Do you know what a wonderfully complicated thing a human being is?
Every feature, every portion of your body, every motion you make,
reflects your mental organization.
I know a woman past middle life who has always been on the opposite
side of every question discussed in her presence.
She was agnostic with the orthodox, reverential with atheists, liberal
with the narrow, bigoted with the liberal.
Whatever belief any one expressed on any subject, she invariably took
the other extreme. She loved to disagree with her fellow-men. It was
her pastime.
Now, to walk with that woman in silence is merely to carry on a
wordless argument.
You cannot regulate your steps so they will harmonize with hers. She
will be just ahead or just behind you, and if you want to turn to the
left, she pulls to the right. A promenade with her is more exhausting
than a day's labor.
She is not conscious of it, and would think anyone very unreasonable
and unjust who told her of her peculiarities.
I know a woman who all her life has been looking afar for happiness and
peace and content, and has never found any of them, because she did not
look in her own soul.
She was a restless girl, and she married, believing in domestic life
lay the goal of her dreams. But she was not happy there, and sighed
for freedom. She wanted to move, and did move, once, twice, thrice, to
different points of the United States. She was discontented with each
change. She is to-day possessed of all comforts and luxuries which
life can afford, yet she is the same restless soul. She likes to read,
but it is always the book which she does not possess which she craves.
If she is in the library with shelves book-filled, she goes into the
garret and hunts in old boxes for a book or a paper which has been cast
aside.
If she is in a picture gallery, she wants to go to the window and look
out on the street, but when she is on the street it bores her, and she
longs to go in the house.
If a member of the family is absent, she gets no enjoyment out of the
society of those at home; yet when that absent one returns her mind
strays elsewhere, seeking some imagined happiness not found here.
I wonder if such souls ever find it, even in the spirit realm, or if
they go on there seeking and always seeking something just beyond. It
is a great gift to learn to enjoy the present--to get all there is out
of it, and to think of to-day as a piece of eternity. Begin now to
teach yourself this great art if you have not thought of it before. To
be able to enjoy heaven, one must learn first to enjoy earth.