Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1896-08-20
Some Thoughts on Living.

The surest way to be miserable is to
surest way to some degree of satisfaction
in life, is to do the duty nearest at hand
and do it we'll. Many of us are too
much dike the naughty child who cried
we set our affections on things above
our reach and then drop back peeYlshly
to be burden to ourselves and nu1-
sance to those who deserve our smiles
rather then our grumblings. We beat
our hands to pieces and break our hearts
against the adamantine walls of the un-
attainable; We look at some distant PIN
nacle of ambition and we shrek out in
anxious agony: Mountain be thou
brought nigh" and it moves not; we
neglect the glorious opportunities of the
present and dream of some golden future
that is to come to us somehow 1--WE do
not stop to think how and we awake to
find the present gone, and the future
good, as much IN the clouds as ever.
Then turns the milk of human kindness
to curd within us and we amount to
nothing, the salt has lost its sayor, the
fire of purpose dies out; we are thence
forth fit for naught but to associate with
bats and blind men; for we are blind,
and, worse yet, we know it not.
You with disconnected heart, for there
needs must be such among the thou
sands who read these lines, bear with
these lines, bear with the words of one
who has suffered and mas learned. Look
at the traveller and be wise. After long
iourneyings, the peak of his search is
outlined against the sky and he rejolces
but he does not sit down and say to his
heart 81 am there! l am theren He
knows better; it is yet fifty miles away
and between these two, the man and
the mountain, there stretch woods and
valleys and toilsome paths. His way
must be your way Moment by moment
be takes the next step and the next
and the next. Sometimes in depres-
sions he even loses sight of that sky
piercing summit but he knows that it is
still towering above and he plods till he
gets there.
Bv all means hold on to noble am
| bitions: set them so high, if you will
| that the base of them is at your feet
and the apex is in the zenith, but do
not necessarily discourage yourself by
attempting sudden assault upon
name. and fame and success. To
reach Lake Erie from Lake Ontario,
only a fool would attempt to row up
the Falls of Niagara; the wise man
with similar intent would 90 through
the Weliand Canal and reap the reward
of his wisdom. There are sequences OF
Nature which you cannot abbreviate.
The egg antedates the hen lin our day
at least the acorn grows into the oak
bv unnoticed transitions, "a good fOunda-
ton is an absolute necessity to stately
building, patient effort goes before sue
cess. You cannot be great lawyer
unless you are willing to be thorough
student, nor q eat musician unless you
will be a patient practiser, nor a good
minister without going through deer
and humiliating soul-experiences; nor
in fact great anything, unless great is
YOUR faith and unless your works over
top in volume even your faith.
In short there is no laudable ambi
ton of any noteworthy height that car
be reached ct one leap; to wish it so, il
to be lazy and out of sorts with thi:
work k-a-day world. Furthermore