The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1896-12-19
MoRGANTowN WEST VIRGINIA. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 49, 1896
Some Rambling Thoughts.


Some Rambling Thoughts.
BY ssNEMo."
1t seems regularity of youth to
envy; to grow dissatisfied because
some other person is apparently bet
ter supplied with pleasures. Young
sters it is because you are not grown
enough spiritually to understand
life Tell me if your old people grow
morbid at another's success. They
certainly do not, if they are normal;
for the older we grow the more fully
do we realize that call is not gold
that glitters' and that there is
seamy side to the most expensive
wardrobe. As the years roll by we
learn to look at things from others
points Of view, instead of looking
from within outward and Judging
things good or i'll just according to
whether we feel happy or depressed.
A faint recollection comes to me of a
metaphor that is admirably suited
to us young folks. If We take in its
full meaning it can make our lives
more effective and beautiful; since it
is certainty that while we envy
and covet we obstruct our own pro-
gress as effectually as sand obstructs
navigation.
W.
Life is arranged somewhat as fol
lows: Each Of us travels narrow
road from the cradle to the grave
road of experiences, pleasurable and
pitiful, that no other living being
ever has travelled or ever will, for no
two lives exactly agree in ways and
works and woes. Scattered all along
this narrow road are toll-gates,
whereat, for further progress, we
have to surrender this and the other
thing, and it is these toll-gates that
make us envious to enjoy the lot of
our neighbor, whose head we see
bobbing pleasantly along in his own
narrow roadway, just shut off from
us by a shoulder high fence. If we
were only raised high in spiritual
perception we should see that his
way was fully as beset as ours with
toll gates, many of them calling for
sacrifices that we should shrink
from, and, after seeing, should turn
from, to pay eagerly our own little
toll of less narrowing character.
va
Thus goes life, and wise is he who
spends no time in repining over joys
that have been and are gone; or IN
yearning for life that would he
pleasant but may not ever be. She'd
ding idle tears over split milk when
our supply of fodder and meal is
plentiful to nourish the stock that
furnishes the milk is ON par with
beating our hands against our neigh
boris fences and in an agony crying
to God to give us their lot. We
know not what we ask. If our neigh
boris heart were bare to us, he would
be found, unless he were philosophi-
cal, possibly ready to give up all the
advantages we envy in him, for only
a taste of the simple pleasures he de-
tects, or thinks he detects, in our
more obscure life. Tut! tut to grow
wan over what we can never be will
be as fatal to us as the attempt of
the bullf'rog to equal the OK in size.
Flooding is what we must content
ourselves with. The duty well done
to-day is the solid ground for the
step-forward tomorrow. The grad
/ ual process of accretion whereby the
ant builds the ant-heap must be our
method. A weary road? Certainly
at times; for this is truth che flu
ture always seems long But when
/ by patient performance of the simple
every day duty we at last reach some
faint enjoyment of the pinnacle that
once lowered before us as worthy of
ambition, the past will seem strange
ly short, and we shall ask ourselves
why we ever grew impatient.
~
Every life, great or small, good or
bad, has to bow before the unyield
ing law Of sacrifice. No single thing
! is gained in any direction except by
the giving up of something that
seems estimable in itself. Libertines
and asceties; wicked women and
wise; men Of business and ministers;
and all other classes that you can
name, meet the memorable necessity
of Judging things to be either major
or minor in Importance, and then
surrendering the minor in order to
enjoy the major. Do | really mean
that butterflies of fashion, mere
pleasure seekers, lawless ones of ev-
cry stripe, make sacrifices? Emphat-
ically / do; the moth fIuttering
around the lamp gives up the fresh
GOODNESS of the restful night, because
the scorching light attracts it more;
the libertine PUSHES to destruction
despite the tender hands of the
mother whose breasts sustained his
infant life, despite the quiet and
honorable paths opening on either
side of him, despite the curses and
the agony of those women whom he
has wronged, but from whose up
braidings he turns to seek fresh vic
tins of his passion. Truly he sac
rifices. Yes, upon his altar every
thing of beauty and sweetness is
scorched up, while things OF tinsel
remain, Tor he esteems the tinsel
most supremacy. In Lowell's wis
ion of Sir Launfal'' l write where
the book is inaccessible) some lines
express this thought:
in the devils bauble shop
All things are bought and sold.
For every ounce Of dross
We pay an ounce of gold
You readers can carry out this
suggested line of thought indefinite
ly and you will find giving up ev-
erywhere. To excel in one direction
you need to turn your back ON the
roads that lead in another. Civil
cation and savagery both are based
upon it. The freedom from care and
the simple life of the savage cannot
be ours; nor can our complicated
social life, our arts, our sciences, our
,,rorraoo ba HE Eovarnpar,f ,.ot,t,f,t