Smyrna times., 1873-01-08
Turning Over a New Leaf.

There is wondrous difference in people,
says the GdtGCy for January, as regards the
for turning over a new leaf 1t is
odd that, for the most part, they who have
power OF will and selfreStralnt enough TO keep
good resolutions are least in the habit of
making them, and appear most content to live !
on lower plane, without aspiration, while on |
the other hand they who are most sensible of
personal shortcomings, and most appreciative
of better modes of living, oftenest break good
resolutions, and seldomest reach the standard
they cOvet. Thus sturdiness or stability of
character is frequently earthly by instinct, and
incapable of that volatility which, on its part,
can never walk steadily onward, but is always
on a series of excursionary skips and hops
upward to a higher life, whence it as regularly
founders and fiOps down, bruised, but not
tanned, to the clay
Goethe says that persons quite unstable and
incapable of all improvement, Frequently
accuse themselves in the bitterest manner,
confessing and deplOring their faults with ex
treme righteousness, though they possess not
the smallest power within them to retire from
that course, along which the irresistible ten
dency of their nature is dragging them for
ward. Nobody need be down hearted at this
| dictum. Some men seem to be governed by
fate, because they have no will worth speaking
Of or at least give no proof OF any, while
others apparently have will free of fate, SO
strongly does it act on circumstances; and if il
, be answered that this strong and free will is
itself form of fate, at least it is one the
possessors can neither fear nor complain of.
Many lads have such practical views of life
Joined with such self consciousness and self
esteem, as to mature at once. They imagn
/ themselves grown men before their boards ar
, out in their elders they see only their peers
} and hence feel the burdens of life already i
youth. These are they who become famou
e betimes-great traders, money lenders, railrOa
: builders, soldiers, lawyers, journalists, at tn
G dawn of active life. Their oppOsites vast
It each New Year in wondering what will happe
: when they grow to be men, when the opportu
/; nifty comes when life really opens wide
,r Humble and timid, they fancy all other men
:, be wiser and stronger than they. At thrt,
e they hear with wonder that yonder stalwar
n, thoughtful man, whom, in old childis
habit, they address with deferential sir,
of only thirty years old, too.
,r At forty they still cling to their cOnciliator
:; deprecatory ways; feel like boys lodging abo
Is bewildered among men, though manhood h
Ii enc0mpaSsed them twenty years. 1t com
1p upon them like a shock to find their h,
V. whitening, and people describing them as t
Sc "Old gentleman" while their feet are t
palpably sliding on the downhill stretch.
re then they had never thought themselves II
ar ture for career, nor suspected that they h
", reached the now or never of life till it was We;
nd away in the past. Such men take an aroma
I'D the cradle with them to the grave, only quitti
OF their first childhood when they enter the 5
ond; ever are they dreaming of the posi-
1T, future, and proposing to turn over the new lie