But Knowledge must go with Sympathy, else the emotions will become maudlin and pity may be wasted on a poodle instead of a child; on a field-mouse instead of a human soul.  Knowledge in use is wisdom, and wisdom implies a sense of values—­you know a big thing from a little one, a valuable fact from a trivial one.  Tragedy and comedy are simply questions of value:  a little misfit in life makes us laugh, a great one is tragedy and cause for expression of grief.

Poise is the strength of body and strength of mind to control your Sympathy and your Knowledge.  Unless you control your emotions they run over and you stand in the mire.  Sympathy must not run riot, or it is valueless and tokens weakness instead of strength.  In every hospital for nervous disorders are to be found many instances of this loss of control.  The individual has Sympathy but not Poise, and therefore his life is worthless to himself and to the world.

He symbols inefficiency and not helpfulness.  Poise reveals itself more in voice than it does in words; more in thought than in action; more in atmosphere than in conscious life.  It is a spiritual quality, and is felt more than it is seen.  It is not a matter of bodily size, nor of bodily attitude, nor attire, nor of personal comeliness:  it is a state of inward being, and of knowing your cause is just.  And so you see it is a great and profound subject after all, great in its ramifications, limitless in extent, implying the entire science of right living.  I once met a man who was deformed in body and little more than a dwarf, but who had such Spiritual Gravity—­such Poise—­that to enter a room where he was, was to feel his presence and acknowledge his superiority.  To allow Sympathy to waste itself on unworthy objects is to deplete one’s life forces.  To conserve is the part of wisdom, and reserve is a necessary element in all good literature, as well as in everything else.

Poise being the control of our Sympathy and Knowledge, it implies a possession of these attributes, for without having Sympathy and Knowledge you have nothing to control but your physical body.  To practise Poise as a mere gymnastic exercise, or study in etiquette, is to be self-conscious, stiff, preposterous and ridiculous.  Those who cut such fantastic tricks before high heaven as make angels weep, are men void of Sympathy and Knowledge trying to cultivate Poise.  Their science is a mere matter of what to do with arms and legs.  Poise is a question of spirit controlling flesh, heart controlling attitude.

Get Knowledge by coming close to Nature.  That man is the greatest who best serves his kind.  Sympathy and Knowledge are for use—­you acquire that you may give out; you accumulate that you may bestow.  And as God has given unto you the sublime blessings of Sympathy and Knowledge, there will come to you the wish to reveal your gratitude by giving them out again; for the wise man is aware that we retain spiritual qualities only as we give them away.