The Davenport Gazette

Keep The Heart Alive--The longer I live, the more expedient I find it to endeavor more and more to extend my sympathies and affections. The natural tendency of advancing years is to narrow and contract these feelings. I do not mean that I wish to form a new and sworn friendship every day, to increase my intimates: these are very different affairs. But I find it conduces to my mental health and happiness, to find out all I can which is amiable and loveable in those I come in contact with, and to make the most of it. It may fall very far short of what I was once wont to dream of; it may not supply the place of what I have known, felt, and tasted; but it is better than nothing: it seems to keep the feelings and affections in exercise; it keeps the heart alive in its humanity; and till we shall be all spiritual, this is like our duty and our interest.--Bernard Barton.