The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1878-01-24

and picturing agonies from poisons
that have not been brewed. 1t Is hard
for us to understand how our asso-
ciates can be so reckless of their con-
tent as to waste it on shadows, though
we have shadows also, called by diff
ferent name, and allow them to shut
out the sunlight that rightfully belongs
to us.
These darksome and delusive antici-
pations are common to the great bulk
of men. They do not seem so, for men
are ashamed to acknowledge what they
feel to be weakness. They rarely
sympathize with it in their fellows, UNI
less their forebodings are of the same
kind and on the same subjects, which
is very infrequent. Men are disposed
10 apprehend that which is highly i'm
probable, as we'll as that which is
probable. The rich, albeit their for
tune is well secured, often dread lest
they may come to want. and torture
themselves over the possibility. The
ambitious, having reached the object
of their ambition and intrenched them
selves there, are necessarily haunted
] with y fear of their downfall. The
r., strong in integrity and virtue grow
morbid in contemplating the opposite,
and suffer intensely from fancied con-
sequences against which they are pro-
tected.
The folly of anticipations, whether
for ourselves or others, might be
learned by their contradiction in ex-
periencc. What is anticipated happens
SO seldom that it might seem as if Des-
tiny delights to defy forecast. Invalids
very frequently die of a totally different
disease from the one they have con-
stantly fought against. A man who in
herits weak lungs, spends thousands of
dollars for medical advice and travel
and is finished at last by malarial
fever He who has suffered for wears
from calculus goes to his grave from Il
! virulent carbuncle. The lifelong VIC
tim of asthma is struck down bv dis
ease of the heart The man who has
| endured all the horrors of protracted
dyspepsia yields suddenly to angina
pectoris. The person prepared to end
with intestinaltroublc ends with pneu-
monia. Cholera carries Oft the man to
| whom nervous prostratiOn has been
from early manhood familiar foe
He who has repeatedly declared insan-
| ity impossible to him becomes a raving
and incurable maniac. The brawny,
| robust fellow, confident of threescore
and ten, is buried before he is thirty.
The infant which nobody expects to
live three months lasts to ninety years.
The pale, thin youth, who looks as if a
spring might blow him away grows so
obese that apoplexy releases him at
eighty.
Soldiers always expect to fall in front
, of battle, though the greater part of
them sicken life away in the hospital.
Men without any notion of business in
the beginning abruptly develop into
millionaires. Wild boys. about whom
sober neighbors shake their heads, and
talk lugubriously of disgrace and the
gallows, blossom into evangelical cler-
gymcn, and pain the most pious of
| their congregation by the sternness of
their creed. Young men pointed out
as patterns of propriety, and made
themes of moral lectures to young men
of more worldly mold, turn out con-
summate scoundrels, and keep out of
prison only because they are too
shrewd toget enmeshed in legal justice.
Quiet citizens, never known to have
departed from routine, ard believed in
capable OF unconventional emotion,
startle the community by killing their
wives and children. setting fire to their
houses and perishing in the flames.
All such surprises are doubtless as
great to the actors as to the spectators.
1t seems impossible for anybody to an
ticipate what shall be. Most of us may
have our secret and pet bugbear; but
the danger that confronts us, the rock
we split on, is usually as unlike the
bugbear as a lizard is unlike leopard.
Fortune seems bent on battling our en-
pectations. No mind can see what
may or may not happen. Prophets be-
long to the realm of poetry. But it
would appear that we have reason to
! believe that almost anything may be
except the foreshadowed. Perhaps we
should have Il new proverb: 1.-The an
ticipated is always and entirely improb-
able. ~. Y. Times.