The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-04-12

Only those who have drunk deep of the
strenuousness Of life are able to appreciate
and enjoy the sweets of it; the idle rich,
the procrastinators. the self-indulgers may
escape some of the bitters inevitable to ex-
istence, but at most they get tepid. sa-
vorless draught and live and die useless.
unsatisfied and unfulflled
Not for them the fierce thrill. TIE JOY of
battle, the swelling spirit of the strong
man rejoicing to run race and wrestling
his victory from the very jaws of defeat
itself: not for them to strive increasingly.
to put their backs into everything they
handle. finding nothing common un-
clean, bringing to all their undertakings,
great and small. those courageous and
heartful qualities that annihilate failure.
simply because they have never been able
to bring themselves to contemplate it.
Many there be who do not fight for favor.
or riches, or place, or power. but for dutys
sake. 1t is not for reward, but because
they must do il, because they recognize
the obligations of life and their self-respect
will not allow them to fall short of their
responsibilities that they fight to the end.
refusing to be incorporated with the pitiful
waste product by which we designate the
large percentage of human beings whose
mental inactivity, even more than physical,
will not suffer them to lift hand to help
themselves I'm the struggle for existence.
THE TOILER SHALL BE PAID.
1t is to the great army of silent, patient
doors whose deeds go unrecognized Gas half
the deserving effort in the world does), who
live only in the hearts of those for whom
they have toiled, and suffered. and denied
themselves, that the brave words of Whit
tier apply:
Go, do thy work. it shall succeed
In thine, or in another's day,
And IL denied the victor's crown
Thou shall not lack the toiler's pay"
Nor shall he lack the toilers sweet in
tervals of rest. when his tired limbs and
brain relax, and he enjoys the simple pleas
ures of life, takes delight in the love and
goodness of those he loves; he has no time
for idle, uncharitable thoughts, and attains
easily to the true dignity and simplicity of
conduct essential to the natural man.
For strenuousness is not incompatible
with the JOY of life-far from 1t; it only
gives a deeper zest to hours of ease and
comfort, quickens a mans constituencies to
the beauties of Nature. He brings his I'M
stated eye, his clear perceptions to the feast;
it is he, and such as he, not the gluttons,
who inherit the fullness of the earth.
Man does not fight for bread alone, but
also for his ideals, for the godhead that
is in him. because he knows that what he
does finely is blow between the eyes to
his enemies, a source of joy to his friends;
because he knows that his heart and life
are kept pure by the mighty breath of
effort that sweeps through and winnows
them; because idleness and lack of concen-
tration are at the bottom of half the vice,
and crime, and misery in the world.
President Roosevelt's gospel. like that Of
Longfellow, Emerson and Whittier (no man
lives the strenuous life more than the
American), is manly and courageous one,
a very trumpet call to the workers, a dash
of cold water in the face of the sluggards
and the mental moribunds that cumber the
earth.
II wish to preach" Che says mot the
doctrine of ignoble ease. but the doctrine of
the strenuous life, the life of toll and effort,
Of labor and strife, which comes, not to
the man who deserves more easy peace,
but to the man who does not shrink from
hardships, or from bitter toll, and who out
Of these wins the splendid, ultimate tri-
umphs.'
THE POWER OF DRUDGERY.
We cannot bring the mountains to us by
gazing, but we can set ourselves one step
nearer them by each days work, and 1t is
in our capacity for drudgery, in our power
Of logged, consecutive effort that we find
our way out through the blind path that
leads to fulfillment. We do not even try
to look ahead-but one day. perhaps the
very one of our deepest darkness and de-
spair, we find the work is done, that we
have tunnelled through-a burst of sun
light bathes us in its splendor and the
victory is ours.
Character mas been described as a per-
fectly-formed will. and perhaps the man
born without fighting qualities, infinitely
preferring a life of peace, of subjective
pleasures. who is yet by the stress Of cir
cumstances forced into the arena, is more
truly brave than he who in conflict finds
himself in his native element. He is not a
coward, but all his instincts (perhaps inher-
ited) are against sustained application; in
a word, he lacks grit or let us call it stay
ing power, the sort Of power that makes a
man. however often he turns with loathing
from his task, go back to and complete 1t,
while three parts Of his body and soul
strike their hardest to prevent him.
Many a man is kicked into the strenuous
life-kicked hard; the moment he sits down
he is kicked up again, and very often ar
rives from the sheer force of having been
made to do what he does not like. Now and
again it happens that it is the one thing he
does well, though he did not know it till
circumstances taught him.
There is the strenuous life of bodily toll
to work hard, to live hard, to sleep hard;
that is the easiest life, and there is in it
much happiness and content There is the
strenuous intellectual life that taxes more
than body, that exhausts brain and health
alike, till at last that same body rebels.
though the strenuous spirit works on some
times TO end in madness nearly always In
physical disaster. 1t may be questioned If
any man has the right to thus sin against
himself as human being; usually 1t is the