The following verses are by M. A. Kidder:
There is many a rest in the road of life,
If we only would stop to take it,
And many a tone from the better land,
If the querulous heart would wake it.
To the sunny soul that is full of hope,
And whose beautiful trust ne’er faileth,
The grass is green and the flowers are bright,
Tho the wintry storm prevaileth.
There is ever a gem in the path of life,
Which we pass in our idle pleasure,
That is richer far than the jeweled crown,
Or the miser’s hoarded treasure.
It may be the love of a little child;
Or a mother’s prayers to heaven;
Or only a beggar’s grateful thanks
For a cup of water given.
Better to weave in the web of life
A bright and golden filling,
And to do God’s will with a ready heart
And hands that are swift and willing,
Than to snap the delicate, slender threads
Of our curious lives asunder.
And then blame heaven for the tangled ends,
And sit, and grieve, and wonder.
(2265)
* * * * *
Kate Sanborn tells of an old lady of her acquaintance,
eighty-three years of age, who is famous among all who know her
for her happy cheerfulness. One day when she was choked by a
bread-crumb at the table, she said to the frightened waiter as
soon as she could regain her breath: “Never mind if that did go
down the wrong way. A great many good things have gone down the
right way this winter.” (Text.)--LOUIS ALBERT BANKS.
(2266)
* * * * *
In answer to the question, “What is optimism?” this humorous instance
was recently given:
A man lost his balance and fell from the fortieth story of the
Singer Building, Broadway, New York. As he passed each story
going down he said to himself, “It is all right so far.” That
was optimism.
(2267)
* * * * *
Once I got hard up and went down and sold the best suit I had
to get bread, and I had my shoes half-soled, and that night
some fellow stole my shoes, and the next morning the snow was
ten inches deep, and I got up, and looked out of the window,
and I said, “I would rather have feet and no shoes than shoes
with no feet.” I like the fellow that goes along without
growling.--“Popular Lectures of Sam P. Jones.”
(2268)
* * * * *
Dr. A. E. Winship tells this story:
It was eleven o’clock on as disagreeable a night as Chicago knew
last winter that I ordered a cab to take me to the Northwestern
Station. Carriages were scarce, and I was asked to ride with
another man.
“A good night this!”
“Humph,” I replied, “if anybody likes this kind, I don’t.”
“It is just the tonic I need for my eighty-two years. It blows
the blues all out of a man if he ever had them, which I never
do.”
“Do you often ride nights at your time of life?”
“Nearly every night; it does me good.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon. This is Doctor Willetts.”
“Certainly, and I would have been nursing old age twenty years
ago if I had ever found anything bad in life. A night like this!
Why, to growl about it, it would take a year off my life.”
Thanks to Doctor Willetts I have not seen bad weather since, and
I never shall.
(2269)
See PROPHECY.
=Optimists, The, and the Pessimists=--See LOADS, BALKING UNDER.