The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-03-01
indefinite Honefnlness.

asptauooS ana projects OF tue persons who
nave 10 pass all their Gays in tue uull country
town. To any body in the tall 5 wing OF a career
and not yet more than certain numOer OF
years old, there is something profoundly mar.
yellous III tue possibility OF 20 many rational
cfeatIres living with some appearance OF con
tent 10 place where monoto1v, dulness mar
fowDess. and every other condiho0 OF lmita-
tlon ano httienees 1elgn supreme and undis.
puted.- Tbtir aaairs 10 the moDey IN aklng order
are puny and dlmlnutve; commerclsl enter.
prise Is not known among them, Tor the reason
thst every body into whose heart the spirit
OF enterprise has found way makes
an opportunity forth With Tor carrying himself
and his en- erprise elsewhere The political
Interests a'e contracted aud merely traditional,
the atmo phere of smali places beng conspicu-
ously untavorable 10 the exercise of indepen-
dent Judgment, as well as to all other manites-
tations OF vlgor. Their social interests strike
one who Is accustomed to larger sphere as
mean beyond. endurance, and their social plea
sures strike MIN as painfal beyond DESCRIPTION.
How do they live he asks himself Where do
they find the salt necessary TO keep so savo-less
an existence IRON open decomposition? What
dothey lock forward 10? Where is their goal?
The lives of the women OF such community
furEisD special pIzze. The men at any rate
possess the sem bapce OF career, and folio " at
least the shadows OF larger interests. The
warehouse may be small and the tracing petty;
still they demand q measure of energy and
fragment OF originality. And though giving
vote and protesting to hold political view may
mot be very august processes, yet they may be
! allow ed TO count Tor something in stimulating
( q little movement in the slow and re- pectable
hOul DuN WOueu are ubDdTIeU IIOm even lne3e
poor spurs TO quicker pace. IL the interests
OF commerce and public affairs shed but faint
illumination on the mind OF the man, that pale
light becomes yet paer by process OF reflection
upon the mind of the wife, and paler still in the
daughters and sisters, for the latter have only
very second hand copcern in money matters
and usually no concern at all in affairs
of state. And yet it cannot be denied
these dwellers in waste places seem to enjoy
state OF something not unlike happiness. Life
appears toierable to them, and they are every
bit reluctant to leave the most active
and elevated persons are supposed TO be. The
explanation Is perhaps not very difficult aud
1t lies in the fact that even these dpllest of
creatures to all outward seeming have in wardiy
far-spleadiDg and brightyhilluminated ideal
background. OF course some of them have
given up all hopes Of any, hing liveier or more
golden than the bumdrum round of Little
Pedlington for thissworld, and reserve the full
flment Of all ideals for the world to come
But IN most people perhaps resignation does
not go quite SO far as this; they will not so
long as they can help ii, surrender all hope of
vague good things even IN this present world,
and so they round off their lives with indefinite
pictures for which they are indebted to san
guine imagination The outlines are not deter
mined, and the colors shift and change, and the
think of the fairy prince who will come aud
take them away to London or Paris. and the
gay world of pleasure and activity; the mother,
in turn, gives her hopes to her children, and
builds castles in the air for them; the man often
hnds more than all the satisfaction he wants in
the habitua reflection that with opportunity he
even as it is some miraculous turn of
Fortunes wheel may one day bring
him to that top, wherever it may be-, Tor
which generous nature destined him.
Seriously, none of these expect in sober
truth that their golden visions will ever trans
form themselves into reaiities; but they have
learnt the great lesson that possibilities in
human life az all but unbounded, and that for
them too, as for others, possibilities may one
day turn up trumps. The chance is enough for
fhem on the chance they can 60 on living.
They all attend to their duties and go through
the days work, endure their pains and survive
their pleasures, on the strength of hop eful-
ness which reason would by no means W arrant
orjusuy.
Perhaps by the time our reflective friend has
thought all this out, and the hour has come for
his return to the more genial air of labor and
ambition, he may have seen enough to make 1t
worth his while to pursue the train OF thought
q little way further, asking himself whether the
dull souls who vegetate IN country towns and
little watering. places are, after all, the only
people who nourish themselves on indefinite
and unde6Dabe aspirations. 1t would perhaps
be found upon due contemplation that this
margin of the inde6nable is just as necessary
for the peace of persons who are tar removed
from stagnation as it is for those who are closely
surrounded by it. Bow far do we all feed upon
indefinite aspirations after future about which
the only clearly recognizable feature is that il
does not resemble the present? To how many
of us would the course OF the circumstances
around us be endurable, If we finally realized
the undoubted fact that it is of these and such
as these that all the remainder OF life is to be
mace up! LUIS 10 IaCt which SUBSTANTIALLY VIZ
accept, but mostly we try to think of it as little
as we can. 1t is not an inviting object OF cons
temptation, however happily aman may chance
to be placed. Incapacity of being absolutely
satisfied with such gifts as reality permits to
him appears to be an inevitable condition o
mans nature, and there Is hope spring
ing eternaly in the human breast
the poet meant. Take men who are unques
iioDably in those grooves which lead to worldly
:, success OF the best sort; men who are making
- large incomes well as reputation at th
bar, who are treading the smooth path tina
leads to preferment and dignity in the Church
who are being talked about with much sym
pathy and much tempestuous reprobation II
the world of politics, VINO are names in scen
t6c circles, or who are recognized as d oini
good and welcome work in fiction, history
philosophy or any other part OF literature
Yet who believes that any one OF these is pei
fectly contented with what his career Is bringing
him tot We do not IN the least mean, wha
some novelists would try to persuade us, tina
there are skeletons in all cupboards, an
secret consciousness in all hearts, and sens
of blight and mistake and remorse generally per
yasiye through all the families and men who seer
so delightfully."- happy on the surface. This sort O
thing is probably confined TO the maronette
whom novelists fashion and move In thei
delusive puppet shows. In real life 1t IS pret
safe 10 suppose that remorse Is only occasional
and that the grounds for 1t are tolerably infrt
nuent. But remOrse has nothing TO do Wit
that inarticulate dissatisfaction which Is th
element in life we are talking about, and whic
Ands a remedy for itself IN a correspondiD
view of inartlcuate or indefinite nopeiulnes
Even successful men constantly think that a
is vanity and Yexation of spirit, and that SUI
cess is not by any means tie hlllng and su
stantial end-aIl and be all which in the golde
days OF youth they had fondly supposed It