The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1899-10-13
Duty and Plensur..

Duty and Plensnr'.
Anyone who has the privilege of fire.
uucntly listening to the general conversa.
ton of women can hardly fail to be
struck with the continual way the word
duty crops up in the conversation. and
duty on II woman's lips is always synony-
! nous with discomfort. They speak of
their duty towards their husbands. their
duty to their children, their duty to So
ciety, their duty to clubs, and their duty
to even read the book that is the fad of
the hour. One would think that the or
binary affairs Of the world afforded them
no pleasure, and We're only undertaken
On the high moral ground of duty. Now.
duty, us the little boy in Barrie's story
! said of love. is a fearsome word to en-
p!oy when people are we'll and healthy,
and one is Inclined to think there is more
cant than truth i'll our use of it.
AS matter Of fact, the duty idea is a
very mischievouS one, and the minute Il
woman gets it into her head that she is
attending to her daily affairs as a matter
Of duty instead Of pleasure she is in Il
fair way of making herself self-imposed
martyr. There are people who can never
walk down road without bruising them
selves against every stone and missing ev-
err flower, and in the same way there
seem to be women who are determined to
rob their lives of all sweetness by con-
siderins everything Il duty instead of Il
privilege.
1t is truly enough womans duty to
make her house sweet and beautiful, but
she should not look at it from that point
of view. She should see it from the in
tinitely-higher one of feeling it happi-
ness to so minister to the comfort and
pleasure of those she loves. 1t is her
duty to love her neighbOr. but we should
all decline with thanks the affection that
originated i'll no warm impulse of the
heart. but was dictated by stern and ac-
is her duty to entertain us, but what a
traveSty on the name Of hospitality when
the invitation originated in no desire for
our presence. no anticipated pleasure in
our company, but simply in an over
WecnmS sense of honesty that felt it her
duty to pay us back in kind for Il dinner
or Il dance.
The secret of happiness consists in look
ing upon what we must do in this world,
not as duty forced upon us, but as a
pleasure that life offers us. Nothing is so
dull. or so stupid that we cannot find in
forests and opportunities in it if we will,
end make it Il happiness to ourselves and
others. and 1t is here. if anywhere. that
duty enters into the scheme of daily life
The woman who gives duty love, and
duty service and is in her own eyes an
all-ronnd saint and martyr, where she
ought to he a cheerful and happy private
irl'va:ual, is nothing but the victim of a
morbid imagination and an egrcgious
vanity.
1t is no doubt high and noble thing
to do diStaSteful things uncomplainingly,
to live peaceably with disagreeable peo-
pie, and to bravely put aside ones own
desires and hopes. and walk the path fate
marks out simply because it is ones duty
to do it. Heroes can do no more. but the
rest Of us who are fond of applying the
epithct to our comfortable everyday at
fairs arr using a word too big for us.
Our duties should be our peasures-New
Orleans Picayune.