The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1876-09-14
A Common Folly,

IF it is considered wise forethought
not to count ones chickens before they
| are hatched-in other words, not to
count upon pleasures which may never
happen-why may not the opposite
rule, not to worry about the evils that
may befall us or our friends, beequally
as prudent? There are many of US,
no doubt, who blot the sunshine and
poison our own lives by living in con-
stant state of worriment for fear that
something disagreeabfe or unfortunate
will occur. If such person has a
pleasure party in prospect, she antici-
pates storm; if she is to meet a
stranger, she does not expect to be pre-
possessed; if her money is invested in
Government bonds, the Government is
always about to repudiate. Fire was
discovered to burn up her property,
one would suppose; she smells smoke
at the "dead middle of the night" and
views her kerosene lamp as if it We're
an internal machine Nothing is too
great or too small for her to annoy
herself about. If her son is in college,
perhaps he will be expelled directly;
if he pull in the boat crew, he may
break blood-vessel: her new silk
may have whale-bone worked into
its glossy texture; perhaps she could
have bought her gloves more
cheaply at Cash's, or having purchased
them there, would they not have worn
better had they come from Credits?
She is certain that Mrs. Shirring never
returns all the scraps of her gowns;
that her husband will fail this year,
since he escaped last year; that if the
burglars are going to break in any
where, they will make her house their
rendezvous, though, Heaven knows,
she has nothing worth stealing! If her
new maid-servant does not covet her
neighbOr's goods, perhaps she is fond
of the cup that inebriates. She is
afraid that there is shOddy in her wa
ter-prOOf and cotton in her cashmere;
she wonders if the grocer doesn't give
false weight, if the butcher doesn't
charge more than she orders: she is
quite sure that her sponge-cake will
not rise like other peoples, and that
her preserves will ferment before they
can be eaten. Such person antici-
pates and endures, in imagination,
every trouble that happens to her long
before it arrives. and thus doubles the
sum-nay, she goes halfway to meet
every annoyance, and is so certain that
Fortune is about to spring a trap upon
her that she is always waking in her
watch-tower, without ever being re-
lieved.
This condition of mind is not con-
fined to either sex, be it said, though
we greatly fear that it prevails to a
greater extent among women, since
their lives are so much less active than
those of men, and they are more limit
ed than they in their power of dictat-
ing terms for themselves; neither does
u5U innnU'n 'nIucn uIlltrUnct, except Ludt
naturally a person who begins to wor-
ry young will have accomplished her
self in the folly before she is gray, be-
yond peradventure. 1t is doubtless
an inheritance often, or the result of a
nervous or imaginative temperament,
but it is none the less an embarrass-
ment and Il snare, and birthright
that one would do well to sell for
mess Of pOttage. The worrier is emf
nently of a social nature, however,
and always eager to share her wrong
with whOmsoever it may or may not
concern. In the meanwhile, she may
be of the most kindly disposition, of
the most benignant charity, but her
confirmed habit of forecasting disaster,
of looking at every disheartening prob
ability through the magnifiying lens Of
her imagination, does not tend to in
crease her own happiness nor that of
those about her, since she can hardly
possess that enviable gift,
A mind at leisure from itself,
To soothe and sympathize,
not because her heart is hard, but be-
cause her whole attention is surrender
ed to her anXieties. What is the use
Of speaking of the wrongs of the slave
or the pangs of the hungry to one who
is troubled about the moths in the car
pet or the mice in the pantry? If
worrying had ever been known to
avert impending trouble, or to eXor-
else that which had already befallen,
we should advocate its introduction
into all the public schools, prescribe it
in our college courses, teach it at our
tireSides.
"Take no thought for the morrow"
says the Divine Teacher, and in refus-
ing to obey His precepts we learn the
futility of our own short-sighted folly.