The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1877-03-29

And the sweetest remnant OF Eden that's LETT
IL 1oving-and breaking the ice.
&c. Lansing Taylor, DID,, In HGrper's Bazaar. |
Hidden Resources.
THERE is so much economy practiced
everywhere in the universe, where we
know waste to be impossible in the trans |
formation of matter, and feel that it must |
be correspondingly so in spiritual affairs, |
that it is exceedingly doubtful whether |
there are any individuals on earth who are |
not possessed of some special aptitude. if |
they could only find it out.
Even idiots may have their peculiar
uses for some future generation to turn to
account, if that to which they are turned
in the present in cultivating divine
patience in the human breast be not suffi. |
Gent: nor can we quite think that is
sufficient, since that is merely their use to
others, and we fancy that every soul
must be of some sort of use also purely
to itself.
But the majority of our lives are SO
tranquil, going on like the weather,
driven by superior force from day to day,
and seldom taken in hand and positively
directed by ourselves, that we have little
occasion to discover our one talent, the
less so if it is anything at all out of the
way.
Women, especially, are 50 we'll taken
care of by husbands, fathers, brothers,
that they are not often piqued to any Of
the discovery by much necessity. In girl
hood they are occupied with little pleas
ures, interests, vanities, loves; as they
grow older, their day is filled with the
care of pare nts, or of children, or of
nephews and nieces; and thus they have
no opportunity to attend to the possibility
of the discovery, and usually, SO, no need
of it. And when this is not the case,
pleasure frequently refuses to resign with
youth, or necessary attention to the poor
occupies the time when the instincts that
betray the aptitude might be obeyed.
A lady of our acQuain lance, then just
on the edge of fl rty, discovered one day
Ivy pure accident her skill in .dabbling in
clay, made Immediately her own tools,
worked to make up for lost time, and is
now one of the distinguished sculptOrs OF
the world. Another lady that we know,
thrown by q reverse of fortune out of
perfectly tame life among perfectly tame
people, and in tame part of the country,
whore art was little known, lsaw piece
of fine Od-caYving for the first time,
|
like one inspired, but for her patience
and her first failures-to draw her own
designs and execute carvings that now go
far toward satisfying those who know the
old Florentine and Venitian wood carv-
ing, and now has not only certain source
of good income, but delightful resource
for all the rest of her life. And, to pro-
coed with our statements. an old lady,
with the SHOWS of eighty winters on her
head, who hOnOrs us with friendship.
lately took up the new needle work, and
although feeling herself too old for CON-
plete excellence, delights herself and all
about her with her wonderful picture en-
broidery. Yet we think she need not
despair of excellence, for another lady
whom we have met, who had never
known that she had any further ability
with her pencil than that of giving her
children their early drawing lessons and
evening amusements, on going to Europe
after her seventeen birthday, free and
unencumbered by care, was SO wrapt and
fired by the wonder and beauty of the
paintings in the galleries that she straight
way took to easel and mahlstick, and be.
came in less than two years quite an &C.
complished copyist, and is still painting
merrily away to about as much purpose
as most of the crowd IF younger students,
probably painting all the better, too,
while her outer senses last, for the deep
experience Of emotion and comprehension
that her longer years give her to inclose
with an illuminating power within hel
work.
Nearly all of us think, after little, ever
after so very little as forty years, tina
nothing is of any use now, and We are
too old to make fools of ourselvers," il
we do not quote the old saying about it!
| being "hard to teach an old dog new
tricks" and we sit down to rust out thu
rest of our days. Yet for certain thing.
, We may be too old-fOr those, indeed
; that require supple joints and swift move
ments-but perhaps for nothing else. i
is not positively sure that because thi!
one Is superannuated at threescOre ant
ten, therefore we shall be, and that there il
J no time " do, if there is will. Old Par
, for whom fate had to step in and con
quer I" confirmed habit of liviug," will
, every organ in perfect health at one hun
dred and fifty-two-is not the only long
, lived inhabitant of this planet; human
life, under is easier conditions, is length
i. ening with every generation. NOn'
, know for certainty that they may not be
as long.livcd as Hupaz0li, who had tn,
good luck to have q share of three diff
, ferent centuries, whose gray hair changed
to black at one hundred, and whose teelf
returned to him at one hundred and thirteen
. who wrote and worked to the last, ant
who must have looked on himself will
awe, it not with fright. There are, in
decd, q round dozen of names 81
various men and women who hav,
lived we'll and happy all the way from
one hundred to one hundred and sixty
nine; and . book of ; English sta
dying, between 1760 and 1899, over one
hundred and thirty years old, thirty-nine
more at one hundred and twenty, thirty
six at one hundred and ten, and
fifty-four at one hundred. And if a,
Pliny's time there were, according to Gen.
sus, more than one hundred people be-
tween the Apennines and the Pc over a
hundred years In age, what shall there be
in this day, when there is everything to
encourage life? OF course these few in
stances are but beggarly ciphers in CON-
parison with the millions OF the earth: but
nobody knows who is to figure among the
ciphers; and if it should happen to be
our own chance, how very agreeable 1t
would be if at any station, the f0rtieth, the
fiftieth, even the seventeen, when the
world acquitted us of care, we had dis
covered any peculiar talent with all our
powers fresh and vigorous to pursue it,
and had not neglected to cultivate it be-
cause 1t was "all nonsense at our age" to
begin, and we didn't want people laugh
ing at US!
And even if We are not going t. live to
these antediluvian bounds, it is a. we'll to
put ourselves in condition for enjoyment
| for the ten or twenty years that we prob
ably shall live after passing that Rubicon
where we think it is too late to learn. Ten
years, Ia comparison with these vaster
numbers, seem but q breath; but in real
ity there are very many long weary days
and weeks and months in them, as look
ing back on any last ten years, and all
they have held, will show rs; and what