the clock had time to answer, continued: “It is because I am resting a
moment you presume thus to rebuke me. Must a man be for ever at work?
May he not take time even to look round him, or to yawn or wait for a
new idea? Your words are insulting.”
[Illustration]
Here, being out of breath, he paused long enough for the clock to reply:
“Indeed, sir, I said nothing. You heard only my heart beat
‘tick-a-tick, tick-a-tick,’ as usual. When this stops, you know as well
as I that my life will be ended and my work for you done.”
“Pardon me,” said the man. “Because I deserved a rebuke, I was so quick
at finding one. Though you did not utter the words, they fit my case
well. I would that you ever might go on repeating them.”
* * * * *
When we feel conscious of deserving reproof, its arrow lights upon us
from many a bow that was drawn only at a venture.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE WATCH-DOG.
A MASTIFF that had received a severe kick from his master thus
soliloquized as he walked slowly and sadly toward his kennel:
“I guard his house by day and by night, securing for him undisturbed
rest, but hardly ever getting for myself so much as an hour’s sleep
at a time. He never comes near me that I do not show my pleasure by a
wag of my tail; and when he speaks to me and pats me on the head, my
delight is so great that I can hardly control myself, and behave as a
sensible dog ought to behave. And yet, because I happened, by accident,
to be in his way, he has thus ill-used and disgraced me! What a
shame, when he has the power so easily to make me happy that he abuses
it in making me miserable!”
[Illustration]
By this time the mastiff had reached his kennel, at the farther end
of the garden; but, as he was about entering it, one of his own pups,
that had been playing on the grass with a little terrier from the next
house, caught sight of him. In a moment both the pup and the terrier
let their tails drop and slunk out of sight. The old dog watched them
as they disappeared, and after pausing a moment said to himself:
“This ought not to be. The harsh treatment that I have received makes
me examine my treatment of others. I am afraid I’m as bad as my master.
It is because they are growled at and snarled at so often these pups
run away as if their innocent gambols might cost them a cudgelling. My
master did not mean it; yet when he kicked me, he did me a favor, for
so have my own faults been brought to my view, and from this very hour
I mean to correct them.”
* * * * *
Before we judge those who have the rule over us, let us stop and ask,
“What would they say whom we rule over?”
[Illustration]
THE OPENED EYES.
A BLIND man whose disposition had been soured by his misfortune refused
to credit anything his friends said about the objects that surrounded
him. He would not believe that the flowers he smelt were clothed in
brilliant colors, or that the birds he heard singing were covered with
beautiful feathers. He would not believe there was a regular succession
of night and day and light and darkness. He could give no reason for
his obstinate unbelief except that he could not imagine any of these
things; which, of course, was not to be expected of him, since he had
always been blind.
It happened that after a time the man recovered his sight; whatever had
obscured it seemed slowly to pass away. At first only a faint glimmer
of light was visible. This increased from day to day, until at length
the last film disappeared from before his eyes, and he looked out upon
the world and saw everything clearly.
Then he was like a person struck dumb and unable to speak with wonder
and astonishment. At this his friends followed him as he walked forth
unaided, and began to explain to him what he saw.
“Yonder,” they said, pointing up to the sky, “is the great sun that
we have so often told you about, though you would not believe us. But
for it your eyes would be opened in vain; you would still be in utter
darkness.”
[Illustration]
But the man, suddenly regaining his speech, cried out:
“Ah, my friends! I do not need to be told this now. Whereas all your
arguments failed to convince me while I was blind, now, though you
and all the world should tell me it was not the sun, I would know
differently. For I see him myself. He has shined into my eyes—yes, and
into my heart; and he is his own best argument. How can I remain in
ignorance of him while I am walking in his light?”
* * * * *
One clear view of the truth for ourselves is more convincing than all
that others can say to us in its favor.
[Illustration]
THE LANTERN-PEOPLE.
[Illustration]
I HAD been thinking how strange a thing it was that I disliked so many
people and liked so few. Only to look at some persons seemed enough
to put me out of humor and make me feel like saying cross things.
