The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-04-12
The StrenuOuSneSS Of Life
BY HELEN MATTERS

claims of others that compel him, not his
own.
There is the life of mental and heart
strenuousness, when some man or woman
may suddenly be confronted with a problem
that his Maker Himself could hardly solve
to the happiness of all the persons con-
cerned. And this is worse than either of
the others. for the whole domestic life cir
Giles about it. Many man and woman well
GENES death gladly. because 1t means cess
alton of struggle, of the warning in him
against love and forgiveness, of the cease
less striving by which he has kept his
robes pure to the end-but at what cost.
at what violation of natures laws!
END OF THE STRENUOUS LIFE.
And after ALL is not that the finest end
ing TO the strenuous spiritual life? Not TO
say, at have won this prize, 1 have done
that thing but 81 have fought, 1 have
overcome. l have used up every odd and
end given me on others, L have not wasted
time / have fiched nothing from
another's store of happiness 1 have
tried to throw my mite into the scale of
good: not evil have not been hap
py-but now 1 am glad
There is the strenuous life of bodily
suffering, of sheer endurance, when we say
at night, 20! God, that 1t were morningl"
and at morning. 20, God, that it were
| night" When by sheer pluck the agonised
soul and body fights suicide. longs for the
death that will not come, and, 1 say, that
is the worst of all. Heart-ache and mental
suffering may be bad. but so long as the
body is whole, that body will enjoy as well
as suffer. it will fight. 1t will have it's say.
but the physically helpless and suffering
lie beneath the heel OF those who walk
erect-and they have no remedy.
Perhaps the most exciting, the most
wearing life of all. is the strenuous one of
middle aged society woman, whose whole
| life is divided between the ritual of the
| body and the enjoyments and social duties
| she tries to crowd into eighteen out of the
| twentyfour hours of the day and night.
There is the strenuous life of the great
| fnancier, who absorbs himself in the
amassng OF wealth that is no longer of
| the slightest use to him, that will not buy
one thing worth having, but often ends by
crushing him beneath its burden; for who
after the dispassionate study of the lives
and endings Of very rich men, can avoid
| the conclusion that it is not healthy to be
| a millionaire?
Far better to take life as a picnic, where
sometimes the plates and spoons are MISS
| ing, sometimes even the pepper and SALT
| but where at least an appetite is satisfied
and We do not become the victims of a
| safety worse than hunger.
PRESENT PROBLEMS.
But now, not of the strenuous liver, but
| of the strenuousness of the present day
| life itself, let us speak, o: the competition,
| growing every day fiercer and keener in
every profession. every trade in even the
humblest walk of life, that is setting men
| at each others threats in the mere strug-
| gle for existence.
The country goes untitled, the city life
| absorbs its millions, the fever of life, that
| once inoculated, is never cured, runs high
| in crowds, there is not work enough to go
| round, and the people who own big incomes,
and those who make them, could be COM
pressed into few pages; the rest spend
| their lives in a ceaseless struggle with their
| landlords, and bakers, and butchers, and
shoemakers. A man must be either very
| clever, or very INSCRIPTIONS to hold his
| own nowadays; even in the arts only the
| fittest survive, and
"He who would i'm business rise
Must either bust or advertise"
| is true of other departments than trade.
''Hit hard. and hit quickly" is the watch
word of the day, and the man who is
| caught by side winds. who hesitates, is
! lost, while he who dashes blindfold through
| all obstacles wins. His acts must be quick
| err than thought if he means to make his
mark; the world will submit to everything
| save being bored, or kept waiting, and the
INSCRIPTIONS man who gives 1t precisely
what it wants, boiled down to the smallest
| quantity, walks over the body of the hon.
| est man who has not yet caught up with
| the spirit of the times.
And any failure In the powers of the
| bread-winner mean more strenuousness Of
life to the weary wife at home, whose work
is never done, who counts her few pounds
or shillings over Gas the case may be- in
her sleep; and, to the honor of our English
womanhood be it said, that it strives to
meet the difficulty by severe simplicity of
| living, luxuries are dispensed with, COM
ployed than formerly.
Many are the brave economies practiced
| by English men and women to-day, that
/ they may discharge their proper respon-
sibilities. and hard as are the conditions
of life in thousands of households, harder
still the problem of the poor. we are only
passing through a phase that will right
| itself. There are in fact too many peo-
| pie in our cities, too many aliens. and, If a
| disaster on the lines of Mont Pelee, that
would spare the worker element, while
| eliminating the waste product" could be
| arranged, it would be beneficial for all con-
| cerned, and relieve the tension, for people
] of all classes are living nowadays less the
| strenuous life that Roosevelt advocates
| than the worried one that has in il few
| of the high, cool qualities ESSENTIAL to the
| carrying out of his ideal.
Next Week:
1.-The Strange Story of Anastasia Robin
son. by 8. Barring Gould
| ["Copyright in the United States Of Amer
ica by ID II Pierce All rights