Scrip For Your Pilgrimage

( Originally Published 1922 )

CULTIVATE joy in your life and in your work. For indeed when you think of it, over-seriousness is the bane of art as of life. Nothing in art was ever done well that was not a joy in its conception. Travail the artist must, but in gladness. So of the perfect lyrist, we read that his song is a rapture poured forth from a heart that can never grow old.

ALEXANDRE DUMAS, the greatest master of narrative fiction that has ever lived, toiled all day and every day, laughing like Gargantua at the birth of his son; and sometimes weeping, too, over his own pathos. Ah, what would not one have given for the privilege of climbing the stairs stealthily to watch the merry giant at his task! Do you wonder that this rejoicing faculty furnished for many years the chief entertainment of Europe? I should not care much for a writer incapable of being moved as Dumas was moved.

HAPPY the man who is wise enough to say, "Nay, Nay," and sidestep the Sphinx.

WHEN I come to die, I know my keenest regret will be that I suffered myself to be annoyed by a lot of small people and picayune worries, wasting God's good time with both.

MANY a man pretending to swallow the ass of Balaam of Beor has his way through life made easy for him. When will Stupidity cease to lay cushions for the feet of Hypocrisy?

THE wounds of self bleed always and will not be forgiven.

I NEED not write to my dear friend, for my heart talks to him every day over the miles. In this way, too, I tell him only the things I wish to tell him, and so have nothing to change or recall after the letter is sealed and sent. I was not always so wise.

THE better is enemy of the good, said William Morris. Do your stint to-day and let it go for what it is worth. All days are ranked equal in God's fair time. You can not steal from to-day to give unto to-morrow, nor play at loaded dice with the Fates.

TO move forward constantly in a straight line, without capitulation or compromise, has never been granted to any man born of woman. The white flags of truce flutter from every citadel.

IF your friend were to show you his whole mind, you could not breathe the same air with him. Never forget that the closest friendship is only a truce.

SHOW your strength to the world, but be-ware how you betray your weakness, even to your dearest friend.

YOUR purpose遥our purpose !溶ever for-get that. I read an immense novel of Balzac's lately, and the one thing that has remained with me from it is this: "Can you go to sleep every night with one fixed purpose in mind and strengthen in it from day to day?" That is the question which every man must put to him-self, and as he shall answer it, so shall be his success or failure.

THE Talmud says : "There are three whose life is no life,--the Sympathetic man, the Irascible, and the Melancholy". What chance for the unfortunate who is all three in one?

THE most obscure genius has consolations that outweigh the blazon of triumphant mediocrity.

IF it were not for this haunting distrust of self, this recurrent sinking of the heart, how easy the task would be!

CHOOSE with fear and trembling the hand from which you shall accept benefits.

A MAN may boast that he can judge himself as harshly as another, but he makes no mistake in passing sentence.

I AM thankful for your praise and I bow the neck to your censure; but I have that within which cheers more than the one and chastens more than the other.

THERE is hardly anything in the world you may not have if you can only make people believe that you accept them at their own valuation.

DO not fear the man who is quick to show his anger: the deadliest antipathies I have ever known were hidden in a smiling eye and a cordial hand-clasp.

THE conspiracy of authority, the conspiracy of wealth, the conspiracy of superstition and ignorance,葉hese are the forces that rule the world.

SANE persons will not expect to find absolute perfection in Heaven葉here as here the charm of a little discontent, the satisfaction of turning up a small grievance, will not be denied us.

THE vice of the Pharisee is in believing that he is not like unto other men. The virtue of a man who knows himself a sinner is in believing that other men are not like unto himself.

THAT which was lately power is now impotence, but wait! it will soon be power again.

IT is something to have lived for the things of the mind, even though we have missed what the world calls wealth or success葉hose at least shall not be taken from us.

REVISE and revise and revise葉he best thought will still come after the printer has snatched away the copy.

BALZAC laid the world under the greatest obligation of any modern man of letters, and was driven into an untimely grave by the spectre of debt. The highest service is always martyrdom.

A LEARNED young German philosopher, Dr. Otto Weininger, pronounced the most acute mind since Kant, not long ago solved the great problem of sex and then killed himself. What else was there for him to do?

EVERY little while it is announced that some scientist has pinned down the secret of life, but always the learned man has fooled himself. God will not be put into a chemical formula.

THOU art eager to be in company and de-lightest in the conversation of thy friends, yet thou hast a better friend than any of these who constantly solicit thee and whom thou wilt seldom hear葉hy soul !