The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1877-10-11

nifty. 1t was by winning prize that
he got his money to take him to
Paris, whittier he plodded barefooted
with Mignet, who still survives to stand
by his grave. When he could not af-
ford a fire to warm his chamber, he
sought the public library, and there,
turning over the files of the newspapers
of the Revolution, he was seized with
the idea of writing the history of that
great struggle. He plunged into the
work, and wrote the first history that
the French people ever read. Here we
see him making the best of adversely,
and adding piece to his sword when
it was too short, ass the Roman father
suggested to his son. There was all
through life a careful outstanding of re-
sources; though he took but little sleep,
he was careful to take that; he did not
discount his future by the excessive use
of drugs and stimulants, which are so
many short-time drafts, due in less than
thirty days. What force he had, he
kept; he wasted none of it in trying to
make it more. His pleasures, we are
told, were of men of affairs, of his FAM
lily, of delicacies, of art, of horses and
of animals-tastes not expensive of in
dulgence in Paris-till the possession of
wealth itself suggested this form of ex-
penditure. With the cafes, the libra
ries, the bouleyafds, galleries and the
museums open to him, little expendi-
ture was required for these enjoyments.
There is way of work which in
wolves the maximum and another which
involves the minimum of wear and tear.
A slender woman who did the dairy
work of large farm, without s..hired
girl" and brought up her children.
used to say she did her work by zeal
culation.h With all the labor-saving
appliances of modern invention, we
shall never find anything to take the
place of calculation as an economizer
of human energies. Calculation of the
readiest processes, of the nearest ham
dies by which to grasp things, of taking
hold and of letting 60. is the first les
son of economy. The substitution of
rule for random, and of habit for no.
habit must be the tendency of all activ-
ity. The science of organization is the
sum of all sciences in doing things.
Whether it is civil service to be made
pure and effective, dry-goods store to
be kept, q household to be overseen, or
railroad to be built, the controlling
mind must proceed by intelligent or
ganization of its forces, to secure the
best results. Nothing is more pitiful
in these days of insolvency than to see
the numerous instances of hard-work-
ing men whose business has complete
ly overgrown their capacity to manage.
They have toiled along in the vague
expectation they were getting rich,
they have daily taken their coats off
perhaps and laboriously mingled with
their employees, looking after details
that thousand-dollar clerk might at
tend to, but neglecting the questions
of far-sighted management, of the
counting-room and of the bank account,
perhaps excepting everything in their
heads, till finally some day their notes
go to protest and the great concern
fails.
Scarcely less important than economy
of working force is the economy of
feelings. 1t is nice thing to learn the
proper sensibility of cuticle to make it
a comfortable and serviceable garment.
The human creature cannot afford to
fight flies all the time, or chafe at every
bearing of the harness, if he is to have
any nerve left for more important du-
ties. There must be a certain tranquil
lity of ones moral nature to insure the
best conditions. There have been ac-
tors who have gone from death-beds
to set the house in roars of merri-
ment at their comedy, but the arrange
ment was not economical of human
sensibility. There is fine art of APP
preaching men, and still finer one of
keeping away from them. 1t is curious,
and especially curious to women, to
what nicely men of affairs learn to know
each other, just as far as is requisite,
and no more. 1t illustrates what can
be done in this line, but it may not al
ways be the best economy.
Pleasures also, we need to learn, are
a matter of cultivation, almost entirely.
Men and women require for their enjoy
ment what they bring themselves to
require. Good Samuel Pepys, two cen
turies ago, got reserved seats for him
self and ladies to witness the beheading
of Sir Henry Vane, and then grumbled
because the crowd got in their way and
they didn't see very well, after all.
In Madrid, pleasure is the bull-fght;
in Naples, the opera; in America, less
exciting and expensive recreation must
be the lot of the mass of people.
Even here brass-band, procession
and regalia will suffice for only the
briefest period. Public and extraordi-
nary excitements are fatigues rather
than pleasures, and the real enjoyments
of life must be in the small amenities
and activities of daily existence. AS
bread is the chief support of physical
life, we should recognize our daily and
hourly opportunities for pleasure as
the chief source of it. If we look for
ward to some great event which is to
be the crown of bliss, we are sure to
find it qualified by some thorn beneath
the rose, as Hawthorne has observed
in one of his notes. The late George
L. Davis, who realized great sum of
enjoyment out of a life of at least ordi
nary trial, once remarking upon the
disappointments and tragedies into
which he had entered, relieved his
gathering feelings with the wise reflec-
| ton that we must, after all, "get the
pleasures of life out of little things as
we 90 along" The chance meeting of
friends and kindred, the daily associa-
ton of families, the wealth of literature
open to the poorest, the changing
phase of outward nature and inner life,
these are the proper sources of human
endowment which each soul may culti-
yate to its own satisfaction. Spring
| field Mass Republican.