Run Softly

I just finished reading a sweet old book called "Sweet Thames Run Softly" by the engraver Robert Giddings. I think it was in the 1940's that he floated on the Thames (a dream of mine) musing about the flora and fauna, the characters he met on the way, on just life in general. At the end of the story is this: "Some people say that it is impossible for people with imagination to be truly happy, for realizing all the misery that is in the world they must be affected thereby. This seems to me a doctrine of defeat. Admittedly there is cruelty and illness and poverty, but there is also abundance of kindness, good health, and richness of spirit. For every child that cries by the roadway there are fifty who are laughing in the fields; for every bird that is taken by a hawk there are a hundred still singing in the trees. Even in these days when hell bursts upon our world, like boiling lava from a volcano, let us remember that for every insult offered to humanity there are a hundred deeds of heroism." He wrote this while WWII was brewing, could be good words for today.