26 WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 



I never envied prince, potentate or president so long as I 

 could find the time (and I always did) and had the opportu- 

 tunity to make a 'cast.' I think I am and have been as 

 sympathetic as most men. ["Hear, hear," all around the 

 circle.] I know I have lost many a night's sleep on hearing 

 of the misfortune of some friend who deserved a better 

 fate. I know, too, that I would rather toss a dollar to a 

 beggar than exchange salutations with a king, and I have 

 had both experiences. Indeed, my sympathies have uni- 

 formlj been with 'the under dog in the fight,' no matter 

 which was the aggressor. But my heart has always been 

 stirred to its deepest depths when I have met a good fellow 

 who was so insensible to his own happiness, so absorbed in 

 his acquisition of wealth, and so inappreciative of the ex- 

 ample of the holy apostles as never to have cultivated a 

 taste for the angle. ["Hear, hear, " and a gentle ripple of 

 applause.] Why, what is life? and what is the prime 

 object of living? In one respect 'life is a vapor'; but it, is 

 something more. It embodies all the elements of an active 

 verb to be, to do, to suffer (as little as possible) and to 

 enjoy (all you can). That is a condensed epitome of life, as 

 I understand it. And what is the object of living? Simply 

 to do good and be happy. The one is dependent upon the 

 other. They are inseparable and indivisible; and 'what 

 God has joined together let no man put asunder/ I know 

 that an old Scotch philosopher afid no class of philosophers 

 blend more hard sense with their incomprehensible meta- 

 physics has said that the root of all happiness lies in 'a 

 clear conscience and open bowels.' So far as that aphorism 

 goes it is incontestably sound and profoundly sensible. But 

 there is a link missing. I insist that however clear and 

 clean one^may keep his conscience, and however regularly 

 the complicated machinery of his 'fearfully and wonder- 

 fully made" system may do its office, it is impossible that he 

 should ever be qualified for the highest good or reach the 

 highest possible pinnacle of earthly felicity, unless he has 

 the contemplative mind, the gentle spirit, the poetic taste, 

 the quiet habit and the sturdy common sense of the man 



