nor better opportunity. The little worries of the present cease
to sting in the pensive languor of the season. Enjoy the sunshine
and the leaves while they last: they will not last long. Grasp the
day and hold it and rejoice in it: some time soon you will find of
a sudden that the summer time has passed away. You come to yourself,
and find it is December. The earth seems to pause in its orbit in
the dreary winter days: it hurries at express speed through summer.
You wish you could put on a break, and make time go on more slowly.
Well, watch the sandgrains as they pass. Remark the several minutes,
yet without making it a task to do so. As you sit there, you will
think of old summer days long ago: of green leaves long since faded:
of sunsets gone. Well, each had its turn: the present has nothing
more. And let us think of the past without being lackadaisical.
Look now at your own little children at play: that sight will
revive your flagging interest in life. Look at the soft turf, feel
the gentle air: these things are present now. What a contrast to the
Lard, repellent earth of winter! I think of it like the difference
between the man of sternly logical mind, and the genial, kindly
man with both head and heart! I take it for granted that you agree
with me in holding such to be the true type of man. Not but what
some people are proud of being all head and no heart. There is no
flummery about them. It is stern, severe sense and principle. Well,
my friends, say I to such, you are (in a moral sense) deficient
of a member. Fancy a mortal hopping through creation, and boasting
that he was born with only one leg! Or even if you have a little of
the kindly element, but very little when compared with the logical,
you have not much to boast of. Your case is analogous to that of
the man who has two legs indeed, but one of them a great deal longer
than the other.