December 7
Companions of the Way (Morning)Let your speech be alway with grace.
THERE is one topic peremptorily forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers. If you have not slept, or if you have slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder-stroke, I beseech you by all good angels to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning, to which all the housemates bring serene and pleasant thoughts, by corruption and groans. Come out of the azure. Love the day. Do not leave the sky out of your landscape. The oldest and most deserving person should come very modestly into any newly awaked company, respecting the divine communications, out of which all must be presumed to have newly come.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
LIVING ABOVE THE BODY