The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1893-07-07
H BRIGHT SIDE.
THE HAPPY FACULTY OF LOOKING
ON THE BEST SIDE OF LIFE.

Too Many People Allow Themselves to he
Weighed Down by the Daily Cares Of
Life hat Must De Net and Fail to See
the Pleasant Things Near BY.
Everything has at least a good side to
1t. and sooner or later some one will be
able to see it. It is a happy fortune to
be able easily to see what is good, though
l do not believe in shutting our eyes to
the evil. I have a friend who never sees
the evil until it overwhelms her. She
considers all things to be well enough at
least and SO has no foresight to ward off
disaster. This is certainly a curious dis
position and not a good one for those
who have the care of families. What I
do mean is that it is a capital thing to
see the good that really is in all things.
1 said to my neighbor. who is deaf in
one ear, sit is a pity, my dear; is there
no remedy" II don't think there is"
she said, ''but then there is a great bless
ing in it, for 1 have learned to sleep with
my good ear to the pillow, and so no noise
can disturb me-" It was a curious illus
tration Of how one may use a depriva-
ton and make it a real advantage. 1t is
a great art to find out all the good there
is in life. Emerson says, "Do not dilate
on your private wrongs and personal
ills" But no one ever becomes tedious
by dilating on hey privileges and joys.
The longer I live the more I find that
most of troubles are imaginary.
There are half a dozen things we have
to learn, and many never do learn them.
One of these is that we have will power
to control a vast deal that we sit down
underneath. Life has no blessing great
er than its antagonists. Differ as we
may from professional faith curists,
they have a great truth in store, and I
wish they may have vast influence in
reco~nstructing sentiment. There is no
need of being an extremist in belief, yet
it is a fact that we have cultivated a
kind of moral cowardice about our dis
eases. I believe they are right that we
are vastly more powerful than we have
supposed ourselves to be.
But I am a broader believer than they,
for I am confident we cannot only cry
"down and out" to half our physical
ails, but to a large proportion Of our
troubles and what we call our bothers.
And that is just the meaning of life-it
is a series of defeats or of victories over
small affairs. The habit Of making
much of petty evils indicates defeat.
Many a woman is thoroughly whipped
by her ordinary household duties, as
many a man is whipped out by weeds
and thistles. She never can face a day
with a smile and a strong will. She
does her duty as a task and never as a
joy. This hefts our duties down; the
opposite way lightens them.
Life everywhere has a better side to it
than we are always willing to confess or
able often to see. Our choicest gifts and
blessings lie just the other side of our
saddest moments. It seems like noun
tain climbing to get a view Of a sunrise,
but we are willing to toll hard to get to
the mountain top. 1t pays not only at
the top, but all the way up. I have a
delicious fern bordered glen that every
summer I visit and do not mind the
bushes that tear nor the extremely hard
climbing to get in and to get out. All.
the lovely brook at the bottom, and the
pebbly ishnd in that brook, and the old
moss covered beech logs, and the banks
of Creeping hemlock." 1t pays. Every
step pays. I come back full of rest, not
of WEAKNESS, of joys that sparkle and
run like the brook itself. Last summer
l took with me an enthusiastic lover of
nature into my pet ~ravine, and she being
a good scientist found in an hours search
five sorts of salamanders.
If we live widely and think nobly and
study what the world is, we find that
the cheapest and toughest conceals grand
facts that make character and joy for us.
The world is a ready spread feast for our
senses and intellect. But there are races
that will not eat eggs, and there are
others that will not use milk. So there
is a possibility of not seeing the best
things about US and hearing the finest
harmonies. The best question one can
ask of herself is: Are you getting the
best of the world about you? I have
heard the narrowest kind Of men preach
ing on the parable of the prodigal son,
not knowing that they were themselves
feeding on husks-the poorest husks of
thought and manhood.
Isuppose, in fact, there is a good side
to everything, only I am not able to see
it o. the occasion. The best effect of
studying history is to teach US to look
back at events some time after their &C.
c~urrence, when we are almost surely
struck by the real advantage that comes
out of what at the time seemed totally
evil. There is no QUESTION but that Amer
lean character has been made stronger
by the great fight with and victory over
slavery. There is just a much good &C.
cumulating from the fact that intemper-
ance is so hard an evil to eradicate. Har-
riet Martineau says, "The greatest ad-
vantage of long life-at least to those
who know how and wherefore to live
is the opportunity which it gives of see
ing moral experiments worked out, of
being present at the fruiting of social
causes and of thus gaining a kind of
wisdom which in ordinary cases seems
reserved for future life" This is fairly