The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1905-03-02
over the smiling crowd.

And yet they are the true livers,
while he is an artificial product, a man,
nikin, incapable Of experiencing this
fine and salutary intoxicatiOn Of an
hour Of frank pleasure.
Unhappily, righteousness is disap.
pearing even in the rural districts. We
see the people of our cities and those
of the country in their turn breaking
with the good traditions. The mind,
warped by alcohol, by the passion for
gambling and by unhealthy literature,
contracts little by little perverted
tastes. Artificial life makes irruption
| into communities once simple In their
| pleasures, and it is like phylloxera to
the vine. The robust tree of rustic Joy
finds its sap drained, its leaves turn
ing yellow.
Compare a fete champetre of the
good old style with the village festi
walls, so called Of today. In the one
case in the honored setting of antique
costumes, genuine cOuntrymen sing the
folk songs, dance rustic dances, re-
gale themselves with native drinks and
seem entirely In their element They
take their pleasure as the blacksmith
fOrges, as the cascade tumbles over
the rocks, as the colts frisk in the
meadows. 1t Is contagious; it stirs
your heart In spite Of yourself you
are ready to cry: "Brayo, my children.
That is fine" You want to join in
In the other case you see villagers dis
gulsed as city folk, countrywomen
made hideous by the modiste, and, as
the chief ornament Of the festival,
lot of degenerates who bawl the songs
of music halls, and sometimes in the
place Of honor a group of tenth rate
barn stormers, imported for the Occa-
sion, to civilze these rustlcs and give
them n taste Of refined pleasures For
drinks, liquors mixed with brandy or
absinth - in the whole thing neither
originality nor picturesqueness. Ii
cense, indeed and Cl0wnshness, but
not that abandon which ingenious joy
brings in its train.
This question Of pleasure is capital
stald people generally neglect it as
a frivollty; utlltarians, as costly su.
perhuity. Those whom we designate
as pleasure seekers forage in this dell.
cate domain like wild boars in Il gar
den. No one seems to doubt the i'm
mense human interest attached to Joy
| 1t is n sacred fame that must be fed
and that throws a splendid radiance
over life He who takes pains to fos-
ter It accomplishes work as profit.
| able for humanity as he who builds
bridges, pierces tunnels or Cultyatcs
| the ground. SO to order ones life as
to keep, amid tolls and suffering, the
faculty of happiness and be able to
propagate 1t In sort of salutary con-
| tagion among ones fellow men Is to
do a work of fraternity in the nOblest
sense. 70 give n trifing pleasure
smooth an anxious brow bring little
light into dark paths-what truly
divine office In the midst of this poor
humanity! But 1t is only in great sim
pllclty Of heart that one succeeds In
filling It,
We are not simple enough to be hap
py and to render others So We lack
the slngleness of heart and the self
forgetfulness. We spread joy, as we
do consolation, by such methods as to
obtain negative results. TO console
person what do we do? We set to
work to dispute his suffering, persuade
him that he Is mistaken in thinking
himself unhappy In reality our Ian
guage translated into truthful speech
would amount to this: "You suffer, my
friend? That Is strange You must be
mistaken, for | feel nothing" As the
only human means of soothing grief Is
to share 1t in the heart, how must Il
sufferer feel consoled in this fashion?
TO divert our neighbor, make him
pass an agreeable hour, we set out in
the same way. We invite him to ad-
mlre our versatility, to laugh at our
wit, to frequent our house, TO sit at
our table. Through it all our desire to
shine breaks forth. Sometimes, also,
with patrons prOdigality we offer
him the benehCcnCe Of a public enter
| talnment of our own choosing, unless
we ask him to find amusement at our
home, as we sometimes do to make up
party at cards, with the arrierC-
pensee of exploiting him to our own
profit. Do you think 1t the height of
pleasure for others to admire us, to ad-
NIT our superiority and to net as our
tools? Is there anything In the world
so disgusting as to feel oneself patron
ized, made capital of, enrolled in a
claque? To give pleasure to others and
take II ourselves we have TO begin by
removing the ego, which Is hateful,
and then keep 1t in chains as long as
the diversions last, There is no worse
kill Joy thnn the ego We must he
good children, sweet and kind, button
our coats over our medals and titles
and with our whole heart put our
selves at the disposal of others.
Let us sometimes liye-bc 1t only for
nm hour. and though we must lay all
else aside-tO make others smile. The
sacrifice is only in appearance, No one
finds more pleasure for himself than he
who knows how, without oStentation,
to give himself that he may procure
for those around him a moment of for
Eetrulncss and happiness,
When shall we be so simply and
truly men as not to obtrudc our per
sonal business and distrcsSCs upon the
people we meet socially? May we not
forget for an hour our pretcnsious, our
strife, our distributions into sets and
CllQues In short our "parts'-and be
! come as children once more to laugh
again that good laugh which does so
| much to make the world better?
Here | feel drawn to speak of some
thing very particular and in so doing
TO offer my we'll disposed readers an
opportunity to go about splendid
business. | want to call their at
tention to several classes Of people
seldom thought of with reference to
their pleasures.
It is understood that a broom serves