90 EIVERBY 



friend," when, lo! the mask falls, and the angel is 

 disclosed. Certain rare spirits in this world have 

 accepted poverty with such love and pride that 

 riches at once became contemptible. 



My correspondent has the gift of observation. In 

 renouncing self, she has opened the door for many 

 other things to enter. In cultivating the present 

 moment, she cultivates the present incident. The 

 power to see things comes of that mental attitude 

 which is directed to the now and the here : keen, 

 alert perceptions, those faculties that lead the mind 

 and take the incident as it flies. Most people fail 

 to see things, because the print is too small for their 

 vision; they read only the large-lettered events like 

 the newspaper headings, and are apt to miss a part 

 of these, unless they see in some way their own 

 initials there. 



The small type of the lives of bird and beast 

 about her is easily read by this cheerful invalid. 

 "To understand that the sky is everywhere blue," 

 says Goethe, "we need not go around the world;" 

 and it would seem that this woman has got all the 

 good and pleasure there is in natural history from 

 the pets in her room, and the birds that build before 

 her window. I had been for a long time trying to 

 determine whether or not the blue jay hoarded up 

 nuts for winter use, but had not been able to settle 

 the point. I applied to her, and, sitting by her win- 

 dow, she discovered that jays do indeed hoard food in 

 a tentative, childish kind of way, but not with the 

 cunning and provident foresight of the squirrels and 



