The Simple Life

clearing: the domain of our ideas is in the same case. Anarchy reigns in human thought: we wal

s to be a man, he organizes his thought accordingly. Every mode of thinking o

They will climb on the benches, swing from the cords, rig themselves in draperies, coif themselves with slippers, juggle with brushes, nibble the colors, and pierce the canvases to see what is behind the paint. I don't question their enjoyment; certainly they must find this kind of exercise extremely interesting. But an atelier is not made to let monkeys l

g. But quite other is this extreme vigilance, this incessant observation of one's life and thoughts, this dissecting of one's self, like a piece of mechanism. It is a waste of time, and goes wide of the mark. The man who, to prepare himself the better for walking, should begin by making a rigid anatomical examination of his means of locomotion,

ducting ourselves like rational beings, and using the means most obviously at our command, we arrive, by dint of absolute genius, at the most astonishing singularities. Better off the track than on the main line! All the bodily defects and deformities that orthopedy treats, give but a feeble idea of the humps, the tortuosities, the dislocations we have inflicted

f the very heart of the people. Good sense is a fund slowly and painfully accumulated by the labor of centuries. It is a jewel of the first water, whose value he alone understands who has lost it, or who observes the lives of others who have lost it. For my

s, she gives us notice that she precedes any idea of her which we may make for ourselves, and that no one can put off living pending an attempt to understand life. Our philosophies, our explanations, our beliefs are everywhere confronted by facts, and these facts, prodigious, irrefutable, call us to order when we would deduce life from our reasonings, and would wait to act until we have ended philosophizing. It is this happy necessity that prevents the world from stopping while man questions his route. Travelers of a day, we are carried along in a vast movement to which we are called upon to contribute, but which we have not foreseen, nor embraced in its entirety, nor penetrated as to its ultimate aims. Our part is to fill faithfully the r?le of private, which has devolved upon us, and our thought should adapt itself to the situation. Do not say that we live in more trying times than our ancestors, for things seen from afar are often seen imperfectly: it is moreover scarc

urbable faith in the stability of the universe and its intelligent ordering, sleeps in everything that exists. The flowers, the trees, the beasts of the field, live in calm strength, in entire security

ncerts it, to cultivate it, render it more personal, more evident-toward this should tend the first effort of our thought. All that augments confidence within us is good, for from confidence is born the life without haste, tranquil energy, calm action, the love of

and hidden origin, all this upspringing of existence that pushes toward the light and, to your mind, is rushing to misfortune; I ask you to suppress the will to live that trembles through the immensities of space, to suppress in short the source of life. Can you do it? No. Then leave us in peace. Since no one can hold life in check, is it not better to respect it and use it than to go about making other people disgusted with it? When one knows that certain food is dangerous to health, he does not eat it, and when a certain fashion of thinking robs us of confidence, cheerfulness and strength

engthen our souls with cheering thoughts. Wha

g, urges us to go up higher. What is the meaning of this persistent instinct which pushes us on? The true meaning is that something is to result from life, that out of it is being wrought a good greater than itself, toward which it slowly moves, and that this painful sower called man, needs, like every sower, to count on the morrow. The history of humanity is the history of indomitable hope; otherwise everything would have been over long a

Holy Lady, the Virgin Mary." Let us offer to hope a like reverence. If we meet it in the shape of a blade of wheat piercing the furrow; a bird brooding on its nest; a poor wounded beast, recovering itself, rising and continuing its way; a peasant ploughing and sowing a field that has been ravaged by flood or h

e more, to learn again to stand with clasped hands and wide eyes before the mystery around us; to remember that, in spite of our knowledge, what we know is but a trifle, and that the world is greater than our mind, which is well; for being so prodigious, it must hold in reserve untold resources, and we may allow it some credit without accusing ourselves of improvidence. Let us not treat it as creditors do an insolvent debtor: we should fire its courage, relight the sacred flame of hope. Since t

of all forms of evil, the one which most dismays me is heredity. But I sometimes ask myself how it is that this effete and deadly virus of low instincts, of vices inoculated in th

y powers are arrayed against her. She has to combat the natural ferocity of what may be called the beast in man; she has to meet ruse, force, self-interest, above all, ingratitude. How is it that she passes pure and scathless in the midst of these dark enemies, like the prophet of the sacred legend among the roaring beasts? It is because her enemies are of the earth, and

rates its deepest sense, the most human, is this: To save lost humanity, the invisible God came t

rt-to bind up wounds, wipe away tears, relieve distress, soothe aching hearts, pardon, make peace; yet it is of love that we have the greatest need. And as we medita

m these far journeys to the point where we are, often to a place where we seem to stand marking time with no result. There are conditions of life and social complications in which the sage, the thinker

t there are always involuntary partialities or foregone conclusions. It is better to put the question otherwise, and ask: Is my own religion good, and how may I know it? To this question, this answer: Your religion is good if it is vital and active, if it nourishes in you confidence, hope, love, and a sentiment of the infinite value of existence; if it is allied with what is best in you against what is worst, and holds forever befor

give your own over to bondage; stifle your scruples, follow religious forms for fashion or gain, do good in the hope of escaping future punishment?-o

en before me who are greater than I, and notably He who recounted to the questioni

to co