomes a habit, and at last
excludes the possibility of rest, and the desire for it; and his lot is
the best, for the momentary gladness in a great deed well done is worth
a millennium of sinless, nerveless tranquillity. The positive good is as
much better than the negative "non-bad," as it is better to save a life
than not to destroy a life. But whatever temper of mind we choose will