In our hurried modern life we are not punctilious enough about these things.

Perhaps, in the old days, the men and women were worse than we in many ways.

But they held to a few traditions, or the best of them did, that make the loose and tawdry manners of this age seem cheap indeed.

All my life I have known that there was something shining and simple and precious concealed from the common herd of men in this common age, which the brighter spirits of the old days lived by and served and worshiped.

I have always seen it plainly, and always tried to live by it, too.