ere matter of
what to do with arms and legs. Poise is a question of spirit controlling
flesh, heart controlling attitude. And so in the cultivation of Poise it
is well to begin quite aways back. Let perfect love cast out fear; get rid
of all secrets; have nothing in your heart to conceal; be gentle,
generous, kind; do not bother to forgive your enemies--it is better to
forget them, and cease conjuring them forth from your inner consciousness.
The idea that you have enemies is egotism gone to seed. Get Knowledge by
coming close to Nature, listening to her heart-beats, studying her ways.
And let your heart go out to humanity by a desire to serve.

That man is 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 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 knows that we retain spiritual
qualities only as we give them away. Let your light shine. To him that
hath shall be given. The exercise of wisdom brings wisdom; and at the
last the infinitesimal quantity of man's knowledge, compared with the
Infinite, and the meagerness of man's Sympathy when compared with the
source from which ours is absorbed, will evolve an abnegation and a
humility that will lend a perfect Poise. The Gentleman is a man with
Sympathy, Knowledge and Poise; and as I sit here in this quiet corner,
Joseph Addison seems to me to fit the requirements a little better than
any other name I can recall.

* * * * *

Born into a family where economy was a necessity, yet Addison had every
advantage that good breeding and thorough tutorship could give.

At Charterhouse School he won the affection of his teachers by his earnest
wish to comply. The receptive spirit and the desire to please were his by
inheritance. When fifteen he went to Queen's College, Oxford, where,
within a year, his beauty, good nature and intelligence made his presence
felt.

In another year he was elected a scholar at Magdalen College, his
recommendation being his skill in Latin versification.

It was the hope and expectation of his parents that he should become a
clergyman and follow in his father's footsteps. This also seems to have
been the bent of the young man's mind. But the grace of his personality,
his obliging disposition, with a sort