The Value of Simplicity

Excerpt from The Value of Simplicity

We are living in an age of show and splendour. The ambitions of society have grown with its achievements, and a spirit of excess has come to prevail among us which is likely to bring with it a deterioration of public taste and sentiment. There is need to bring to our remembrance the examples of a life less cumbered with exaggeration than that of our own time. If our Republic is to continue, we who form it must be republican in our judgment and feeling. Neither the manly nor the womanly virtues will thrive in an atmosphere that breeds perpetual unrest.

We, children of the Puritans, are surely not altogether made for a career of fuss and feathers. Our living must come out of the plain earth. Our spiritual growth is maintained by certain vital principles, which cannot be discerned in the excitement of perpetual pleasure-seeking.

In order to ascertain where we stand and whither we tend, we must put aside the show and glitter of mere frivolity, and give ourselves room and leisure for the lessons of deeper thought.

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