Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1868-08-05
kN lie Worries

hontaigne dc No smallest and
'nnoyances' to be the most Pierc-
anu a9 small Dprint, segs he, most
tires the eyes. - little affairs the most
disturb US. Mr.. Thackeray protests that
the great ills OF life are nothing; the loss
of Your fortune he calls a mere fea-bite
the loss OF your wifc-how many men have
supported it and married comfortably
atterward 1t is not what you lose, but
what you have daily to bear, that is hard"
What, he asks in another place, would the
possession Of a hundred thousand year
or tame and the appliance of ones country
men, or the loveliest and best-beloved
woman, or any glory, and happiness, or
good fortune, avail to a gentleman for in
stance, who was allowed to enjoy them
only with the condition of wearing shoe
with a couple of nails or sharp pebbles in
side 1t {? All fame and happiness would
disappear and plunge down that shoe. All
nF n would rankle round those little nails"
wv INV rs. it has been asserted, but
would exchange - his little troubles for
some heavy one, and So ''t''o $3.50 :. % ~
once And although the Marquis - A.
glesea bore with the most heroic indiffer-
ence the cutting off of his leg upon that
wooden table they still show you at Water
loo, neither uttering a word nor moving a
muscle, a shrewd doubt is suggested
whether he would have borne a scalded
foot, or the infiction of tight boot on a
bad corn, for six weeks, equally we'll
4 constant succession of little contempt
ibe worries tends, as DR.. Boyd somewhere
says to foster a querulous, grumbling dis
position, such as renders man a nuisance
to himself and to those about him. Real
great misfortunes and trials are recognized
as serving to ennoble the character where
as ever-recurring petty annoyances produce
a littleness and irritability of mind. "Tc
meet great mistortunes we gather up oul
endurance, and pray for Divine support
and guidance; but as for small blisters-
the insect cares (as James Montgomery
called them of daily life, we are very
ready to think that they are too little tC
trouble the Almighty with them, or ever
to call up our fortitude to face thcn."
Again and again we read in the life o
the late Charles Mathews that, impatien
,, in trihes, he was the most calm and endur
ing of human beings on all great occasions
E and it always seemed to his biographer a
if he resented petty annoyances Eecaus
I they rose from petty sources, but that h
bent with humble resi- gnation to great in
: fictions as believing them to come direc
from on high. He is supposed to hav
misled his medical attendants by his buoy
: ancy when most seriously ill; for no,
:, were they to know that man so sensitiv
: and restless upon minor matters could $
. patiently endure intense suffering? The
L did not know that one was the triumph {
nerves, the other of heart"
! Nj. de Tocqueville afhrms of himself,
= one of his letters, that in moments of gres
i i excitement, or of important business. b
- preserved his composure, but was easil
7 7 disturbed by the daily worries of life.
Hazlitt conjectures that if we could r
: member distinctly, we should discover th
- the two things that have most affected
i, in the course of our lives have been, OIL
of them of the greatest, and the other
=, the smallest possible consequence.
}, Theodore Hook asserts the stronge
=, u feelings to be excited, the bitterest pan
m or inflicted, by a sudden change in the orc
"A nary, the most common, the most trifli
i. II incidents of our lives. ITO great evils t
,e elastic mind of man expands-it KIN
60 itself for imminent dangers-it withstan
70 great calamities; but in the most minu
changes intimately connected with its ma