"No, sir, I should say you didn't! Yet you come into this car and force yourself upon the attention of a stranger and begin to talk about the weather just as though you owned it, and I find you don't know a solitary thing about the matter you yourself selected for a topic of conversation. You don't know one thing about meteorological conditions, principles, or phenomena; you can't tell me why it is warm in August and cold in December; you don't know why icicles form faster in the sunlight than they do in the shade; you don't know why the earth grows colder as it comes nearer the sun; you can't tell why a man can be sun-struck in the shade; you can't tell me how a cyclone is formed nor how the trade winds blow; you couldn't find the calm-center of a storm if your life depended on it; you don't know what a sirocco is nor where the south-west monsoon blows; you don't know the average rain-fall in the United States for the past and current year; you don't know why the wind dries up the ground more quickly than a hot sun; you don't know why the dew falls at night and dries up in the day; you can't explain the formation of fog; you don't know one solitary thing about the weather and you are just like a thousand and one other people who always begin talking about the weather because they don't know anything else, when by the Aurora Borealis, they know less about the weather than they do about anything else in the world, sir!" "The Weather Fiend." ANON. SIMPLICITY Simplicity is characteristic of all great art. In oratory it has taken the place of the bombast and artificial method of former times, while in dramatic art it has superseded the "old school" style of ranting and wild gesticulation. Charles Wagner acknowledges the difficulty in adequately describing this quality and despairs of ever doing so in any worthy fashion. "All the strength of the world and all its beauty," he says, "all true joy, everything that con soles, that feeds hope, or throws a ray of light along our dark paths, everything that makes us see across our poor lives a splendid goal and a boundless future, comes to us from people of simplicity, those who have made another object of their desires than the passing satisfaction of selfishness and vanity; and have understood that the art of living is to know how to give one's life." Simplicity does not mean repression, but the intelligent use of all the forces of expression in sincere, direct, and spontaneous effort. If the student earnestly seeks the truth and his thinking is genuine, the expression will be free from affectation and unnaturalness. The following examples are selected for this quality of simplicity: EXAMPLES 1. A certain nobleman had a spacious garden which he left to the care of a faithful servant, whose delight it was to trail the creepers along the trellis, to water the seeds in time of drought, to support the stalks of the tender plants, and to do every work which could render the garden a paradise of flowers. One morning the servant rose with joy, expecting to tend his beloved flowers, and hoping to find his favorites increased in beauty. To his surprise, he found one of his choicest beauties rent from the stem. Full of grief and anger, he hurried to his fellow servants and demanded who had robbed him of his treasure. They had not done it, and he did not charge them with it, but he found no solace for his grief till one of them remarked, "My lord was walking in the garden this morning, and I saw him pluck the flower and carry it away." Then, truly, the gardener found he had no cause for his trouble. He felt that it was well his master had been pleased to take his own; and he went away smiling at his loss, because his lord had taken delight in the flowers. "Funeral Sermon." SPURGEON. 2. Be simple, unaffected; be honest in your speaking and writing. Never use a long word when a short one will do. Do not call a spade a well-known oblong instrument of manual industry; let a house be a house, not a residence; a place a place, not a locality, and so of the rest. Where a short word will do, you always lose by using a long one. You lose in clearness, you lose in honest expression of your meaning; and in the estimation of all men who are competent to judge, you lose in reputation for ability. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 3. A spindle of hazelwood had I; Into the mill-stream it fell one day- Let my mother be told in the village there, That they must pray with folded hands, The soldier is dead-and with folded hands, On the field of battle they dug his grave, The sun looked down on him there and spake: And flowers bloomed thickly upon his grave, "Not so, my hero," the wind replied, "The fight is done, but the banner won, Thy comrades of old have borne it hence, Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave: And again he heard the shepherds pass Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave: Then he heareth the lovers, laughing, pass, "Are these not the voices of them that love, "Not so, my hero," the lovers say, "We are those that remember not; For the spring has come and the earth has smiled, Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave: A spindle of hazelwood had 1; Into the mill-stream it fell one day The water has brought it me back no more. "Bard of Dimbovitza." Translated by CARMEN SYLVA. 4. He faced his audience with a tranquil mien, and a beaming aspect that was never dimmed. He spoke, and in the measured cadence of his quiet voice there was intense feeling, but no declamation, no passionate appeal, no superficial and feigned emotion. It was simple colloquy-a gentleman conversing. How was it done? Ah! how did Mozart do it-how Raphael? The secret of the rose's sweetness, of the bird's ecstasy, of the sunset's glory—that is the secret of genius and eloquence. What was heard, what was seen, was the form of noble manhood, the courteous and self-possessed tone, the flow of modulated speech, sparkling with matchless richness of illustration, with apt allu sion, and happy anecdote, and historic parallel, with wit and pitiless invective, with melodious pathos, with stinging satire, with crackling epigram, and limpid humor, like the bright ripples that play around the sure and steady prow of the resistless ship. Like an illuminated vase of odors, he glowed with concentrated and perfumed fire. The divine energy of his conviction utterly possessed him, and his "Pure and eloquent blood Spoke in his cheek, and so distinctly wrought, That one might almost say his body thought." Was it Pericles swaying the Athenian multitude? Was it Apollo breathing the music of the morning from his lips? It was an American patriot, a modern son of liberty, with a soul as firm and as true as was ever consecrated to unselfish duty, pleading with the American conscience for the chained and speechless victims of American inhumanity. "Wendell Phillips." GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 5. Now Love is the remedy, the great sweetener of the mind and body. It produces harmony, and harmony is equilibriumhealth. This must first be established in the mind through belief and trust in the Infinite Love, and Omnipresent Good, then the practise of love and self-forgetfulness toward others. If we would attract love to ourselves, we must feel it for others, and make ourselves lovable; and that should be our whole concern, to love more and more, and think less and less of self; then we will grow sweet and wholesome, and fragrant as a flower. The blood will be pure and rich, and filled with vitality, and, in short, all things will become new, for the former things will have passed away. "Spiritual Realizations." FLORENCE WILLARD DAY. 6. And seeing the multitudes, he went up into the mountain : and when he had sat down, his disciples came unto him: and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, |