New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-01-04
4" CONE Up HIGHER.N

"COUE UP HIGHER"
Not one probably Of the middle-aged read
ers of TIE TRIBUNE took stock of himself
and his condition in life last week without dis
covering that one-half of his force, physical
and mental, had been spent in fighting some
circumstance which he has come to regard as
impregnable. What keen-wltted, successful
fellow, he thinks, for instance, ne might have
been but for that habit OF idliDg, or that
damuable craving for liquor or cards which
some old dead grandfather bequeathed to him.
Or, what a wide prospect the world would
open for him now if he could be rid of some
yoke which he hung about his own neck years
ago; the inevitable trade or profession (or
even wife if the tragedy go so deep as that
chosen when he was ieather-headed boy
Most probably, however, his burden Is the
common necessity of earning living for
family. He knows that he would have been
scholar, the most refined of gentlemen, an
explorer, scientific discogerer, generous,
witty, hosptable he would have tray
ersed with stately step all the nOber
paths of life if his hand had not
been kept to the grindstone ever since
he was a boy All the finer possibilities
of his life are sacrificed year after year to the
duty of paying those grOcers', rent and butch
ers' bills which come III so regularly and per
sistently. He grows haggard and lean and
anxious so does his wife; so do his boys as
they spring into manhood-as do all Amell-
cans as soon as they face this memorable neces-
sity OF making money. The bills must be paid
appearances must be kept up, or the family will
fall out OF their little social clique to "a lower;
the children must be pushed TO a higher plane
than his own the girls must dress in certain
style; so many dinner parties and receptions
must be given. The gray haired father grimly
faces these inexorable musts. Ordinary routine
is so apt to seem memorable necessity TO us
when our hair grows gray, which, when we
were young, we would have waved airily aside.
Now there is no doubt that there is saw
age reality in these long-borne everyday bur
dens to most of o. readers and that during
the year just openiLg, hey will weigh them down
more than actual temptations to crime, and
make of those wlG carry them meaner and
weaker and less helpful men than Nature
meant them to be. Fighting against them
seems to be useless; praying for strength
to carry them somehow does little good We
know of but one remedy, and that is, Get
above them. Change your base Don't stay
in the slough vexing the world with COM
plants about it, or praying feebly that the mud
may not soil your soul come up out of it to a
higher level. If father is making of himself,
with the capacities which God gave to fit him
for a noble, cheerful old age, a mere over
driven cart-horse, on which his children may
ride to fashion and wealth, it is time Cor him
to stop. to step up, not into higher social
cliques, but on to another plane of life. Break
all ties. Leave the town, the Clique, costly
dress and furniture behind you. Begin the
world afresh in a cheap house, with reduced
expenses Instead of money, make your aim
in 1850 health. cheerfulness, quiet, high
thoughts; YOU will be surprised to find how
few dollars in hard cash will purchase these
essentials Of life for family. If Society has
been the Old Man of the Sea for this house
hold, as for 50 many American families, crush
ing all independence and real vitality out of
it, let them drop Society at once. They will
be shocked to find how well it can get on
without them, but the shock will do them
good. A man has a bad habit: he CANDLES.
he cheats III trade, he affects low company
he knows this habit or passion is dragging
him down to ruin, anG he knows that there
is stuff III him to make man. No use to
tamper with it, brood over it. mOrbidly cult
vate remOrse for it. Let him get above it by
putting something better in its place cut
loose at once and wholly from the places and
men that suggest it. and give himself up
with all the vehemence he can to whatever
pursuit or hobby he relishes most; treat his
diseased SOUL IN short, practically, as he would
his body, and give it clean air and food in
stead of malaria and poison. But where will
he fad help to do all thisf
There are men and women to-day among
our readers whose minds are dragged dow1
neither by crimes nor follies, but by real
grief, by disease, the loss of friends by I'M
provoked disaster. How can they climb
higher than these thingsY
How was the slave Epictetus able to joke at
his defOTmity ? How did Socrates smile at the
poison2 or those women and children who in
those dim ages went singing hymns to the
stake ? Their flesh was as easily hurt as ours.
They had as keen q relish for health and the
good things of life as any of us. Their secret
was, that behind the deformity and the poverty
and the death they saw God. They were one
with the Master of Life. and hence all these
things became as their slaves. The New
Yorker of to-day has precisely the same
troubles to meet as had Paul or Epictetus.
He is poor; he has crippled leg; he is going
TO die and leave his family penniless he is
tempted by crime or by liquor. And the very
same Power that lifted them into that serener