It Is Time To Be Old To

I Remember An Answer Which When Quite Young I Was Prompted To Make A Valued Adviser Who Was Wont To Importune Me With The Dear Old Doctrines Of The Church. On My Saying, What Have I To Do With The Sacredness Of Traditions, If I Live Wholly From Within? My Friend Suggested, - "but These Impulses May Be From Below, Not From Above." I Replied, 'they Do Not Seem To Me To Be Such; But If I Am The Devil's Child, I Will Live Then From The Devil.'

I Do Not Wish To Please Him; I Wish That He Should Wish To Please Me.

Pride Can Go Without Domestics, Without Fine Clothes, Can Live In A House With Two Rooms, Can Eat Potato, Purslain, Beans, Lyed Corn, Can Work On The Soil, Can Travel Afoot, Can Talk With Poor Men, Or Sit Silent Well Contented With Fine Saloons. But Vanity Costs Money, Labor, Horses, Men, Women, Health And Peace, And Is Still Nothing At Last; A Long Way Leading Nowhere.--only One Drawback; Proud People Are Intolerably Selfish, And The Vain Are Gentle And Giving.

The Trail Of The Serpent Reaches Into All The Lucrative Professions And Practices Of Man. Each Has Its Own Wrongs. Each Finds A Tender And Very Intelligent Conscience A Disqualification For Success. Each Requires Of The Practitioner A Certain Shutting Of The Eyes, A Certain Dapperness And Compliance, An Acceptance Of Customs, A Sequestration From The Sentiments Of Generosity And Love, A Compromise Of Private Opinion And Lofty Integrity.

There Comes A Period Of The Imagination To Each--a Later Youth--the Power Of Beauty, The Power Of Looks, Of Poetry.