But there were others, though not near so many of them, whom I loved
to meet and whom I could hardly be cross to if I tried. I had been
thinking about this, when I fell asleep and had a dream.
I thought I was carried away to a strange country where it was always
dark. No morning ever came there, the sun never shone, and there were
no stars in the sky. Yet people were living there, and I could see
them walking about. But they were very strange people, such as I had
never seen before, nor heard of, nor even thought of. I called them
the lantern-people because they looked like great lanterns with lights
inside of them that shone through.
And they were of a very strange shape, for they had ever so many sides,
and on every side was a picture. Some were pretty and some were ugly
pictures. Every person I saw had both pretty and ugly sides.
Of course I was very much surprised and stood looking a long while, for
the people could not see me though I could see them and was close to
them. On some of their sides were pictures of snakes, wasps, and pigs;
on other sides, of doves, lambs, flowers, and such beautiful things.
And now I want to tell you a very curious thing about the way the
people acted when they met each other. I noticed, when a man met
another in the street, he would quickly turn around one of his sides,
so that the man he met could see it, and nothing else—that is, nothing
but the picture that was on the side turned toward him.
[Illustration]
While I stood watching I saw a man coming along who turned almost the
whole way around, so as to bring the picture of a dog in front, where
it could be most plainly seen. It was a bull-dog—one of the sort that
shows its teeth—very ugly and cross-looking. I could not understand
why he should take so much trouble to turn out that ugly picture (for
he had prettier ones that I could see) until I saw another man coming
toward him, who turned out a picture uglier still. It was of a bear.
As soon as they came close up to one another the pictures seemed to
be alive. I was astonished to see their eyes move and their mouths
open and shut, seeming to snap at one another. And all I could hear
were barkings and growlings until they were gone, the dog and the bear
trying to bite each other as far as I could see them.
[Illustration]
Next came a little girl. Happening to look behind her, she saw another
little girl following her. At once she turned round one of her sides,
that had the picture of a wasp on it. But the little girl who was
coming after her turned out the picture of a beautiful butterfly. As
soon as they met, the wasp began to buzz and dart out its sharp sting,
and I saw the butterfly fluttering and fluttering, till presently it
was scared away and the picture of a great spider came in its place.
Then the spider seemed to dart at the wasp, and the wasp tried to sting
the spider; and the little girls went off quarrelling as fiercely as
the two men had done.
Next I saw a young woman. She was prettier than any of the
lantern-people I had yet seen. I saw her coming from a long way down
the street, and she never turned her sides, no matter whom she met, but
always kept one picture in front, and that was of a dove. It had a ring
of black around its neck and an olive-leaf in its mouth. I thought to
myself:
“What a beautiful picture!”
Just then another young woman came up and pushed rudely against her,
and I saw this rude one turn out the picture of a snake. And the snake
hissed and darted out its forked tongue, but the dove would not go. All
it did was to coo softly and flutter with its wings and hold out the
olive-leaf.
[Illustration]
When the snake found that it could not frighten the dove away, it began
to creep off itself, as if ashamed; and what was my surprise to see,
presently, another dove come in its place! And the doves began to coo
to each other, and to look pleased and happy, and the two young women
took hold of each other’s hands; then they put their arms around each
other’s neck and kissed each other and so they passed happily by.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
After this I walked about the streets looking at the strange people I
met there, and, seeing a crowd of them going into a building that had
wide-open doors, I went in with them. I found it was a church. In a
little while the minister stood up in the pulpit and began to preach to
them about being kind to one another and loving one another, very much
as the ministers do that we hear. I was up in the gallery, and could
see all the people as they sat listening to him. As he went on in his
sermon I saw how they turned out their good sides, one by one, some
quickly, some more slowly, until hardly an ugly side could be seen in
the whole congregation.
[Illustration]
But no sooner was the sermon finished, and the blessing pronounced,
than there was a shifting round of sides again, some doing this before
they left their pews, some as they passed down the aisle, some as they
walked down the church-steps; so that most of them came out pretty much
the same as they went in.
