Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1875-10-14

maiden who has found, so far, Pippa's
satisfaction with life, but to whom, as the
years fly by, come disappointments in
love, in hopes, comes blasting of ideas
and aims, comes the sense that it needs
indeed another world to complete this
And so it happens that there are few, if
any, human beings among US who are
completely and rapturously happy for any
length Of time. Lovers in each others
arms, benefactors relieving suffering,
mothers clasping their babies, actor and
poet under the fresh laureis Of triumph
all these know surely what the ecstacy of
bliss is. But the child leaves the moth
er's arms, the benefactors receive ingrati-
tude, the lovers weary or deceive or die,
the actor or the artist finds that one warm
heart had been better than the hollow r1n g
of all those plaudits; and the ecstacy with
all has been brief. And that is what the
moan is abOut-that it cannot last to all
time, as if, in a world that g spins forever
down the ringing grooves of change"
every moment, with its invisible forces,
must not pull the present combination
apart to effect new one, and as if it were
anything but childish kicking against a
wall to demonstrate or complain of the in
evitable; for, by submitting and trying to
make the best of it, something, at any
rate, is to be gained.
- 1t being conceded, then, that every lot
in life has its bitterness, while daughter
shall be mingled with sorrow, and mourn
ing take hold of the end Of joy" that cor
| rOding cares beset the possession of our
| best earthly treasures, 1t becomes a self
evident truth that the chief relief from
that lot is to cease to consider it. GAS a
moth dOeth by garment, and worm by
the wood, so the sadness of man con-
sumeth the heart" says the old Latin
Vulgate; and we can forget our own sad
ness best by grieving over the sadness of
another, by rejoicing over anOther's joy.
! In the one case we shall find that ours is
not an isolated instance, but that each
soul bends beneath the weight of its own
especial cross, and that light as such cross
seems to us in comparison with our own,
yet if we took the temperament and situa-
ton Of its bearer with it we should find it
just as grievous. We see some woman of
genius, at whose voice, with whose
beauty, beneath whose power, every night
a multitude thrills; we contemplate her
brilliant destiny; we envy her while we
admire her; we wonder at partial fate,
and laugh at the idea that this fortunate
creature has any cross at all to bear; we
do not know that she has given her heart
and her happiness into the keeping of an
unworthy man, so neglectful and so base
that her honOrs, her genius, her beauty
are mere dross to her, and that whenever
she lies down to sleep she would be CRATE
| full if she were never to wake up. We
see man before whom senates tremble
who moves a nation so that as his heart
beats the hearts of all its people beat
whose name resOunds to the farthest parts
of the earth. We ask, could he have
more? But we do not know how he suf-
fers under the wide ISLANDERS that falsely
prosecute him, and, while they seem to us
mere gnat stings, eat up his happiness like
canker. Or we see another, on whom
fortune waits, who handles states like
pawns, who is the personiication of power
whose station would be to us as impOssi-
| BILE as Alnaschar's dream. We do mo-
know the secret shame for some i'll deco
that follows him like a Nemesis; of the
future moment of horror that darkens al
the splendid moments now, w n at his
death, if not before, the bubble of his fa;l
fame shall be pricked; or else of the hid
den trouble in his home that makes al
success mean failure; or yet Of the I'm
whispered disease that gnaws, vulture
like, at his vitals, and for which he car
have no pity nor sympathy, since it il
death to a politicians hopes to be known
to suffer from disease at all. We see {
lovely woman rolling by in her luXuriou:
coach her velvets, her jewels, her flowers
her hosts of friends, her devoted husband
her life at home, like a chapter in thu
beatitudes, all move us to imagine what il
thing shall befall her, and so make matters
even. We do not know that an i'll thins
| tlldt uC1 way uCi
lain over graves; that her heart aches anC
longs for the children that are denied her
and that without them all the rest il
naught. Thistle knowledge of all thi
is perhaps but bitter consolation fo
ones own GRIEF. Yet, nevertheless,
hinders one from supposing any particula
malevolence on the part Of the powers o
the universe directed at ones self, anC
affords one, as we have said, the oppo1
) tunity-in bringing amusement to thes
others, relief, oblivion for the moment
of forgetting ones self and ones owl
burden.
And in the other case that of reioic
ing in the joy of the fortunate possesso
of that blessing-the very exertion O
casting aside envy, of refusing to listen t.
the evil suggestion concerning injustice
E brings back a shadow of that JOY Oh
us; ray of happy satisfaction, it may b
, also, with our own virtue, which is cheer
ing, and gives us certainly pleasant ant
heartwarming sensations that we shoult
not otherwise have known. For whethe
we are glad on our own account or on an