For all you can hold in your dead, cold hand, Is what you have given away.
I now wish to radiate my belief in the enlargement of that idea as stated above. Even knowledge can give no real satisfaction unless shared, given to others; the joy of a picture owned is lost unless others can enjoy with you. In other words, the possession of anything _for self alone_ is destructive of happiness. One learns slowly but surely that even in these things of the mind and the soul:
That man who lives for self alone Lives for the meanest mortal known.
Life is made up of extremes and everything that comes between them. There is the North Pole and there is the South Pole. There is the heat of the fiery furnace and the cold of the Arctic Zone. There is the height of heaven and the depth of hell; the voice of the thunder and the whisper of the gentle zephyr.
Man is a singular being. He is as diverse as is the manifold face of Nature upon which he gazes. His likes and dislikes are many and varied. Men of equal intelligence and equal powers differ in their ways of looking at the same thing. The poet Browning effectively states this when he says:
Ten men love what I hate, Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match mine.
In the face of such facts one is compelled to the conclusion that personal idiosyncrasy or individual preference alone can decide what it wants, needs, and must have, in this large diversity that is offered it.
The fact that ten men who have equal powers of observation and reflection as myself love the things that I hate, and reject the things that I receive, has absolutely no influence in deciding me in regard to the things that I hate and receive, any more than the fact that I hate and receive things to which they have the antagonistic feeling influences them; hence it is useless for me to attempt to enforce my likings and antipathies upon others, even as it is useless for them to attempt to force theirs upon me.
So I have been led to accept the philosophy, which I wish to radiate to all men, that it appears to me the Divine Wisdom has provided for these personal idiosyncrasies of human nature by giving to us the extremes of things with everything that lies between. So, regardless of my own preference, I believe that the strong wind is as much a beneficent force of Nature as is the zephyr; the thundering cataract of Yosemite as the placid Mirror Lake; the avalanche as the snowflake; the thunder as the violet; the earthquake as the rippling rill; the blazing meteor as the Milky Way; the flaming sun-spots as the sparkling dewdrop; the fiery volcano as the quiet glowworm; the giant sequoia as the tiny forget-me-not; the thundering breakers of ocean as the gentle pattering raindrop; the fiery boiling geyser as the silently flowing fountain; the dazzling comet as the serene fixed star; the rugged Grand Canyon as the flower-besprinkled sward; the monster whale as the tiny gold-fish; the giant elephant as the timid mouse; the blaring trumpet as the soothing guitar; the startling kettle-drum as the smoothly flowing 'cello; the clanging cymbals as the seductive oboe.