The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-10-17
A TYPICAL LIFE.


Sometimes when the sermon is about mis-
sionaries and the duty of giving, feel priv
ileged to look about, unobtrusively, over
this audience of Indiana people at the faces
which interest me. They are in repose dur
ing missionary sermon, and all their lines
of character are evident-those remarks of
nature about our lives. which we so dread
and so protest against cannot tell very
much about a life just to look at the face
but when / know the life love to look at
the two-the life and the face-together, to
compare, and deduce, and read their differ
ent meanings, and how they have reacted
one upon the other The occupation reminds
of the algebra problems which cost me
many a youthful tear, and the answer book.
which may have saved me some, for read
the answer back into the problems, to be
sure the book had not made a mistake, and
with the two thus beautifully working to-
gether, sometimes a mathematical truth be-
came evident to my harassed mind. Now I
use this crude method in finding little of
the truth about faces and lives; the prob
lem and the answer, inextricably related,
bound together, wholly dependent one on
the other.
Over there is woman's face, typical
how unconscious she is of it-of a great
West She is very well but quietly dressed
and has the look of middle life rather than
old age; strong, enduring, healthful She
lives now among surroundings of greater
delicacy and beauty than former years gave
her. and her house, correctly planned and
furnished according to our stand
ards, gives her, perhaps, more sat
isfaction than pleasure, but she
believes as an American in these tributes
to the gods of prosperity. Her daughter we
fondly call leader of society, and she has
certain beliefs as an American, too-which
is quite another story. But TO me the life
of this older woman suggests other things.
Put away from sight she keeps some old
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS daguerreotypes, which
show some figures so unreal, with their
crinoline and dropping curls and queerly-
trimmed waists. the men with strange hats
and odd-looking collars, like Daniel Web
ster's; these are her connection with an
American life of different kinA and tenn
per from that in which these forty-five
years have been passed. Born in New York
sixty-fve years ago, she has spent forty
years of her life on an Indiana farm
what in other countries might be
called an estate. Here it is a
plain farm of a thousand acres. And
emony, without interest, outside of family
ties, filled with work and plain intentions
and now-success. Perhaps in no country
were ever lived lives more devoted to prac-
teal ends and so devoid of any etiquette of
living or social pleasure as the lives of the
people who in the last half century have
developed the Northern States of the Mis-
sissippi valley. A manner of life which.
looked at from the exterior, and without
sympathy with its aims, seems so common
place, so eolorless. so raw. lacking all that
is picturesque, stimulating or beautiful
Even the visiting and plain hospi-
tality. the village social life and
neighborhood acquaintance characteristic
of our Eastern States was absent
here on these great, fertile, level plains
where men found 1t a duty to work. ana
grew into life which became the soil.
and planned for their children a better
bringing up than theirs had been.
This womans face has In 1t those lines
which hard physical labor, carried on for
years, without cessation or mental rest
and which takes the mind with IT, iney-
itably produces; not like the refining lines
Of patiently borne sorrow or the sharp
lines Of greed or III temper. These lines or
work have in them something stern. bur
dened, something that speaks OF a sacri-
nee. unconscious OF what Il missed. The