In the complexity of our desires we
were slaves; but in their simplicity we become free. Complexity strives
perpetually after reputation, and is always advancing either in the
direction of servility or of arrogance, according as self-esteem or
the love of admiration predominate in the mind of the individual; and
advancing years find it ever deteriorating in all the best elements of
Character. Simplicity, on the contrary, deals with what is, and not with
what seems to be, and is ever seeking growth in goodness and truth;
and therefore each added year finds it growing in all the graces of
improving manhood or womanhood. Complexity grows old in mind no less
than in body. Its moral being is scarred and wrinkled by selfishness and
worldliness, and its intellect dried up and withered by narrow views and
unworthy aims. In its old age there is nothing genial or lovely, and in
its death one could almost believe that soul as well as body perishes.
Simplicity improves in mind as it grows old in body. There are no
wrinkles on the brow of its sunny spirit; there is no withering of its
intellect. Its life, in time, is a perpetual advance in all that is
gracious and intelligent,--a steady ripening for eternity,--and its
death is but a birth into a fuller and more perfect life.
In Conversation, complexity adapts itself artfully to others, in order
to gratify its own selfishness. It humors the selfishness and whims of
those to whom it speaks, in order to gain consideration from them, or to
make use of them in some way for its own advancement.
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