You will not do your business better because you wear a long face
all the time; you will do it worse. If you are talking about your high
ideals all day you are not only a nuisance: you are either dishonest or
unbalanced. We are not creatures with wings. We are creatures who walk. We
have to "foot it" even to Mount Pisgah, and the more cheerful and jolly and
ordinary we are on the way the sooner we shall get over the journey. The
noblest Englishman that ever lived, and the most deeply serious, was as
full of innocent mirth as a child and laid his head down on the block with
a jest. Let us keep our course by the stars, by all means, but the
immediate tasks are much nearer than the stars--
The charities that soothe and heal and bless
Are scattered all about our feet--like flowers.
It is just this frightful gravity of the German mind that has made them
mad. They haven't learned to play; they haven't learned to laugh at
themselves. Their sombre religion has passed into a sombre irreligion. They
have grown gross without growing light-hearted.
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