what we admire

“Beatrix admired the useful over the vapid. The edifying over the entertaining. She was suspicious of anything you might call ‘an innocent amusement,’ and quite detested anything foolish or vile. Foolish and vile things included, public houses, rouged women, election days (one could always expect mobs), the eating of ice cream, the visiting of ice cream houses, Anglicans (whom she felt to be Catholics in disguise, and whose religion, she submitted, stood at odds with both morality and common sense), tea (good Dutch women drank only coffee), people who drove their sleighs in winter time without bells upon their horses (you couldn’t hear them coming up behind you), inexpensive household help (a troublesome bargain), people who paid their servants in rum instead of money (thus contributing to public drunkenness), people who came to you with their troubles, but then refused to listen to sound advice, New Year’s Eve celebrations (the New Year will arrive one way or the other, regardless of all that bell ringing), the aristocracy (nobility should be based upon conduct, not upon inheritance), and over-praised children (good behavior should be expected, not rewarded). She embraced the motto, ‘Work is its own reward.’ She believed there was an inherent dignity in remaining aloof and indifferent to sensation, indeed, she believed that indifference to sensation was the very definition of dignity. Most of all, Beatrix Whittaker believed in Respectability and Morality. But if pushed to choose between the two, she would probably have chosen Respectability.”

― Elizabeth Gilbert, The Signature of All Things

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What I've been admiring most lately:

open windows and air.