[Illustration]
After leaving the church, I passed before a large private house where
a servant-man was standing at the door. As he could not see me I stole
by him softly and went into the house. I found everything very elegant
there. Beautiful furniture filled the rooms, and costly paintings
covered the walls. But I soon learned that these things were not for
use or enjoyment, but only for show.
The family was a fashionable one that had a great deal of company and
visited a great deal. The mother, a tall, fine-looking woman, was
evidently the ruling spirit among them. Whenever she and her daughters
were getting ready for a walk, or a drive, she turned out the picture
of a large peacock, and her daughters turned out little peacocks. I
followed them into the street, and as they walked along could see the
people bowing and smiling to them; but as soon as they had passed,
these same people made fun of them.
[Illustration]
In a second house that I entered the family was seated at dinner.
Though not so fine a house as the first, nor so expensively furnished,
I could tell at a glance it was a far happier home. I looked round to
see if I could discover the cause of this difference, and here again my
eye rested on the mother, who sat at the head of the table; but what
a contrast with the other! The dove was on her breast, and a brood of
doves on the breasts of the little ones who were gathered around her.
There was cheerful, innocent talk in which all took part, without a
word of unkindness for any one, present or absent.
I stayed about this house for the rest of the day—it was a pleasant
place to be in—and when, toward its close, the mother stole apart to a
little room alone, I peeped in and saw there a chair, and a table with
an open book on it, and a kneeling-cushion, well used, on the floor
beside the table. Then I said to myself:
“Perhaps here is the secret of the difference between this and the more
elegant home.”
I cannot close this account of what I saw while I was in that strange
country without telling of a difference that I noticed between the old
and the young people there. The young were constantly changing their
sides; the old did not change them nearly so often. It appeared that
if they had turned out their ugly sides for the most part during their
former lives, they lost the power, as they grew old, to draw them back
again. On the other hand, if they had struggled against the bad and
kept out the good, the good became fixed there.
[Illustration]
My dream seemed to last a long time, and I visited a great many places
and saw a great many persons that I have not told about here. But this
I noticed everywhere I went—that those who kept out their good sides
had the best time of it. They were contented and cheerful themselves,
and helped to make others so. The doves, as we have read, brought out
other doves, and the flowers brought out other flowers. Whoever turned
out these saw them turned out by other people also. And so, with a
pleasant prospect without and a kindly spirit within, the good-sided
people experienced a happiness which the ugly-sided people never knew.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
GRAND RELATIONS.
A BLACKBIRD that wanted to impress on his neighbor the wren a proper
sense of his great importance took occasion every now and then to
remark that he was related to still larger birds.
“My cousin the crow,” he would say, “did so and so,” or “invited me to
his nest at such a time.”
After hearing this over and over again, the wren answered one day,
“When I used to look at you alone and by yourself, you appeared as a
very large bird in my eyes; but since I’ve got to contrasting you with
the crow, you seem to have grown smaller even than myself.”
* * * * *
Better be satisfied with our own significance than seek to array
ourselves in the consequence of other people.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
FAIR AND FOUL WEATHER.
A SHOWER having come up suddenly while the chickens were scattered over
the barnyard, they ran from every direction to the chicken-house and
disappeared, one by one, through a hole near the ground that had been
left open for them to enter.
A young cock, however, that happened to be in an adjoining field, took
refuge under a tree, where he straightened himself up, letting his tail
droop, so that the water would trickle off from it. But when he found
that the shower did not pass over, as he expected, he too took to his
heels and joined the rest under shelter. And there they all stood,
chickens, ducks, and guinea-fowls, dolefully watching the rain.
After waiting for a time, and finding it likely to continue, the cock,
shaking out his feathers, said:
“I’m going out to hunt for my dinner.”
“What! in such a pour as this?” exclaimed an old hen.
“And what would you have us do?” replied the cock. “We cannot carry
umbrellas, like our master and mistress. And, for all we know, it may
rain the rest of the week.” So saying, he walked boldly out into the
shower.
