Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1889-09-06
THOUGHT, SANITARY.

one of the hardest tasks in the worlt
is to think. And yet it is one of the
most refreshing! Let the body be
never SO wearied, the spirits never sc
depressed, if the mind can get to think
ing about some theme or subject, and
lose itself therein; or if single great
thought shall suddenly dawn upon
the mental horizon, the flash of a new
truth, or the new and clearer vision Of
an old one, illumine the instant, then
what a rebound is there to the whole
system, falling of lassitude and dull.
ness, an elastic recovery of all :he best
faculties and powers. No one can he
unhappy long ut a time who has the
aptitude of thinking at all deeply and
clearly, whose mind has the least hab-
it of entertaining vigorous ideas: Out
of the lowest depths of sadness one
may climb to the highest heights OF
joy on the mounting progress of a
great, strong and absorbing thought.
A great feeling helps, but a great
thought helps more, because it is pro-
ductive of feeling of the most ecstatic
character. A vigorous and honest
mind and q noble, generous heart
work together; they are married by
Natures law, and their union brings
forth the offspring that gives the high
est satisfaction and the most beneficial
results. A thought, the production of
a mind which seeks the truth, which
aims to promote the greatest good to
the greatest number, cannot be con-
tent to stay in the cold regions of the
intellect alone, but hastens to join the
noblest impulses of the soul and then
it feels its deepest thrill. The man
who has a mind truth-seeking and
grandly hospitable, and who has also
a soul beauty-loving, is the king among
men, whose kingdom is richest in
mines of joy. When friends are false
and friendships break, when light
winged fortune flies away, when doubt
and disappointment cloud the mind and
pain cuts into the soul, so long as we
find out Truth and Beauty, and think
and ponder upon the one and adore
the other, we are proof against the
long possession of melancholy, and can
divert the heavy hand of care and de-
preston. 1t was Herder, or some
great thinker, who on his dying bed, said
to one standing near Aim: "Give me
. great thought, that my soul may be
refreshed before 1 60"
And, indeed, the sanitary power of
ideas over both mind and body is in
calculably great. Let young man or
woman have a keen interest in ideas,
be eager to find them in books and
conversation, and in intercourse with
refined men and women, and we have
. pretty sure guarantee that they will
moralization. Philosophy and science
go through life without much de-
kindle in the mind a great thirst for
knowledge, set on fire the soul with
. love of truth, of human sympathy,
of enterprise and of manly effort, and
thus fill this life with significance and
GAS man thinketh, so
is he" might be made to read, To the
degree that man thinketh, does he
really live, for thought is life. 1t is
because of these considerations, and
the additional fact that q very large
percentage of the people of the Capital
City are refined and educated, by vir-
tue Of which it has attained an envia-
BILE social and moral distinction in ad-
dition to its business character, that
we take great pleasure and satisfac-
ton in maintaining its high reputa-
ton.