Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1875-07-15
GATHER UP THE FRAGMENTS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF " JOHN HALIFAX, GEN
TLEMAN.''E So FEtF +,
How MANY lives are, so to speak, mere
relics of.an ended feast, fragments which
may be either left to waste or be taken up
andmade the most of! For we cannot die
just when we wish it and because we
wish it. The fact may be very
unrOmantic, but it is fact, that a too
large dinner or a false step on the stairs
kills much more easily than a great sor-
row. Nature compels us to live on even
with broken hearts, as with lopped-off
members. True, we are never quite. the
same again, never the complete human
being; but we may still be Very respect
able, healthy human being, capable ofliv-
ing out our threescore years and ten with
tOlerable comfort after all.
These fragments of lives, how they
strew our daily path on every side! Not
house do we enter, not company do we
mix with, but we more than guess-we
knoa0-that these our friends, men and
women, who go about the world doing
their work and taking their pleasure
therein, all carry about them secret bur
den-of bitter disappointment, vanished
hopes, untulfilled ambitions, lost loves.
Probably every one of them, when his or
her smiling face yanishes from the circle,
will change it into another, serious, anx-
ious, sad-happy if it be only sad, with
no mingling of either bitterness or bad
ness. That complete felicity, which the
young believe in and expect almost as a
matter of certainty to come never does
come. Soon or late we have to make up
our minds to do without it, to take up the
fragments of our blessings, thankful that
we have what we have and are what we
are; above all that we have our own bur
den to bear and not our neighbours. But
whatever it is we must bear it alone; and
this gathering up of fragments which am
so earnestly advising is also thing which
must be done alone.
The lesson is sometimes learned very
early. 1t is shrewdly said: cat three we
love our mothers, at six our fathers, at
twelve our holidays, at twenty our sweet
hearts, at thirty our wives, at forty our
children, at fifty ourselves" Still, in one
form or other, love is the groundwork of
our existence.
So at least thinks the passionate boy or
sentimental girl who has fallen under its
influence. For | suppose we must all
concede the everyday fact that most peo-
pie fall in love some time or other, and
that good many do it even in their teens.
You may call it calf love- and so it
often is, and comes to the salutary end Of
such a passion
Which does at once, like paper set on fire,
Burn-and expire.
But it gives a certain amount of pain
and discomfort during the con1agration,
and often leaves IAN ugly little heap of
ashes behind
Also, it is well to be cautious, as the
foolishest of fancies may develop into a
real love-the blessing or curse of a life
time
Fond of herr" / heard an old man
once answer, as he stood watching his
wife move slowly down their beautiful but
rather lonely garden-they had buried
eight of their nine children, aid the ninth
was going to be married that sprin--
6 fond other 20 with a gentle smile; why,
I've been fond OF her these fifty yearsn'
But such cases are very exceptional 1t
is so seldom that one love-a happy love
runs like a golden thread through the lite
of either man or woman that we ought to
be patient even with the most frantic boy
or forlorn girl who has "fallen in love-
and is enduring its first sharp pleasure, or
rain, for both are much alike e
When they come and tell you that their
hearts are broken, it is best not to laugh
at them, butt help them to . gather III
the fragments as soon as possible, A
first, of course, they will not agree that i
is possible. "This or nothingr, is the
despairing cry; and though we may hin
that the world is wide, and there may b,
in it other people at least as good as tn,
one particular idol, still we cannot ex