ing a just and proper view, and living a
sane life, I would say, climb a tree occasionally, and hoot like an owl
and caw like a crow; stand on your head and yell at times like a
Comanche.

Robert Louis Stevenson says, "A man who has not had the courage to make
a fool of himself has not lived."

The man who does not relax and hoot a few hoots voluntarily, now and
then, is in great danger of hooting hoots and standing on his head for
the edification of the pathologist and trained nurse, a little later on.

The madhouse yawns for the person who always does the proper thing.
Impropriety, in right proportion, relieves congestion, and thus are the
unities preserved. And so here the great Law of Compensation, invented
by Ralph Waldo Emerson, comes in: The sane, healthy man, who
occasionally strips off his dignity and hoots like an owl, or rolls
naked in the snow, will surely be called insane by the self-nominated
elect, but his personal compensation lies in the fact that he knows he
is not.

* * * * *

And now look upon the face of this man! Even so, and upon every face is
written the record of the life the man has led: the loves that were his,
the thoughts, the prayers, the aspirations, the disappointments, all he
hoped to be and was not--all are written there--nothing is hidden, nor
can it be. Here was one born in poverty, nurtured in adversity, and yet
uplifted and sustained by homely friendships and rugged companions who
dumbly guessed the latent greatness of their charge.

With soul athirst he sought for truth, and stubbornly groped his way
alone. Immediate precedent stood to him for little, and his sincerity
and honesty made him the butt of mob and rabble. His ambition to be
himself, to live his life, the desire to express his honest thought, led
straight to deprivation of bread and shelter. He had too much sympathy,
his honesty was not tempered by the graces of a diplomat--a price was
placed upon his head. By the help of that one noble friend, whose love
upheld him to the last, he escaped to a country where freedom of speech
is not a byword. But misunderstanding followed close upon his footsteps,
even his wife doubted his sanity, mistaking his genius for folly, and
died undeceived. Calumny, hate, brutal criticism, the contempt of the
so-called learned class--and all the train of woe that want and debt can
bring to bear were his lot and portion.

Still he struggled on, refusing to c