News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1896-12-17
has not in the least soured his dispo-
sition. On the contrary, it seems to
have impaired additional sweetness
and strength.
SOME RAMBLING THOUGHTS
BY MENU
TCopyrighted.1


These " Thoughts" by layman, are read
in five hundred thousand homes, scattered in
every State of the Union. In this county
they will be found week by week in the col
umns of this paper only, as we have made
arrangements with the author for their ex-
elusive publication.
Each individual male reader will
have to Judge of the justice of the fol-
lowing attack on our sex. 1t is the
expression of a woman's opinion.
"The very eagerness of a man for his
meals shows him to be the inferior ami
NAL. Keep him hungry when he reaches
home and there is peace neither for
God nor woman, for he finds fault
with both. To make a man docile
and tractable you must treat him
like a snake, gorge him." This may
be brilliant, but is too severe, partic-
ularly as woman from the story of
Eden onward has not shown great
skill in managing snakes; and posi-
bly, not much more in managing
men. The woman, to whom a man
is nothing more than thing to be
petted and pampered with this and
that qualification, will find her
theory strongly confirmed by the
animal within him. But the
woman who le'ieves in other,
grander possibilities in man will find
them there, because she expects and
demands them. Men are, after all,
but plastic clay, and take on readily
the forms into which the gentle
hands of women mold them. This
also has been shown from the story
of Eden onward. At least that is
what memo" thinks.
Never have any hesitation about
learning from others. 1t we each
were held down to the knowledge we
could acquire by personal travel and
investigation the amount we did not
know would be even more monumen.
tai than it now is. But beware, you
omnivorous learners, of acquiring
ideas and having them remain un-
assimilated, like the food on an
overloaded stomach. AS to learn
ing, | would say, be in IA skeptical
frame of mind reject the things that
you prove to be untrue; read, mark,
learn, and inwardly digest all the
truths that you prove and approve,
or that reach you from reliable
sources, and let them become part of
you; Just as the steak you eat and
assimilate is no longer steak, but
has become part of you; your blood,
your brain, your power
To be sincere in this advice as to
skepticism, [ should have to warn
you against accepting statements
just because they are in print; alas,
this would include even these
Thoughts" For when | ask no
hearing, no reception except where
they interpret some little particle of
the great universe of Truth, divine
sanS- th.nGm ap, in which we permit our
lsolves TO partake, some mNmsa
some less, as we journey.
J 1t is quite the regular thing to fiN
fault with the weather forecasts isl
sued from Washington and locag
Ibureaus. Surely because we expect
too great a prescience from falliOle
men. When we remember that OBJ
servations in the upper strata OF air
are still practically unattalnable,
and vet that those high regions are
liable to exert sudden Influence upon
the lower strata, from whose condl-
tons the forecast has been calculat-
ed, then we stall be ready to concede
that the bureau does great things.
By means of its work the average
farmer or coastwise mariner can
gain knowledge at given moment
of general conditions in the most re-
mote regions, as well as his own i'm
mediate neighborhood. 1t works en-
trelyin the line with the cooperative
instinct that thrills our age; the
feeblest aided and advised by trained
experts. OF course, crops still suffer
from violent storms and ships are
wrecked. The farmer cannot go and
uproot his crops just because a cy-
clone is coming. But more than once
in every year each farmer and seaman
is greatly aided by his knowledge
: of the probabilities of twenty-four
hours, and thereby are dollars and
lives most freely saved. The fateful
moment of the season is naturally
different for every locality, so that
each hour throughout the year some
one gains immense benefit from his
forewarned condition.
A really brave deed always arouses
enthusiasm; and not all brave deeds
call for blood. With the hoarse pull
!, sation of the drum in his ear, the
rattle of musketry on every side, the
frenzy of martial music in his veins,
swept onward by the enthusiasm of
J shouts and of numbers, the soldier
will glory in throwing away his life
J like a flower. But we are all called
to a heroism far transcending that,
heroism that keeps us quietly and
unobtrusively working for national
and personal betterment in our little
sphere unknown to the rest of the
world, uncheered by the applause of
men, unaided by the hoarse-throated
cannon. Let me give publicity to
) one such brave deed, at least.
The newspapers from east to west
, have contained casual references to
the recent burning of toll-gates by
& 4. =.