Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1873-01-10
Turning Oyer a New Leaf.

There is wounderous difference in
people, as regards the propensity for
turning over >. new leaf it is odd
that, for the most par, they who have
power Of viii and seh-restraint enough
to keep good resolutions are least in
the habit of making them, and appear
most content to live ona lower plan,
without aspiration while OH the'other
hand, they are most sensible of per-
sonal shortcomings, and most apprecia-
tive 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 in
capable of the volatility which, on its
part, can never walk steadily onward,
but is always on series OF excursion
airy skirs an9 hops upwards to a higher
life, whence it as regularly founders
aud fops down, bruised but not tanned ,
to the clay Goethe says that persons
quiet unstable and incapable OF, all
Improvement $ frequently accuse them
selves in the bitterest manner, con-
Tossing and deploring their faults with
extreme ipgeauousness, though they
possess not the smallest power within
them to retire from the course along
which the irresistible tendency of their
nature is dragging them forward. "
Nobody need be down-hearted at this
| dictum. Some men seem to be govern
ed by fate because they have NO, will
worth speaking of, or at least give no
proof Of any while others apparent
| " have will free of fate, so strongly
does it act on circumstances and 1t 1T
| 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 consciousness
and self esteem, as to mature at once.
They imagine themselves grown men
before their boards are out in their
elders they see only their peers, and
hence feel the burdens Of life already
in youth These are they who become
famous betimes-great traders money
lenders, railroad builders, soldiers, law
yers, journalists, at the dawn of active
life. Their opposites waste each New
Year in wondering what will happen
when they grow to be meni when the
opportunity comes when life really
opens wide. Humble and timid, they
fancy all other men to be wiser or
stronger than they, At thirty, they
hear with wonder that yonder stall
wart, thoughtful man, whom, in old
childish habit, they address with a de-
ferential ''sir5' is only thirty years old,
too. At forty, they still cling to their
conciliatory, deprecatory ways, feel like
boys lodging about bewildered men,
though manhood has encompassed
them twenty years. 1t comes upon
them like shock to find their hair
whitening, and people describing
them as ''old gentleman while their
feet are too paIpably sliding on the
downhill stretch. Til then, they had
never thought themselves mature for
a career, nor suspected that they had
reached the now-or.never Of lite till
it was years away in the past Su3h
men take an aroma of the cradle
to the grave, only quitting their first
childhTod when they enter the second
ever are they drcamiI 6 CT the future
and proposing to !uln over the new
Ieaf-DrydwoQd, BY Phtiip Qiiibet
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