It is a great thing for a man to be able by his influence on others to make their lives mean more. A recent book is dedicated to a distinguished scholar and teacher, who is designated as an enlarger of human lives. It is said that Michael Angelo once paid a visit to the studio of Raphael, when the artist was absent. On an easel there was a canvas with the outline of a human form — beautiful, but too small. Michael Angelo took a brush and wrote under the figure the word “Amplius” — larger. The same word might be written under many lives. They may be good and beautiful, but they are too small. They need to be enlarged. They have not sufficient height or breadth.
There are many people who live in only one room, so to speak. They are intended to live in a house with many rooms: rooms of the mind, rooms of the heart, and rooms of taste, imagination, sentiment, and feeling. But these upper rooms are left unused, while they live in the basement.
A story is told of a Scotch nobleman who, when he came into possession of his estates, set about providing better houses for his people, who were living huddled together in single-roomed cottages. So he built for them pretty, comfortable houses. But in a short time each family was living as before, in one room, and renting the rest of the house. They did not know how to live in higher, better ways. The experiment satisfied him that people could not be really benefited by anything done for them merely from the outside.
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