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Bok, Edward William, 1863-1930

"A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After"

If his life has been barren of
books or travel, let him read or see the world. But he reaches his
high estate by either of these roads only when he reads or travels to
enrich himself in order to give out what he gets to enrich the lives of
others. He owes it to himself to get his own refreshment, his own
pleasure, but he need not make that pure self-indulgence.
Other men, more active in body and mind, feel drawn to the modern arena
of the great questions that puzzle. It matters not in which direction
a man goes in these matters any more than the length of a step matters
so much as does the direction in which the step is taken. He should
seek those questions which engross his deepest interest, whether
literary, musical, artistic, civic, economic, or what not.
Our cities, towns, communities of all sizes and kinds, urban and rural,
cry out for men to solve their problems. There is room and to spare
for the man of any bent. The old Romans looked forward, on coming to
the age of retirement, which was definitely fixed by rule, to a rural
life, when they hied themselves to a little home in the country, had
open house for their friends, and "kept bees.


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