The Worth of the Commonplace Gift

We are constituted as creatures of such incorrigible cupidity that we pursue the recondite and the extraordinary with a fervour proportionate to their inaccessibility, whilst the benefactions distributed most munificently about our quotidian hours pass into utter desuetude of acknowledgement. The caloric comfort of a hearth when the evening grows gelid; the plain repast taken among those who tolerate and comprehend us; the body's uncelebrated diligence in its unceasing physiological offices — these are the desiderata so perpetual in their provision that we commit the egregious solecism of mistaking their constancy for insignificance. To apprehend their true worth is the commencement of a sapience that no pecuniary reversal can wholly extirpate.