We agitate
ourselves amazingly about a multitude of affairs,--the politics of
Europe, the state of the weather all around the globe, the marriages
and festivities of very rich people, and the latest novelties in
crime, none of which are of vital interest to us. The more earnest
souls among us are cultivating a vicious tendency to Summer Schools,
and Seaside Institutes of Philosophy, and Mountaintop Seminaries of
Modern Languages.
We toil assiduously to cram something more into those scrap-bags of
knowledge which we fondly call our minds. Seldom do we rest
tranquil long enough to find out whether there is anything in them
already that is of real value,--any native feeling, any original
thought, which would like to come out and sun itself for a while in
quiet.
For my part, I am sure that I stand more in need of a deeper sense
of contentment with life than of a knowledge of the Bulgarian
tongue, and that all the paradoxes of Hegel would not do me so much
good as one hour of vital sympathy with the careless play of
children. The Marquis du Paty de l'Huitre may espouse the daughter
and heiress of the Honourable James Bulger with all imaginable pomp,
if he will. CA NE M'INTRIGUE POINT DU TOUT. I would rather stretch
myself out on the grass and watch yonder pair of kingbirds carrying
luscious flies to their young ones in the nest, or chasing away the
marauding crow with shrill cries of anger.
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