Its life, in time, is a perpetual advance in all that is gracious and intelligent,--a steady ripening for eternity,--and its death is but a birth into a fuller and more perfect life. In Conversation, complexity adapts itself artfully to others, in order to gratify its own selfishness. It humors the selfishness and whims of those to whom it speaks, in order to gain consideration from them, or to make use of them in some way for its own advancement. Simplicity, on the contrary, adapts itself artlessly to others, because it is full of charity; and therefore desires to make others happy. Its words are the overflow of genial thought and kindly affection; and all hearts that hold aught in common with it open and expand before its influences as plants start at the touch of spring. It is not so much the words uttered that produce this effect, as the pleasant and kindly way in which they are said; for this throws a grace and an attractive charm about the most commonplace objects of its Conversation. Intellectual brilliancy in Conversation dazzles and delights the imagination; but it does not touch the heart. Simplicity, on the contrary, always impresses itself upon our feelings with a power that is all the more strong because we cannot analyze it by our intellect. We talk with a person of simplicity about the common occurrences of the day, and find ourselves, we know not why, more gentle, refined, and happy than we were before. We are refreshed as by drinking from a pure and undefiled fountain of sweet waters; refreshed as mere intellectual power cannot refresh us; refreshed as no book can refresh us. There is a harmonious completeness in the whole being of simplicity, a directness and honesty in all it says and does, "a grace beyond the reach of art," in all its manifestations more potent, because more internal in its effects, than anything can ever be that is born merely of the intellect. There is no affectation, no straining for effect in simplicity. All is natural and genuine with it. Its wit is never forced, its wisdom is never stilted; nor is either ever dragged in for mere display. With the simple, Conversation is like a brook flowing through a beautiful country, and reflecting the varied scenes through which it passes in all their grace and beauty.