There is no method but to be very intelligent. There is nothing that will kill a man so soon as having nobody to find fault with but himself. There is one order of beauty which seems made to turn heads. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle. The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions. You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends, and how, how rare and strange it is, to find in a life composed so much of odds and ends... to find a friend who has these qualities, who has, and gives those qualities upon which friendship lives. How much it means that I say this to you-- without these friendships-- life, what cauchemar! We must believe that 'emotion recollected in tranquility' is an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor without distortion of meaning, tranquility. It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration of a very great number of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation. These experiences are not 'recollected' and they finally unite in an atmosphere which is 'tranquil' only in that it is a passive attending upon the event. |