River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1873-01-24
Turning Over a New Leaf.
From the january Galaxy.


There is a wondrous difference in
people, as regards tie 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 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 APP
preeiative Of better modes of living.
oftenest break good resolutions, and
seldomestreach 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 on
ward, but is always on a series of
excursionary skips and hops upward to
higher life, whence it as regularly
founders and fops down, bruised but
not tanned, to the clay. Goethe says
that persons quite unstable and inca
pable Of all improvement "fre-
quently accuse themselves in the
bitterest manner, confessing and
deploring their faults with ex-
IRENE righteousness 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 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 APP
parently have a will free of fate, so
strongly does it act on circumstances !;
but if it be answered that this strong
and free will is itself form of fate, at
least it is one the possessors can Meth
er fear nor complain of.
Many lads have such practical views
of life, joined with such self-conscious-
ness and self-esteem, as to mature it 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 al
| ready in youth. These are they who
become famous betimes-great traders,
money-lenders, railroad ibuilders, sol
diers, lawyers, journalists, at the dawn
of active life. Their opposites waste
each New Year in wondering what will
happen when they grow to be men /;
when the opportunity comes; when
life really opens wide. HUBBLE and
timid, they fancy all other men to be
wiser or stronger than they. At thirty
they hear with wonder what yonder
stalwart, thoughtful man, whom, in old
childish habit. they address with de-
ferential "slr," 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.
It comes upon them like a shock
to find their hair whitening, and people
describing them as :" the old gentle
man." while their feet are too palpably
sliding on the downhill stretch. Till
then, they had never thought them
selves mature for career, nor suspect.
ed 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 dream
ing of the possible future, and propos
ing to turn over the new leaf.