Joseph Morris.

THICK IS THE DARKNESS

How many of us forget when the sun goes down that it will rise again!

  Thick is the darkness—­
    Sunward, O, sunward! 
  Rough is the highway—­
    Onward, still onward!

  Dawn harbors surely
    East of the shadows. 
  Facing us somewhere
    Spread the sweet meadows.

  Upward and forward! 
    Time will restore us: 
  Light is above us,
    Rest is before us.

William Ernest Henley.

THE BELLY AND THE MEMBERS

(ADAPTED FROM “CORIOLANUS”)

No doubt the world is cursed with grafters and parasites—­men who live off the body economic and give nothing substantial in return.  But an appearance of uselessness is not always proof of such.  We should not condemn men in ignorance.  As old as Aesop is the fable of the rebellion of the other members of the body against the idle unproductiveness of the belly.  In this passage the fable is used as an answer to the plebeians of Rome who have complained that the patricians are merely an encumbrance.

  There was a time when all the body’s members
  Rebelled against the belly; thus accused it: 
  That only like a gulf it did remain
  I’ the midst o’ the body, idle and unactive,
  Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing
  Like labor with the rest, where the other instruments
  Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,
  And, mutually participant, did minister
  Unto the appetite and affection common
  Of the whole body.  Note me this, good friend;
  Your most grave belly was deliberate,
  Not rash like his accusers, and thus answered: 
  “True is it, my incorporate friends,” quoth he,
  “That I receive the general food at first,
  Which you do live upon; and fit it is;
  Because I am the store-house and the shop
  Of the whole body:  but, if you do remember,
  I send it through the rivers of your blood,
  Even to the court, the heart, to the seat o’ the brain: 
  And, through the cranks and offices of man,
  The strongest nerves and small inferior veins
  From me receive that natural competency
  Whereby they live.  Though all at once cannot
  See what I do deliver out to each,
  Yet I can make my audit up, that all
  From me do back receive the flour of all,
  And leave me but the bran.”  What say you to ’t?

William Shakespeare.

THE CELESTIAL SURGEON

We may acquire the resolution to be happy by resting on a bed of roses.  If that fails us, we should try a bed of nettles.