The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1875-06-24
Getting the Best Out of 1t.

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 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 finer house, or that they could go to
boarding. school, or that they were not
obliged to go TO boarding-school, or
that they could afford to dress like some
girls they know, or that they were allowed
to dress in elegant, grown-up style, or that
they could go to the seaside or 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 what they really
are, or how much or how little of salts
faction is to be obtained from them.
A season at watering-place 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 in the imaginations
of the people who write about them, and
that it is burden more than happiness
to those who experience them.
Not, of course, but that enjoyment may
be extracted even out of watering place;
but it is usually by those who would be
happy anywhere else-who carry happi-
ness with them.
For unless you arc acquainted with and
moving in the same circle as the people
who go there you are practically as much
alone as if you were living in the wilds OF
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 that would give you companionship.
That we make our own lives has be-
come a truism and commonplace, but it
is none the less true for that. Let us make
them good for ourselves and good for 9TH
crs. Let us try to repay the obligation
that we are under to those who have made
and are making life cndurable to us by
doing something which shall make life
sweet to them. Oh! how good kindness
| is, how good cheerfulncss is, how good
sweetness and purity and cleanliness are!
| How good ii is to have beautiful
thought, a true thought, noble thought
| introduced into hard, dull life! How
| good it is to see thing done III the best
way, if it is only washing dishes or peel
ing potatoes! How thoroughly it en-
mobiles the work and the worker!
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
the windows and note the progress OF the
| flowers, the upspringing grass, the creep
| ing vines, and see the first bursting Of the
| buds upon tree and shrub. You can have
| han ~in r baskets -, er-""s- danr and recess,
| for you can take them out of daa., g..
water, and run no risk of spelling the
carpets or blockading the watcr-pipcs, and
you can plant herbs, and lay off patches
of ground for your favOritc plants and
garden-seeds. Your kitchen is clean, and
even if not your own, you can do what
you please in it; its closets smell of thyme
and sage and fragrant caraways instead o
generations Of mice and reaches, and
you have woodbine trailing up against
windows, instead of an iron grating and
the contents of the ash-barrel. No won
der the warm, light biscuit, or the good
| brown bread, tastes so sweet coming from
| the bright stove oven; no wonder the
chicken pot-pic melts in your mouth, and
the potatoes lie like pile of snow upon
the dish. What opportunities for house
| keeping are here! The place suggests
generous kitchen aprons, covering the
neatest and incest of print dresses, and a
larder always ready for company
Perhaps you despise these humble OPP
portunities; but they are not to be de-
| spised. If you cannot write story you
can live one, and if it is not gay and
brilliant one let it be a practical and do
nestle one. Find out what possibilities
are in you for an exquisite cleanliness,
for kindly care-taking, for bountiful
providing, for a cultivation of the beauti-
full, and develop them. Doing it for
yourself you will do it for your home, and
thus render it source of comfort and hap
piness to your own family and an example
to your friends and neighbors Hearth
and Home.
How AdOlph Dietz Lost and Found
His Wife.