melodious shepherd of the
undisputed, lead about vast flocks of sheep over the satisfying plain of
mediocrity? Was there ever a greater exhibition of power, while it
lasted? How long did "The Country Parson" feed an eager world with
rhetorical statements of that which it already knew? The thinner this
sort of thing is spread out, the more surface it covers, of course. What
is so captivating and popular as a book of essays which gathers together
and arranges a lot of facts out of histories and cyclopaedias, set forth
in the form of conversations that any one could have taken part in? Is
not this book pleasing because it is commonplace? And is this because we
do not like to be insulted with originality, or because in our experience
it is only the commonly accepted which is true? The statesman or the poet
who launches out unmindful of these conditions will be likely to come to
grief in her generation. Will not the wise novelist seek to encounter the
least intellectual resistance?

Should one take a cynical view of mankind because he perceives this great
power of the commonplace? Not at all. He should recognize and respect
this power. He may even say that it is this power that makes the world go
on as smoothly and contentedly as it does, on the whole. Woe to us, is
the thought of Carlyle, when a thinker is let loose in this world! He
becomes a cause of uneasiness, and a source of rage very often. But his
power is limited. He filters through a few minds, until gradually his
ideas become commonplace enough to be powerful. We draw our supply of
water from reservoirs, not from torrents. Probably the man who first said
that the line of rectitude corresponds with the line of enjoyment was
disliked as well as disbelieved. But how impressive now is the idea that
virtue and happiness are twins!

Perhaps it is true that the commonplace needs no defense, since everybody
takes it in as naturally as milk, and thrives on it. Beloved and read and
followed is the writer or the preacher of commonplace. But is not the
sunshine common, and the bloom of May? Why struggle with these things in
literature and in life? Why not settle down upon the formula that to be
platitudinous is to be happy?

THE BURDEN OF CHRISTMAS

It would be the pity of the world to destroy it, because it would be next
to impossible to make another holiday as good as Christmas. Perhaps there
is no danger, but the American people have developed an unexpected
capac