es 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
capacity for destroying things; they can destroy anything. They have even
invented a phrase for it--running a thing into the ground. They have
perfected the art of making so much of a thing as to kill it; they can
magnify a man or a recreation or an institution to death. And they do it
with such a hearty good-will and enjoyment. Their motto is that you
cannot have too much of a good thing. They have almost made funerals
unpopular by over-elaboration and display, especially what are called
public funerals, in which an effort is made to confer great distinction
on the dead. So far has it been carried often that there has been a
reaction of popular sentiment and people have wished the man were alive.
We prosecute everything so vigorously that we speedily either wear it out
or wear ourselves out on it, whether it is a game, or a festival, or a
holiday. We can use up any sport or game ever invented quicker than any
other people. We can practice anything, like a vegetable diet, for
instance, to an absurd conclusion with more vim than any other nation