And I Must Bear What Is Ordained

A Good Neighbor Sometimes Cuts Your Morning Up To Mince-meat Of The Very Smallest Talk, Then Helps To Sugar Her Bohea At Night With Your Reputation.

The Sweetest Lives Are Those To Duty Wed, Whose Deeds, Both Great And Small Are Close-knot Strands Of An Unbroken Thread There Love Ennobles All. The World May Sound No Trumpets, Ring No Bells The Book Of Life The Shining Record Tells. Thy Love Shall Chant Its Own Beatitudes After Its Own Life-workings. A Child's Kiss Set On Thy Sighing Lips Shall Make Thee Glad; A Poor Man Served By Thee Shall Make Thee Rich; A Sick Man Helped By Thee Shall Make Thee Strong; Thou Shalt Serve Thyself By Every Sense, Of Service Which Thou Renderest.

There's Nothing Great Nor Small, Has Said A Poet Of Our Day, Whose Voice Will Ring Beyond The Curfew Of Eve And Not Be Thrown Out By The Matin's Bell.

I Have Done Most Of My Talking By Post Of Late Years--as People Shut Up In Dungeons Take Up With Scrawling Mottoes On The Walls.

Of Writing Many Books There Is No End; And I Who Have Written Much In Prose And Verse For Others' Uses, Will Write Now For Mine,- Will Write My Story For My Better Self, As When You Paint Your Portrait For A Friend, Who Keeps It In A Drawer And Looks At It Long After He Has Ceased To Love You, Just To Hold Together What He Was And Is.