Now, the wet having brought the worms to the surface, he soon picked
up a good meal; which the others descrying, they quickly came after
him, until the whole flock was scratching about the barnyard, quite
contented notwithstanding the rain. Seeing this, the rooster flew up on
a fence and crowed. Then, looking slyly at the old hen that had opposed
him, he said:
“Which is best—to work only in fair weather, or to keep on scratching
whether it rain or shine?”
* * * * *
He will gather most in the end who does not easily give way to
discouragement when success is hard to attain.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
WRECKAGE.
TWO men were walking along the sea-beach together. The sand, as far as
the eye could reach, was swept clean and smooth by the falling tide,
but here and there at intervals lay fragments of wrecked vessels, some
made of heavy timber, some of lighter weight. Now, the men, who were
both of them well on in years, lived in a port near by on that same
coast, and as they walked they recognized some of these wrecks.
“I remember the night when this came ashore,” said one, stopping before
a huge piece of keel half buried in the sand. “She was a fine ship,
well manned, and the bar on which she struck was laid down plainly on
the chart; but her master thought he could come close in, and yet
just miss it. But the current caught him, and he was lost.”
[Illustration]
Then, stopping before another fragment:
“And I recollect this one too: she was a stanch bark, and I saw
her heaving up her anchor on a fine morning with the promise of a
prosperous voyage; but she tried to go out without a pilot, and she too
came ashore. Ah, my friend!” the speaker continued. “As I look up and
down this coast, and see so many wrecks whose history I know, a gloom
settles over me that makes life seem, as I look back on it, more like a
time of clouds and storms than of pleasant, sunny weather.”
“There are wrecks enough to sadden us, that is true,” replied the
other; “but do not let us forget the good ships we have known that
sailed the seas for many a long year, and at last came back to lay
their old bones down in quiet waters on the flats behind our harbor.
Yes, and many another is still ploughing the deep, to return safe in
due time, bringing joyful crews and rich cargoes with them.”
* * * * *
The evil that sometimes darkens the path before us should not prevent
our seeing the good that is spread above, beneath, and around us on
every side.
[Illustration]
THE ROBIN.
A POOR widow who was all alone in the world earned her living by going
out to wash and scrub, day after day. She left her room early in the
morning, and did not return to it until night. Then she had but one
living thing to keep her company, a pet robin. That it might catch a
glimpse of the blue sky, from the narrow alley in which she lived, she
used to hang it on a nail quite outside of her window, before she left.
On her return she took it down and suspended it again near the head of
her bed.
One evening on coming home she found the cage with its door open, and
empty. After searching again and again, through every corner and cranny
of her room, thinking her bird could not have left her, she was forced
to admit it was gone.
Now, those who are surrounded with objects on which to bestow their
affections, know not what a loss such an insignificant creature may
be to one who has no other familiar thing to love. The poor woman
missed her bird when she awoke in the morning, when she went out to her
day’s work, and when she came back, tired and sad at heart, after her
work was over. The cage still hung near her bed; she looked at it and
grieved—yes, more than she ought to have done.
While it was thus with her she had, one night, a dream. She thought
she was walking through a forest. The air was pure, the shade was cool
and delightful, and every leaf around her looked fresh and green. She
stood comparing the scene, in her thoughts, with the crowded alley in
which she lived, when suddenly the silence was broken by a loud note
far above her head. She looked up, and recognized her robin. It was
leaping from bough to bough, and its song was not as it used to be,
with a note of sadness in it, but glad and full of joy—the song of
the prisoner set free.
[Illustration]
She awoke, rose up, took down the cage and put it in a closet out of
sight, not forgetting its former inmate, but thinking of it as she had
seen it, since its escape, in her dream.
“I am satisfied,” she said, “and would not call it back. Its prison
door has been opened; I will wait patiently until mine is opened for
me.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
RIDDLES.
