The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1905-02-08

hypochondriac bent once under
took to make a catalogue of the
miseries of the life of man from
the cradle to the grave. He made
the account as hideous as posi-
BILE, including in it the disease,
the poverty, injustice, deferred
hopes and various forms of suf-
fering to which many of the hu-
man race are subject even In a
civilized country. 1t does not re-
qulre much imagination on the
part of any one to arrive at the
guess that person who dwelt
on this aspect of life arrived at
the conclusion that all is misery,
and that neither happiness nor
a tolerable state of bare comfort
is to be found on the habltable
globe. In order, however, to make
the indictment complete he ran
over the miserles to which the
great mass of mankind who do
not happen to live in civilized
countries under an enlightened
form Of government are subject,
and it appeared that the lot Of
these people was so much worse
than that of those among whom
he lived that he was forced to ad-
nit that an ordinary man in Eng.
land or America had reason to be
thankful just because he lived in
a free and progressive land. The
final judg ment passed on life by
Gibbon, tho historian, in the elgh-
teenth century, was similar ;
"My lot might have been
that Of a slave, savage, or
peasant;nor can Iretlectwith-
out pleasure on the bounty of
nature, which cast my birth
in free and civilized country,
IN an age of science and phil
osophy."
One of the pecull arities of tenn
| permanent, disposition and cast of
mind of multitude OF people is
that they have not the capacity to
see and appreciate the advantages
they enjoy unless sense of them
is brought to their attention in a
sharp and forclble manner Vast
masses of people IN really com
Portable condition in the world
fret their lives away in sense
less md unmanly way about
wretchedness which is almost
purely imaginary.
Any one almost can make test
of the truth of this from his own
experience. The business man
is won't to regret all his life that
he has EN- mbarkeG upon mercan-
tile career; the ordinary physl-
clan dwells on the hardshlps and
the drawbacks of his profession,
and bewails his fate that he did
not become a business man; the
lawyer is dissatisfied with his lot
and is eloquent on its shortcom
ings; the literary man or news
paper writer bewails MS unseen.
ly fate; the teacher or college pro-
fessor, forgetting entirely his
long summer vacation, would, if
he only could, shake the dust of
the academic shades from his
feet; and half the people, whatey-
er be their vocations, will say IN
private conversations with their
families that they have made a
mistake.
There are exceptions. They
are the men who learn to love
their professions or vocations,
and who, whether they are espec
tally adapted or not to to their
particular pursuits, achieve sue
cess just because they are inter
ested aud in earnest, and have
never learned to whlmper and to
whine. Don Quixote could pay
no greater homage to his greatest
hero than to say that he was nc
whlmperer.
The discomfort which is spur
to am hilton, and which results IN
improvement and amendment, ls
a springof progress, but the mere
useless discomfort which ends on
ly in ceaseless complaining and
railing at the world and at ones
I'LL fortune Is evidence of a defect
of understanding and character.