Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1876-06-02
DevOurine Our Cake.

and have 1t, embodies, in brief, one of the
cardinal lessons taught by experience and
learned through suffering. How many
people there are TO whom their cakes are
as IL they were everlasting; as II the slice
taken off to-day were able to renew itself
by some mysterious manner for tomorrow
people who never give an outlook TO the
future, but go on from hour to hour and
day to day, as If life was eternal and cir
cumstance unchangeable, and there was
no such thing as consumption, destruction,
and decay. But we see them fall to the
ground. 1t has to come, and isinevitable.
After having squandered in few years
what should have lasted them for life, they
have to cast about mournfully for bread,
which they are glad to accept stale and in
sufficient, in place Of the richer cake which
they devoured with so much uncalculatng
greed. Then there are regrets, self re-
proaches, despair; and GLOW could have
been such iooll" is the burden of the
sad song of sorrow that has TO he chan.ed
forever after, in place of the mad chorus
that once rang through the air. Some
times, indeed, that burden Is exchanged
for another of futile reproaches against this
and that, him or her, who helped to eat the
cake that should have been preserved, and
who thus comes in for share OF the blame
that belongs really only TO the eaters own
folly-or 1t may be worse than folly.
We eat our cakes too fast in other things
beside money. We cannot eat them and
have them stay, when we spend our intel
To- sbag ,,,,,-
ing work" for tho immediate moment
but, though good and paying for the inn
mediate moment, work that eXhausts our
wits and does not allow of renovation
work that degrades our better selves, and
that loses in the long run, however we'll
it seems TO pay in the short, because it de-
stroys our reputation and staying power
alike. But we cannot eat our cake and
have ii any moro in brains than in dollars.
If we spend all and harvest nothing we
shall come to the bare bones before long
and If we sacrifice the future to the present,
| aud prefer the success of the moment 10
the stability of after time, we shall find
that we have eaten to excess, and that our
indigestion of to-day will end in vacuity
| tomorrow. We have to husband our
working powers and the brain power
whence they spring, as we have TO hus-
band everything else that we possess; and
10 eat up in short time what ought to last
for all our life is bad management, and the
end will prove its evil.
We may do the same thing with friend
ship. We can eat up a friendship, as we
can eat up everything else, and leave our
selves no crumbs 10 go on with, out of all
that large cake that once was ours. II we
throw too much on our friends-make too
many demands on their sympathy, their
| patience, their good nature, their allow.
ance, their generosity-we shall end by
eating up in a short time Lhe cake o
love that should have lasted us to the
end. Many a friendship has been squan.
dered in this manner by excess of de-
mands, and many a love has followed
suit. BY the folly ofjealOusy, which, once
a stimulant, becomes at last poison; by
the folly Of display which, once a delicious
kind of enchantment, becomes at last an
oppressive nightmare; by the folly of thai
uneasy need OF perpetual assurance, which
once gladly responded to as the sign of de.
| lightful vitality, becomes at last tyranny
too onerous 10 be borne by all these alb
surdities and extrsvagances is the food OIL
love devoured and destroyed, and the cak e
which should have lasted for lifetime
eaten ana done with before ha,f the jour.
ney has been gone through. We eat ouI
cake too eieedily, too inconsideraiely
When it is gone we sit down and cry, and
wonder how it has come about that We
have nothing left TO so on with. IT, we had
husbanded our resources they would have
lasted it was our excess that left us pool
so soon, as many broken-hearted people
find out when too late.
So with our health, our strength. If We
eat ii all up in youth by imprudence, by
vicious courses, by foolish ignorance of the
bost laws of life, We have none 10 last u
through maturity and old age. We eat il
up in few years, and have to 60 short fol
all lime thereafter. We overtax ourselves
by heavy strains, by tremendous exeItiot
OF our powers somehow and we are struck
down by paralysis or some obscure com
plant. We live fast, and the grand vital
ty of youth which pulled us through" a
the time gives way before long, and We ar,
wrecked forever on the shoals Of disease
We have eaten our cake at a sitting, ant
we have none left for the future. We have
spent all our health and strength in In,
morning, and the evening finds us weak
and falling, crippled and laid aside. 1t il
ali a question of degree, Of moderation
We may use our youth and enjoy it 10 th'
utmost limit of good sense without eating
up our capital on insane pleasures that car
ry poison with them and leave destruction
behind them. We need not be towards
nor ascetics, yet we need not exceed anC
to devour all our cake of health anC
strength in the few years of early youth
leaving none for the future, is the act of f;
madman, and brings its own punishment
with il. We must, if we are wise, MAKE
some kind Of calculation in our life, and
say what we shall spend now, and what We
shall keep for the future. The rash say SC
much, which is all, and leaves them moth
ing the cooler and those able 10 forecas
with judgment, say SO much, which leave.
a sutficiency .-HOme Journal.
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