That Was A Judicious Mother Who Said,

Living Is Death; Dying Is Life. We Are Not What We Appear To Be. On This Side Of The Grave We Are Exiles, On That Citizens; On This Side Orphans, On That Children.

There Is A Dew In One Flower And Not In Another, Because One Opens In Cup And Takes It In, While The Other Closes Itself, And The Drops Run Off. God Rains His Goodness And Mercy As Widespread As The Dew, And If We Lack Them, It Is Because We Will Not Open Our Hearts To Receive Them.

Men Strengthen Each Other In Their Faults. Those Who Are Alike Associate Together, Repeat The Things Which All Believe, Defend And Stimulate Their Common Faults Of Disposition, And Each One Receives From The Others A Reflection Of His Own Egotism.

Mirthfulness Is In The Mind, And You Cannot Get It Out. It Is The Blessed Spirit That God Has Set In The Mind To Dust It, To Enliven Its Dark Places, And To Drive Asceticism, Like A Foul Fiend, Out At The Back Door. It Is Just As Good, In Its Place, As Conscience Or Veneration. Praying Can No More Be Made A Substitute For Smiling Than Smiling Can For Praying.

Our Yearnings Are Homesicknesses For Heaven; Our Sighings Are For God, Just As Children That Cry Themselves Asleep Away From Home, And Sob In Their Slumber, Know Not That They Sob For Their Parents. The Soul's Inarticulate Moanings Are The Affections Yearning For The Infinite, And Having No One To Tell Them What It Is That Ails Them.