The Wisest Man Could Ask No More

There Is No Better Ballast For Keeping The Mind Steady On Its Keel, And Saving It From All Risk Of Crankiness, Than Business.

Truth Is Quite Beyond The Reach Of Satire. There Is So Brave A Simplicity In Her That She Can No More Be Made Ridiculous Than An Oak Or A Pine.

What Means This Glory Round Our Feet, The Magi Mused, "more Bright Than Morn!" And Voices Chanted Clear And Sweet, "to-day The Prince Of Peace Is Born.

He Who Esteems The Virginia Reel A Bait To Draw Saints From Their Spiritual Weal, And Regards The Quadrille As A Far Greater Knavery Than Crushing His African Children With Slavery, Since All Who Take Part In A Waltz Or Cotillon Are Mounted For Hell On The Devil's Own Pillion, Who, As Every True Orthodox Christian Well Knows, Approaches The Heart Through The Door Of The Toes.

The Realm Of Death Seems An Enemy's Country To Most Men, On Whose Shores They Are Loathly Driven By Stress Of Weather; To The Wise Man It Is The Desired Port Where He Moors His Bark Gladly, As In Some Quiet Haven Of The Fortunate Isles; It Is The Golden West Into Which His Sun Sinks, And, Sinking, Casts Back A Glory Upon The Leaden Cloud-tack Which Had Darkly Besieged His Day.