expended for eggs and
bacon.
I'd like to have in my world a liberal sprinkling of stars, for when
I am looking at stars I get away from sordid things, for a time, and
get my soul renovated. I think St. Paul must have been associating
with starry space just before he wrote the last two verses of that
eighth chapter of Romans. I can't see how he could have written such
mighty thoughts if he had been dwelling upon clothes or symptoms.
The reading of a patent-medicine circular is not specially conducive
to thoughts of infinity. So I like, in my meditations, to take trips
from star to star, and from planet to planet. I like to wonder
whether these planets were rightly named--whether Venus is as
beautiful as the name implies, and whether the Martians are really
disciples of the warlike Mars. I like to drift along upon the canals
on the planet Mars, with heroic Martians plying the oars. I have
great fun on such spatial excursions, and am glad that I ever annexed
these planets to my world. I can take these stellar companions with
me to my potato-patch, and they help the day along.
I want pictures in my world, too, and statues; for they show me the
hearts of the artists, and that is a sort of baptism. Sometimes I
grow a bit impatient to see how slowly some work of mine proceeds.
Then I think of Ghiberti, who worked for forty-two years on the
bronze doors of the Baptistry there in Florence, which Michael Angelo
declared to be worthy of paradise. Then I reflect that it was worth
a lifetime of work to win the praise of such as Angelo. This
reflection calms me, and I plod on more serenely, glad of the fact
that I can count Ghiberti and the bronze doors as a part of my world.
When I can have Titian, Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del
Sarto, Raphael, and Rosa Bonheur around, I feel that I have good
company and must be on my good behavior. If Corot, Reynolds,
Leighton, Watts, and Landseer should be banished from my world I'd
feel that I had suffered a great loss. I like to hobnob with such
folks as these, both for my own pleasure and also for the reputation
I gain through such associations.
I must have people in my world, also, or it wouldn't be much of a
world. And I must be careful in my selection of people, if I am to
achieve any distinction as a world builder. I just can't leave
Cordelia out, for she helps to make my world luminous. But she must
have companions; so I shall select Antigone, Evangeline, Mi
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