Simplicity, on the contrary, adapts itself artlessly to others, because
it is full of charity; and therefore desires to make others happy. Its
words are the overflow of genial thought and kindly affection; and all
hearts that hold aught in common with it open and expand before its
influences as plants start at the touch of spring. It is not so much the
words uttered that produce this effect, as the pleasant and kindly way
in which they are said; for this throws a grace and an attractive charm
about the most commonplace objects of its Conversation.
Intellectual brilliancy in Conversation dazzles and delights the
imagination; but it does not touch the heart. Simplicity, on the
contrary, always impresses itself upon our feelings with a power that is
all the more strong because we cannot analyze it by our intellect. We
talk with a person of simplicity about the common occurrences of the
day, and find ourselves, we know not why, more gentle, refined, and
happy than we were before. We are refreshed as by drinking from a pure
and undefiled fountain of sweet waters; refreshed as mere intellectual
power cannot refresh us; refreshed as no book can refresh us. There is a
harmonious completeness in the whole being of simplicity, a directness
and honesty in all it says and does, "a grace beyond the reach of art,"
in all its manifestations more potent, because more internal in its
effects, than anything can ever be that is born merely of the intellect.
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