Miss Rumphius

Have you read Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney?  No?  It's just lovely.  Little Alice Rumphius sits on her artist grandfather's knee listening to his stories of faraway places.  She tells him that when she is older, she too will visit faraway places and she too will come home to live by the sea.  "That is all very well, little Alice, but there is a third thing you must do."  "What is that?" she asks.  "You must do something to make the world more beautiful."

And she does.  Why can't it all be as simple as seeing the world, coming home to live by the sea and making the world more beautiful?  It can, I think.