Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1889-02-11

"Ihat Is Storm King, | assured
my friend.
ooh, no. he insisted. 81 know
that mountain well. 1t is on your
left hand, and rises the last of sever
al heights beyond West Point
How easy it is to be mistaken.
Storm King is indeed "on your left
/ hand" as you ascend the Hudson, and
! just beyond West Point, but descend
/ ing the river, as we were doing, the
bold mountain is on your right hand
and seen in the approach from the
south, forward look, it is one thing,
| but seen by a backward look, it is
quite another mountain. This hind
sight, my superficial friend-if he
will pardon me-had never taken the
trouble to secure. AS he went north
he had satisfied his eyes, but, being
of restless temperament, he had new
er looked back; he was probably al
ways agape for the next beauty of
| the Highlands. Hence, as we now
came down from Albany, this Chica-
go physician did not recognize the
sky-toucher.
The hind-sight of anything is so
different from it's fore-aspect, that no
man can afford to neglect it. You
can never judge of deed till it is
past. At our best endeavor, we have
to act on foresight only; but as every
deed is generally similar to some 9th
er that we have done before, our safe
ty is in matching on the hind-sight of
that prior action, as our best guess at
ever, if, when the deed is done, we
do not carefully survey it from the
other side. We may say, "What's
done is done; and what's the use of
looking back?"
But the fact remains that we do
not fnlly know what's done till we
look back on it. Hence, agents Of
ten exclaim, ''Did say that? Did [
say that?' The fact being that we
neglected to ''see ourselves as others
see u.s." For, my boy, the hind-sight
of our deeds is the identical one that
the world about us gets. The fore
sight is all our own. 1t is very, very
difficult, even when we need forgive
ness and charity, toainduce other peo
pie to take our foresight; in other
words, to enter into the motives that
actuated us. I would go further, and
say that it is impossible, though in
dulgent friends may attempt to do
so, for the purpose of excul pating or
excusing our deeds.
The week after totally changes the
aspect of an occurrence. 1t is some
times smaller the further we recede
from it, but often quite the reverse,
and growing upon US. Asperities Of
ten fade, but not always; often the
more we think on it the fiercer CLOVIS
our anger. The month often changes
our value of fact, not always en-
HANGING, often diminishing our inter
est in it. A month away, if behind
US, and the thing we cried for we
may laugh contemptuously over. 1t
is needless to illustrate, what every
body will confess, that Storm King
has a front and a rear side.
Yet, my point is the common fault
of rarely rejecting on a thing once
done. 1t is an eager age with us
all. The everlasting tyranny of "the
next thing to be done" enslaves us.
1t is, however, hind-sight that makes
the wise man. 1t is hind-sight which
alone can give young man that rare
quality, sagacity. | insist upon it
that nearly all things look different,
one front another, when we approach |
them but in the backward look near
ly all things have a strange resem-
blance. In the study of that resem-
blance is sagacity for the future.
Mems faces as you meet them differ;
mems backs as they walk away, are
quite similar. 1t is so with events,
with proposed courses of action. The
forward look, if you are asking,
''Shall I go into a certain business?'
is unique; you are impressed that it
is new venture" such as you never
tried before, such as few men have
tried. Hence you are nervous, anx-
iously apprehensive. But look back,
now, carefully, on former new ven
lures. The backward look will show |
you how parallel are all our adven
lures; they are very much the same
the underlying principles are the
same. When you went into wool five
years ago; when you went into boots
and shoes ten years ago. If you were
in the habit of the reflective act you
would see this parallelism. There is
nothing new under the sun. Wisdom
is the hind-sight; shrewdness is hind
sights oldest daughter; GOODNESS is a
breeze from the hills behind self |
possession is the quotient resulting
from the division of yesterday by to-
morrow. And no successful man neg
lects this arithmetic.
Did you ever fight? Did you ever
turn sharply to resist the tendency of
this telephone, telegraphic, steam,
electric age, and shout. ''Halt it is
not what [ am to do tomorrow it is
what [ did last week that [ am going
to mediate upon?'' Not one young
person in ten thousand looks back,
unless fairly forced to for some ex-