The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1873-01-02
Tnrnlng Over n Ne.v Len.

There is wondrOus difference in peo-
pie, as regards the propensity for turning
over a new leaf. 1t is odd that, for the
most part, they who have power of will
and self-restraint enough to keep good
resolutions are least in the habit of max
ing 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
eovet. Thus sturdiness or stability of
character is frequently earthly by instinct,
and incapable of that volatility which,
on its part, can never walk steadily on
ward, but is always on a series of ex-
customary skips and hops upward to a
higher lite, whence it as regularly foun
ders and fops 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, con-
Tossing and deploring their faults with
extreme righteousness, though they pos
sess not the smallest power within them
to reti. from that 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 governed by fate,
because they have no will worth speak
ing of or at least give no proof of any;
while others apparently have will free
of fate, so strongly does it act on cir
cumstances; and if it 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 imagine themselves grown men be-
fore 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 be-
times = great traders, money-lenders,
railroad builders, soldiers, lawyers, jour
nalists, at the dawn of active life. Their
opposites waste each New Year in Won
dering what will happen when they grow
to be men; 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 thir-
ty, they hear with wonder that yonder
stalwart, thoughtful man, whom, in old
childish habit, they address with a de-
ferential "sir, D is only thirty years old,
too. AT forty, they still cling to their
conciliatory, deprecatOry ways-feel like
boys lodging about bewildered among
men, though manhood has encompassed
them twenty years. 1t comes upon them
like shock to find their hair whitening,
and people describing them as 1.-THE old
gentlemen" while their feet are too pal
pably sliding on the dOwnhill stretch
Fill then, they had never thought them
selves mature for career, nor suspected
that they had reached the now-or-never
of life till it was years away in the past.
Such men take an aroma of the cradle
with them to the grave, only quitting
their first childhood when they enter the
second; ever are they dreaming of the
possible future, and proposing to turn
over the new leaf.-Driftwood, by Philip
Quilibet, in January Galaxy.