Welcome to our Sunday Talks.

Today's talk was edited and adapted from 4-minute essays by Dr. Frank Crane,

published in 1919.

Of a great soul, there are two characteristics.

Irony and pity.

By irony, I mean nothing hard or cruel, but only that gentle laughter,

which arises from the realization that most things don't matter. Most tempests are in a teapot.

Much of the world's ado is about nothing.

Most frantic medicines are for diseases that would best cure themselves if left alone.

Experience thus works a kindly indifference for those who are wise enough to learn.

And the real beautiful time of life is old age. When the storms of passion have been sailed out, the thunders of protest have died down, and in the calm of twilight, the subtle wisdom

of the years lends the landscape a crystal beauty. The highlights are gone, and in their absence we perceive

actual values. The crash of endeavor, the discord of struggles have ceased, and the universe

hums with pure harmony. Then we smile, but without bitterness.

We are amused, but without contempt.

Our laugh at the vanity of people's vanities rings with no derision, no mockery, no

egotistic superiority, but speaks only our happy vision of the heart of things. We laugh where

once we would have wept. With irony and a sense of removal comes pity, a sense of nearness.

We are far from people, but we are nearer than ever before.

Be pity because no longer we condemn. We have come down from the judge's bench and are

a friend at court, because we have found out that human hearts do not need judgment but help. Once we criticized, now we see it not

worthwhile. The essential is sympathy. We dealt damnation right and left. We had heroes and villains.

...