St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1896-11-20
Some Rambling Thoughts.
By MEMO"
(Copyrighted.)

to grow ulSSatiSHed because some other
person is apparently better supplied
with pleasures. Youngsters this is be-
cause you are not grown enough spirit.
uaIly to understand life. Tell me if vcur
old people grow morbid at anothers
success. They certainly do not, if they
are normal Tor the older we grow the
more fully do we realize that "al is not
gold that glitters;" and that there is a
scamy side to the most expensive ward
robe 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 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 a
certainty that while we envy and covet
we obstruct our own progress as effectu-
ally as sand obstructs navigation.
Life is arranged somewhat as follows:
Each of us travels narrow road from
the cradle to the grave--a road of expert
ences, pleasurable and pitiiul, 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 that and the other
thing, and it is these toll-gates that
make us anxious 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
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
Thus goes life, and wise is he who
spends no time in repining over joys that
have been and are gone or in yearniug
for a life that would be pleasant but
may not ever be- Shedding idle tears
over split milk when our supply of fodder
and meal is plentiful to noursh the stock
beating our hands against our neighbours
fences and in an agony crying to God to
give us their lot. We know not what
we ask. II our neighbours heart were
bare to us, he would be found, unless he
were philosophical, possibly ready to
give up all the advantages we envy in
him, for only a taste OF the simple pleas
ures he detects, 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 bull
frog to equal the OK in size. Flooding is
what we must content ourselves with.
The duty well done today is the solid
ground for the step forward tomorrow.
The gradual process OF accretion where
by the ant builds the ant-heap must be
our method. A weary road Certainly
at times; for (this is TRUTH the future
always seems long. But when by patient
performance of the simple everyday duty
we at last reach some faint enjoyment of
the pinnacle that once lowered before us
as worthy of ambition, the past will
seem strangely short, and we shall ask
ourselves why we ever grew impatient.
Every lie, great or small, good or bad,
has to bow before the unyieIding 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 ascetics wicked women
and wise; men of business and ministers;
and all other classes that you can name,
meet the inexorable 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
every stripe, make sacrifices Emphati-
cally | do; the moth futtering around
the lamp gives up the fresh GOODNESS OF
the restiul night, because the scorchng
light attracts it more; the hbertine
rushes to destruction despite the tender
hands of the mother whose breasts sus-
tanned 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 upbra1dlngs
he turns to seek fresh victims OF his
passion. Truly he sacrifices! Yes, upon
his altar everything of beauty and sweet
ness is scorched up, while things OF tinse
remain, for he esteems the tinsel most
supremely. In Lowell's Vision OF Sir
Lauufal" q write where the book is
inaccessible) some lines express this
thought:
"In the devils bauble shop
All things are bought and sold