We have to pay a price for our good
qualities; and though I had rather be strong, affectionate, loyal,
noble-minded, than be the best humorist in the world, yet if a gift
of humour be added to these graces, you have a combination that is
absolutely irresistible, because you have a perfect sense of
proportion that never allows emotion to degenerate into gush, or
virtue into rigidity; and thus I say that humour is a kind of
divine and crowning grace in a character, because it means an
artistic sense of proportion, a true and vital tolerance, a power
of infinite forgiveness.
V
TRAVEL
There are many motives that impel us to travel, to change our sky,
as Horace calls it--good motives and bad, selfish and unselfish,
noble and ignoble. With some people it is pure restlessness; the
tedium of ordinary life weighs on them, and travel, they think,
will distract them; people travel for the sake of health, or for
business reasons, or to accompany some one else, or because other
people travel. And these motives are neither good nor bad, they are
simply sufficient.
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