brothers
meet on the threshold of a new day, and interchange--blank silence? I
admit, there is no variety in the words,--they are stale, they have been
repeated a thousand times over. But it is the heartiness we put into
them which gives them their value, and I am sure that you, with all your
objections to the form of greeting, would find the world many shades
more dreary, were _no_ such forms to welcome us with the rising sun. For
myself I can truly say, that, many and many a time, this morning
salutation, spoken out with a generous fulness, and not with that
grudging curtness which sometimes distinguishes it, has touched my heart
as with a happy prophecy which the day was sure to fulfil. As to the
dreadfully threadbare topic of the weather, I must confess I often hear
it to satiety; but that is when it ceases to be the mere prelude to the
dialogue, and occupies one's whole talk. In itself you cannot deny that
it is natural and proper enough to invite another's sympathy in a
subject which so nearly concerns the physical, if not the moral
well-being of most of us. "What a glorious day we have!" when
interpreted rationally, means nothing less than this,--"Come, let us
enjoy together the lavish bounty of the Creator!" We may be sensible of
a new and purer joy for such an appeal. Already we were glad to have the
sun shine so brightly; but it seems doubly bright now that our friend
has invited us to share his joy. Does it seem to you superfluous,
perhaps, to give utterance to a thought which is obviously already in
the mind of your companion? Well, let us try this by some familiar test.
You have just gone among the mountains to spend a few weeks with an
agreeable company. You wake in the morning and find yourself in the
midst of a most majestic spectacle. At the very door of the farm-house
where you have taken lodgings, your eyes travel upward five thousand
feet to admire that cloud-piercing summit which stands there to give you
the welcome of the morning. As you watch its coursing shadows and all
its wondrous variety of beauty and grandeur, have you nothing to say to
the friend who has come with you there to see it all? What would be more
unnatural than to repress all words or tokens of admiration,--to meet
your friend day after day and interchange no word of recognition amid
such scenes? I know that he who feels most in the presence of these
sublimities will often say least. But because it is impossible to give
expression