A somewhat ecstatic utterance.  A trifle too exclamatory.  Perhaps.  You and I don’t end our letters like that. (Or do you?) More likely we say something about the weather down here being miserably cold (or damp, or dull, or changeable, or hot) and brave out the lie with “yours truly.”  But O for one little spark from the fire that shone in the soul of R.L.S.  Better to die young with a broken heart, if it were a heart as brave and gay as his, than beat Methuselah by means of a mincing, calculating, cold-blooded attention to irritating self-made little rules.

Oh yes, I know well the value of little rules.  And I know also that Nature offers us only two alternatives—­obedience or death (either sudden or slow).  But then Nature is something more than Mistress and Lawgiver.  She is Beauty.  And in that aspect, as in all other aspects, Nature is unescapable.  We turn our backs on her only to find her awaiting us at the next turn in the road.  Looking at the matter all round, I don’t think we can come to any other conclusion than that Nature (or whatever you like to call It, Her or Him) is aiming at beauty all the time.  So that we who are literally, if not figuratively, the children of Nature, had best do likewise.

Some mystic or other has said that man’s search for God is God’s search for man.  If he was right—­and I think he was—­it follows that man’s quest for beauty is Beauty invading life; and that the only healthy life worth the having is that which begins with “Lift up your hearts!” and issues in “a stately music.  Enter God.”

 EDGAR J. SAXON.

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 SEMPER FIDELIS.

     Do two things worth doing, every day. 
     Be scrupulously polite and kind, rather than witty or entertaining. 
     Cherish cleanliness, sobriety, frugality and contentment. 
     Cultivate sweetness of disposition and tranquillity of mind. 
     Think before speaking, and so reduce your causes of regret. 
     Seek peace and be peaceable for lis litem generat. 
     Begin at home, let home always find you faithfully on duty. 
     Care carefully for those whom Providence has entrusted to your care. 
     And the reward of the faithful will abundantly yours,
     And your heaven will go with you wherever you go.

 “A.R.”

 MORE HOLIDAY APHORISMS.

 Two’s company, three’s fun.

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 Levity is the bane of wit.

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 Braggers mustn’t be losers.

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 Never put on to-day what you can’t put on to-morrow.

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 It’s an ill mind that finds no one any good.

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 It’s no use crying over spilt milk:  you’re better without it.