men for evils they invite to themselves. Philosophy I hold to be a
Patent Medicine of the higher sort, which is to be taken only for those
afflictions brought us by others, and by which we are enabled to assuage
our own misery through inspecting from an elevated plane the folly, or
extravagance, or weakness of those who have afflicted us. It is a
mental jack-screw by which we wind ourselves up to a height from which
we can look down on lacks in others. To lose sight of our own pain
after shooting down a flight of steps, in grave pitying contemplation
of the stupidity of the chambermaid who left the bar of soap on the
first step--that is your true Philosophy. And the man who forgets to
rub his back, through pitying her ignorance, is the true philosopher.
It is a quality from the gods, and whether exhibited over the minor
calamity of soap, or the graver distress to which the married
Philosopher too often falls heir, shows its origin in a heavenly calm.
To him, I think I have said, this calm has its severe trial in the
winter; but now that I think of it again, if I were writing this in
the summer, I should say that season was the severest. Indeed, thinking
of it still further, I am puzzled to decide on any season that does
not bring to him the severest trials of his heavenly serenity. The
other night Mrs. Boyzy, as she slipped one of the little stockings off
the wooden ball, which has served our children for so many years and
so many purposes--from filling out a croquet set, to the braining of
their parents--her kindly, and to me still beautiful face, lighting
up with a smile, said: "We are having a real gay winter in Staunton,
dear." Alas, I knew it well, Between High Teas and Blue Teas, and
Ladies' Lunches and Bands of Twenties, I knew it well. I knew it from
the number of times that I have had to steal in like a thief in the
night, at my own side gate and make my way into a cold set-out in the
nursery, while a High Tea was progressing down stairs accompanied by
the hum of feminine voices. I knew it from the cold nights I have had