Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-08-18
THE BRIGHT SIDE.
The HAPPY FACULTY OF LOOKING
ON THE BEST SIDE OF LIFE.

100 hiany People Allow Themselves 70 n.
weighed Down by the Daily Cares Of
Lilo That Must Be Met and Fail To Soc
the Pleasant Things Near Bv.
;. everything has at least good side to
IL. and sooner or later some one will he
soie 70 see 1t. 1t is happy fortune to
be able easily to see what is good. thonpb
do not believe in shutting our evas 10
tne evil: have friend who never sees
the evil until it overwhelms her. She
considers all things to be well enough at
!east and so has no foresight to ward off
ulsaster. This is certainly curious dis
position and not a good one for those
VINO have the care of families. What I
40 mean Is that 1t is capital thing to
see the good that really is in all things.
SAID TO my neighbor. who is deaf in
onS ear, 1T is pity, my dear; is there
40 remedy" 4 don't think there is
ehe SAID, but then there is great bless
ing IN it, for have learned to sleep with
my good ear to the pillow, and so no noise
can disturb me-" 1t was a curious illus
tratlon OF how one may use a depriva-
tlon and make it a real advantage. 1t is
great art to find out all the good there
Is III life. Emerson says, do not dilate
on your private wrongs and personal
Ills" But no one ever becomes tedious
by dllating on her privileges and lows.
The longer live the more 1 find that
most of our troubles are imaginary.
There are half dozen things we have
to learn, and many never do learn them.
One of these is that we have will power
to control vast deal that we sit down
underneath. Life has no blessing great
er than its antagonisms. Differ as we
may from professional faith curists,
they have great truth in store, and
wish they may have vast influence in
reconstructing sentiment There is no
need of being IN extremist in belief, vet
1t Is fact that we have cultivated a
kind of moral cowardice about our dis
eases. believe they are right that we
| are vastly more powerful than we have
supposed ourselves to be.
But am a broader believer than they,
for / am confident we cannot only cry
down and out to half our physical
ais, 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 G 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 dav
with smile and a strong viii. She
does her duty as 4 task and never as a
J joy. This hefts our duties down; the
| opposite way lightens them.
Life everywhere has 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. 1t seems like noun
tain climbing to get 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. l have a
delicious fern bordered glen that every
summer l 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 island in that brook, and the old
moss covered beech logs, and the banks
Of creeping hemlock." 1t pays. Every
step pays. come back full of rest, not
of WEAKNESS, of joys that sparkle and
run like the brook itself Last summer
I 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? l have
heard the narrowest kind of men preach
ing on the parable of the prodigal son,
not knowing that they We're themselves
feeding on husks-the poorest husks of
thought and manhood.
l suppose, in fact, there Is a good side
to everything, only l am not able to see
it on the occasion. The best effect of
studying history is to teach US to look
back at events some time after their oc-
currence. 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 as much good &C
cumulating from the fact that intemper-
lance is sohard an evil to eradicate. Har-
riet Martineau says, The greatest adj
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
lcouSaS and of Tins ralninU q kind of