FOUR-LEAF CLOVER
I have no ambition to become either a cynic, a pessimist, or an
iconoclast. To aspire in either of these directions is bad for the
digestion, and good digestion is the foundation and source of much
that is desirable in human affairs. Introspection has its uses, to
be sure, but the stomach should have exemption as an objective. A
stomach is a valuable asset if only one is not conscious of it. One
of the emoluments of schoolmastering is the opportunity it affords
for communing with elect souls whose very presence is a tonic. Will
is one of these. He has a way of shunting my introspection over to
the track of the head or the heart. He just talks along and the
first thing I know the heart is singing its way through and above the
storm, while the head has been connected up to the heart, and they
are doing team-work that is good for me and good for all who meet me.
At church I like to have them sing the hymn whose closing couplet is:
"I'll drop my burden at his feet
And bear a song away."
I come out strong in singing that couplet, for I like it. In a human
sense, that is just what happens when I chat with Will for an hour.
When I ask him for bread, he never gives me a stone. On the
contrary, he gives me good, white bread, and a bit of cake, besides.
In one of our chats the other day he was dilating upon Henry van
Dyke's four rules, and very soon had banished all my little clouds
and made my mental sky clear and bright. When I get around to
evolving a definition of education I think I shall say that it is the
process of furnishing people with resources for profitable and
pleasant conversation. Why, those four rules just oozed into the
talk, without any sort of flutter or formality, and made our chat
both agreeable and fruitful. Henry Ward Beecher said many good
things. Here is one that I caught in the school reader in my
boyhood: "The man who carries a lantern on a dark night can have
friends all about him, walking safely by the help of its rays and he
be not defrauded." Education is just such a lantern and this
schoolmaster, Will, knows how to carry it that it may afford light to
the friends about him.
Well, the first of van Dyke's rules is: "You shall learn to desire
nothing in the world so much but that you can be happy without it."
I do wonder if he had been reading in Proverbs: "Better is a dinner
of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." Or he
may have been reading the statement of St. Paul: "For I have learned,
in whatever state I am, therewith to be content." Or, possibly, he
may have been thinking of the lines of Paul Laurence Dunbar,
"Sometimes the sun, unkindly hot,
My garden makes a desert spot;
Sometimes the blight upon the tree
Takes all my fruit away from me;
And then with throes of bitter pain
Rebellious passions rise and swell--
But life is more than fruit or grain,
And so I sing, and all is well."
I am plebeian enough to be fond of milk and crackers as a luncheon;
but I have just a dash of the patrician in my make-up and prefer the
milk unskimmed. Sometimes, I find that the cream has been devoted to
other, if not higher, uses and that my crackers must associate
perforce with milk of cerulean hue. Such a situation is a severe
test of character, and I am hoping that at such junctures along
life's highway I may find some support in the philosophy of Mr. van
Dyke.
I suspect that he is trying to make me understand that happiness is
subjective rather than objective--that happiness depends not upon
what we have, but upon what we do with what we have. I couldn't be
an anarchist if I'd try. I don't grudge the millionaire his turtle
soup and caviar. But I do feel a bit sorry for him that he does not
know what a royal feast crackers and unskimmed milk afford. If the
king and the anarchist would but join me in such a feast I think the
king would soon forget his crown and the anarchist his plots, and
we'd be just three good fellows together, living at the very summit
of life and wishing that all men could be as happy as we.
The next rule is a condensed moral code: "You shall seek that which
you desire only by such means as are fair and lawful, and this will
leave you without bitterness toward men or shame before God." No one
could possibly dissent from this rule, unless it might be a burglar.
I know the grocer makes a profit on the things I buy from him, and I
am glad he does. Otherwise, he would have to close his grocery and
that would inconvenience me greatly. He thanks me when I pay him,
but I feel that I ought to thank him for supplying my needs, for
having his goods arranged so invitingly, and for waiting upon me so
promptly and so politely. I can't really see how any customer can
feel any bitterness toward him. He gives full weight, tells the
exact truth as to the quality of the goods, and in all things is fair
and lawful. I have no quarrel with him and cannot understand why
others should, unless they are less fair, lawful, and agreeable than
the grocer himself. I suspect that the grocer and the butcher take
on the color of the glasses we happen to be wearing, and that Mr. van
Dyke is admonishing us to wear clear glasses and to keep them clean.
The third rule needs to be read at least twice if not oftener: "You
shall take pleasure in the time while you are seeking, even though
you obtain not immediately that which you seek; for the purpose of a
journey is not only to arrive at the goal, but also to find enjoyment
by the way." I have seen people rushing along in automobiles at the
mad rate of thirty or forty miles an hour, missing altogether the
million-dollar scenery along the way, in their haste to get to the
end of their journey, where a five-cent bag of peanuts awaited them.
Had I been riding in an automobile through the streets of Tacoma I
might not have seen that glorious cluster of five beautiful roses on
a single branch in that attractive lawn. Because of them I always
think of Tacoma as the city of roses, for I stopped to look at them.
I have quite forgotten the objective point of my stroll; I recollect
the roses. When we were riding out from Florence on a tram-car to
see the ancient Fiesole I plucked a branch from an olive-tree from
the platform of the car. On that branch were at least a dozen young
olives, the first I had ever seen. I have but the haziest
recollection of the old theatre and the subterranean passages where
Catiline and his crowd had their rendezvous; but I do recall that
olive branch most distinctly. I cannot improve upon Doctor van
Dyke's statement of the rule, but I can interpret it in terms of my
own experiences by way of verifying it. I am sure he has it right.
The fourth rule is worthy of meditation and prayer; "When you attain
that which you have desired, you shall think more of the kindness of
your fortune than of the greatness of your skill. This will make you
grateful and ready to share with others that which Providence hath
bestowed upon you; and truly this is both reasonable and profitable,
for it is but little that any of us would catch in this world were
not our luck better than our deserts." I shall omit the lesson in
arithmetic to-morrow and have, instead, a lesson in life and living,
using these four rules as the basis of our lesson. My boys and girls
are to have many years of life, I hope, and I'd like to help them to
a right start if I can. Some of my many mistakes might have been
avoided if my teachers had given me some lessons in the art of
living, for it is an art and must be learned. These rules would have
helped, could I have known them. I am glad to know that my pupils
have faith in me. When I pointed out a nettle to them one day, they
avoided it; when I showed them a mushroom that is edible, they
accepted the statement without question. So I'll see what I can do
for them to-morrow with these four rules. Then, if we have time, we
shall learn the lines of Mrs. Higginson:
"I know a place where the sun is like gold,
And the cherry blooms burst with snow,
And down underneath is the loveliest nook,
Where the four-leaf clovers grow.
One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith,
And one is for love, you know,
And God put another in for luck--
If you search, you will find where they grow.
But you must have hope, and you must have faith,
You must love and be strong--and so,
If you work, if you wait, you will find the place
Where the four-leaf clovers grow."