These Bright Roofs, These Steep Towers, These

... Not Only Is Life Put In New Patterns From The Air, But It Is Somehow Arrested, Frozen Into Form. (the Leaping Hare Is Caught In A Marble Panel.) A Glaze Is Put Over Life. There Is No Flaw, No Crack In The Surface; A Still Reservoir, No Ripple On Its Face. Looking Down From The Air That Morning, I Felt That Stillness Rested Like A Light Over The Earth. The Waterfalls Seemed Frozen Solid; The Tops Of The Trees Were Still; The River Hardly Stirred, A Serpent Gently Moving Under Its Shimmering Skin.

Certain Environments, Certain Modes Of Life, And Certain Rules Of Conduct Are More Conducive To Inner And Outer Harmony Than Others. There Are, In Fact, Certain Roads That One May Follow. Simplification Is One Of Them.

The Signs That Presage Growth, So Similar, It Seems To Me, To Those In Early Adolescence: Discontent, Restlessness, Doubt, Despair, Longing, Are Interpreted Falsely As Signs Of Decay. In Youth One Does Not As Often Misinterpret The Signs; One Accepts Them, Quite Rightly, As Growing Pains. One Takes Them Seriously, Listens To Them, Follows Where They Lead. ... But In The Middle Age, Because Of The False Assumption That It Is A Period Of Decline, One Interprets These Life-signs, Paradoxically, As Signs Of Approaching Death.

Only In Growth, Reform, And Change, Paradoxically Enough, Is True Security To Be Found.

If One Talks To More Than Four People, It Is An Audience; And One Cannot Really Think Or Exchange Thoughts With An Audience.