The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1903-06-18


while to all prisoners it must appeal with peculiar
significance. It is the story of Joseph and the
chief butler. Joseph, it will be remembered con-
ferred favor on the butler while they were both in
prison. and when the latter was released asked him
to think on me when it shall be we'll with thee and
show kindness pray thee unto me, and make men
ton of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this
place." Of course the butler promised to do So
probably he swore that he'd 60 and see friend of
his who was friend to the governor the very first
thing and quite as matter of course he forgot to
do anything of the kind And we may be certain
that Joseph felt sure he was the first man who was
ever so treated.
Of all human weakness, perhaps the most
common is the inability to utter refusal. The
average man is unable to say No. He will promise
almost anything simply because he is too weak to
refuse. He will even go to the length of making
gratuitous promises in order to make himself mo-
mentarily agreeable intending to fulfill them
Everybody does this: it seems to be part of the
game. You don't have to get into prison to dis
cover this trait in human nature but if you do get
there it soon impresses itself upon your mind You
straightway learn that ''to promise is most courty
and fashionable; performance is kind of will
or testament, which argues great sickness in his
Judgment that makes it." And if you are wise you
make use of the knowledge
It is good thing to know that promises are
more often broken than kept. It inculcates self
reliance. Joseph unquestionaby found the knowledge
wholesome and bracing: at least he didn't let the
butler sour his life for told that before he
died he was considerable factor in Egyptian poll
tics It is fine to be able to believe that the world
is made up of of truth and rectitude but if the
time comes when you can't make this belief jibe
with the reality all you can do is to modify it and
accept the conditions they exist. 1t need not
shatter any ideals anything of that sort. It just
means readjustment of things and the substitution
of your own effort for the effort you expected others
to make. Don't believe promises unless they
promise trouble; then they are usually fulfilled
NJ LIE RoUx, the funny Frenchman who lectured
on aesthetics in New York and incidently gathered
shekels from fashionable Gothamites few months
SINCE having returned to that dear Paris has written
q book on America. Following the established
precedent, he has made his production caustic and
CRITICAL but nevertheless truthful far it goes
NJ LIE Roux is too clever to take himself seriously
he poses for pelf only; and he seems to have had
little difficulty in fathoming the mental depths Of
the gulls that futtered about him in America In
New York he saw men and women of talent educa
tion money and good birth prostituting those gifts
to win notoriety; he saw afectation and imitation
supplanting good sense and good breeding, and as
his object in coming to this country partially to
observe and record, he put these things down on
paper. No one will waste any sympathy on those
whom he ridicules.
But when M. LIE Roux bases an opinion OF
America in it's entirety the antics of few persons
in New York he displays poor judgment There is
really considerable number of people on this con-
tinent whose destinies not guided by Harry Lehr
and who would think twice before paying money to
hear and see the poster-ike M. LIE Roux. They will
not even buy his book, but will descend into the
grave in dire ignorance of him and his writings.
Race suicide agitates NJ LIE Roux. His pro-
phetic soul glimpses the day when America will be
depopuated and foreign fakirs will have to 60 to
work in order to eat But here again he sees in a
local ailment national malady. The negroes are a
prolific race, SO are the coal miners of Pennsylvania
while it is proverbal that in the rural districts of the
Middle West a,sncker is born every minute-a fact
that would surely be gratifying to NJ. LIE Roux we're
he aware of it There other errors noticeable in
the book but on the whole the distinguished for