Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1875-06-24
Getting the Best Out Of 1t.


OUT of what? Out Of anything; out of
your lite, out of your circumstances, out
of what you have, out of what you are in
yourself. Few people are cOntented to be
what they are or rather to be in the place
in which they are They always want to
be some one else, or to be in the place Of
some one else; for, if the question is
brought home to us closely, we are none
of us willing to exchange identity with
any other individual; we only want what
seems to Us good that they have got, for
getting or ignoring the fact that they have
grown into their lives as we have grown
into ours, and that, to a certain extent,
each one is fitted to his own life much bet
ter, at any rate, than he could be to that
of anyone else.
1t is like wishing for some other PERSONS
clothes. IF we had them for the wishing
we should find we could make no use of
them.
Young girls are especially apt to wish
they could change their circumstances or
their surroundings. They wish they lived
in the city instead Of the country, or the
country instead Of the city, or that they
had a finer house, or that they could go to
boarding-school, or that they we're not
obliged to 90 TO boarding-schOOl, or
that they could afford to dress like some
girls they know, or that they allowed
to dress in elegant, groWn-up style, or that
they could 90 to the seaside or a watering
place or the theater or the opera, or be al
lowed to sit up reading novels and lie in
bed late in the morning, or a thousand
other things that seem to them desirable.
The most Of these things they only want
because they have read about them, or
heard them described in very glowing
terms They have no idea whatthey really
are, or how much or how little of salts
faction is to be obtained from them.
A season at a watering seems TO
some vivid young imaginatiOns the real
ization of dream of Paradise; and be-
cause they cannot compass it they NOPE
and fret and give way to a spirit which
makes life wretched for themselves and
every one about them. They do not
Know, and cannot imagine, that half the
people at watering-places are more lonely
and more unhappy than they are-that
more than half the show and gayety and
glitter exists simply insthe imaginations
of the people who write about them, and
that it is a burden more than happiness
to those who experience them.
Not, of course, but that enjoyment may
be extracted even out of q watering place;
but it is usually by those who would be
happy anywhere else-who carry happi-
ness with them.
For unless you are acquainted with and
moving in the same circle as the people
who 90 there you are practically as much
alone as if you were living in the wilds OF
a new country. You go in and out, you
pay high for your board and lodging, but
speak to no one. You feel like pariah
and would be glad to escape from it any
where thatwould give you companlonshlp.
That we make our own lives has be-
come truism and commonplace, but it
is none the less true for that. Let us make
them good for ourselves and good for 9th
erS. Let us try to repay the obligation
that we are under to those who have made
e and are making life endurable to US by
doing something which shall make life
sweet to them. Oh! how good kindness
is. how good cheerfulness is, how good
sweetness and purity and cleanliness are!
How, good it is to have beautiful
thought, a true thought, a noble thought
introduced into hard, dull life! How
good it is to see a thing done in the best
way, if it is only washing dishes or peel
ing potatoes! How thoroughly it en-
mobiles the work and the workerl
If you live in the country, be happy.
You have the free air blowing in upon
you from all sides. You can look out of