THE ground was barren and wet, and covered with stagnant pools. Only
rank weeds grew on it, and venomous reptiles crawled through it. But
at length the husbandman came and labored over it. He dug trenches and
ditches that drained it, and turned a stream of pure water to flow
through it. Then he hedged it, and set up a fence around it; and now
flocks pasture there, and flowers bloom on every side.
* * * * *
A GARDENER planted some seed in his garden in the early spring, but
no sooner had it grown up than the frost nipped it. It sprang up a
second time, and a bird flew down and plucked off the tender shoot.
Once more it grew, but now, summer having come, the sun scorched it.
Nevertheless, because the root remained, it sprang up again and again,
until the gardener, rejoicing, gathered in his fruit.
* * * * *
A MOUNTAIN-STREAM ran over the edge of a precipice. In its descent
to the valley below it fell upon a point of projecting rock. On this
rock clods of earth were continually dropping from the ground it was
imbedded in. Sometimes they fell of their own weight, sometimes were
loosened by the foot of a wild beast in passing. There was never a day
that the rock was not soiled by them. But the stream, in flowing over
it, washed away each stain as soon as it appeared; so that to the eye
looking from above, it seemed always pure and clean.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE EMIGRANT’S WAGON.
AN emigrant who started in a new wagon for his far-off Western home
seemed to forget, because the wagon was new and strong then, that it
would ever wear out. As a consequence, he was very careless in his way
of using it, driving as fast down hill as up, and over rough places as
smooth. Sometimes he raced with other wagons, and occasionally loaded
his own so heavily and drove so recklessly, it was upset.
[Illustration]
In spite of all this ill-usage, however, the wagon seemed to remain
almost as good as new until it had travelled over about half of its
journey, when it began to show the effects of abuse. First some
rivets broke, leaving the floor-boards loose; next a spoke in one of
the wheels began to rattle; then a tire rolled off. After this, one
breakage followed another so rapidly that its owner was often forced
to stop for repairs. Neither could he always make these by himself, but
was obliged to call on the blacksmith and the wheelwright to help him.
As he waited at their shops day after day he could not help thinking of
his past folly, and saying to himself:
“Oh that I had the first part of the road to go over again!”
But, as this was impossible, it only remained for him to use the utmost
care while passing over the portion that was left.
And so he did, creeping along slowly, avoiding every little jolt and
rut by the way, and often turning out to let others, who had started
after him, pass by. For the farther he went, the weaker his wagon grew,
until it fell into such a decrepit state that it was threatening all
the time to break down under him, and travelling in it, instead of
being a pleasure, as it was at first, became only labor and pain.
But at last, though in miserable plight, he came to his journey’s end.
It is true that his wagon could not have remained new until then, no
matter what care he had taken of it; on the contrary, it must have been
well worn, and old, beside, for it had come a great distance and been a
long time in doing it. But if he had used it properly, and as a wagon
ought to be used, from the start, without doubt it would have carried
him all the way safely and comfortably.
[Illustration]
And then what a different account of his coming would have been
written! For, in the first place, he could have given the time to
pleasanter things that, as it was, he had to spend in patching up his
wagon. Then he could have occasionally helped some poorer and more
heavily-loaded emigrant that he came up with along the road. And lastly
(beside escaping numerous bruises and pains) he would have been saved
many poignant regrets and recollections, which added greatly to the
burdens he had to bear during the latter part of his journey.
* * * * *
We are all emigrants, and our bodies are the wagons given us to travel
in. If we abuse them in youth, we shall ride uncomfortably for it in
our later years.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
BIG AND LITTLE LANTERNS.
TWO countrymen who were neighbors started out on a dark night for the
nearest market-town, each carrying a basket of butter and eggs and
garden-produce on his arm. They took different roads, which were,
however, of about equal lengths. One of the men—the taller and stronger
of the two—carried a large and heavy lantern on a pole high above his
head, by means of which he was enabled to see far over the road in
front of him; and he set out with long and rapid strides.
The other man carried a light and small lantern, which he held down
close to the ground, by his side, so that he could see no farther than
the spot on which to plant his foot, as he moved on more slowly and
cautiously, step by step.