’Tis an odd old world, this of ours that is round like an orange, and slightly flattened at the poles. It drives not well, and it hath but moderate fondness for gall. Why, then, seek to drive it? Why harass it with the hurtful attrition of gall-dippen pens? For in truth, its small love for gall is yet greater than its use therefor. It needs not that we should make it smart. ’Tis smart enough, and clever enough, already, towering the hearts of the angels, and affording a spectacle for the little fishes. Application of gall will not help it. Rightly used, a little may ease thy own jaundice, but in thy ink it erodes the pen that uses it. Are we vexed at the follies of the round old world? Is our taste offended by the unripe things written and painted and sung by those who are not perfect as we are? We ought to consider the words of the gentle stoic: “For it is natural that these things should be done by such persons. It is a matter of necessity, and if a man will not have it so he will not allow the fig-tree to have juice.” To what end do we Philistines write? Is it not because we are seeking after the truth? Is it not for the expression of that which to us seems beautiful and helpful and desirable to be in the world? And for what, let us suppose, do the armies of the aliens put pen to paper? Is it not for the same end? And if they see not purely, do we then hope to clarify their vision with gall? Rather we ought not to thwart them in the pursuit of that which seems to them excellent and worthy of effort. It is unphilosophic, and in contravention to the scientific spirit, to deny others the right which we claim for ourselves. We ought rather to do the thing which to us seems lovely, and let that protest, for us, against unloveliness, by its life and realty—the only effectual protest this world has ever known. Already there is too much of strife, too much of denial in the world. Nature argues the questioning life in the affirmative, for well she knows, the ancient wise one, that denial is deadly. “I believe” is the password into the secret places of good. The single vision, that sees truest, the simple heart, that loves it; the direct thought that sends it forth to bless—the world needs these more than that we should camp upon its trail with gall in our ink and our pens tipped with bitterness. Gall can never fill a vacuum. “If you don’t want a boy to do that,” said a wise teacher (putting thumb to nose), “teach him something prettier.” This, then, must we do for this hulking schoolboy world of ours; the half-grown, growing world, that knows enough to recognize that gall is neither good nor beautiful, yet sees not that the thing it does is, as well, unlovely.