Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1905-01-07


| when we visit tine sick or unfortunate,
we should leave our smiles at the door,
compose our face and manner to dole
fulness and talk of anything heart
| rending. Thus we carry darkness to
those in darkness, shade to those in
shade. We increase the isolation of
solitary lives and the monotony of the
dull and sad. We wall up some exist
ences, as it were, in dungeons, ard
because the grass grows round their
deserted prison house we speak low in
approaching it, as though it We're n
tomb. Who suspects the work OF in
,, fernal cruelty which is thus accom-
plished every day in the world! This
ought not to be.
When you find men or women whose
lives are lost in hard tasks or in the
painful office of seeking out human
wretchedness and binding up wounds,
remember that they are beings made
like you; that they have the same
wants; that there are hours when they
need pleasure and diversion. You will
not turn them aside from their mission
by making them laugh occasionally,
these people who see SO many tears
y
give them strength to so on the better
with their work.
And when people whom you know
are in trial, do not draw a sanitary cor
don round them, as though they had
the plague, that you cross only with
precautions which recall to them their
sad lot. On the contrary, after show
ing all your sympathy, all your respect,
for their grief, comfort them, help
them to take up life again. carry them
a breath from the out Of doors-some
thing, in short, to remind them that
their misfortune does not shut them
off from the world.
And so extend your sympathy to
those whose work quite absorbs them;
who are, so to put 1t, tied down. The
world is full of men and women sac
rificed to others, who never have either
rest or pleasure and to whom the least
relaxation. the slightest respite, is
priceless good. And this minimum of
comfort could be so easily found for
them if only we thought of it. But the
broom, you know. is made for sweep
ing, and it seems as though it could
not be fatigued. Let us rid ourselves
VI tlllS DiiiionCSo With PAOT
vents us from seeing the exhaustion
of those who are always in the breach.
Relieve the sentinels perishing at their
posts; give Sisyphus an hour to breathe;
take for a moment the place of the
mother, a slave to the cares of her
house and her children; sacrifice an
hour Of our sleep for some one worn
by long vigils with the sick Young
girl, tired sometimes perhaps of your
walk with your goyerness, take the
cooks apron and give her the key to
the fields. You will at once make 9th
ers happy and be happy yourself. We
go unconcernedly along beside our
brothers who are bent under burdens
we might take upon ourselves for a
minute. And this short respite would
suffice to soothe aches, revive the fame
of Joy in many a heart and open up q
wide place for brotheriiness. How
much better would one understand an
other If he knew how to put himself
heartily in that others place, and how
much more pleasure there would be In
life,
I have spoken too fully elsewhere
of systematizing amusements for the
young to return to it here in detail. but
/ wish to say In substance what can
not be too often repeated: If you wish
youth to he moral do not neglect its
pleasures or leave to chance the task
of providing them. You will perhaps
say that young people do not like To
have their amusements submitted to
regulations aud that. besides. in our