The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1913-08-06
Fearing Future Bridges
CrippLeS Our Usefulness
By JULIA CHANDLER MANz.

One Of the most tragic marital troubles
of which I have ever known>had its be-
ginning in the imagination, lived for ten
panic-stricken years in the imagination,
and ended in the divorce courts because
of imagination.
The man in the case told me the story.
1T was purely and simply a question
of crossing the proverbial bridge before
/ got to it," he said.
II married on a fair salary, but the
girl I asked to be my wife came from
a home bearing all the earmarks OF re-
finement and prosperity. 1t was not a
year after we were married that a great
fear seized me that / might not be able
to do as well by her as her father had
done.
This fear grew in proportions until
after five years II had become mon
ster. There were three children then to
add to my responsibility, and / never
saw them in the desire of anything that
did not look on the years TO come when
their needs would increase
Fear CrippIes' Ability.
81 could see them going out into the
world to meet life unequipped for the
battle. / could see myself growing old in
poverty, and the fear OF the future Grip
pleQ my 10 suCCttu present.
Il could never allow myself a happy
moment because of the bridges ahead
until finally my pretty wife was no longer
my pretty wife. but a wreck on the shosl
of my foolish fears.
when she could bear the strain of my
unrest no longer. her father took her
nome. and feeling myself a failure, !
left the city of my childhood and came
To a strange town TO begin life alone"
Oh, the infinite pity of wasting present
opportunities by crossing future bridges
that may never be stretched across the
life road We travel at all.
] know mother who spends hours
with a pencil and paper figuring out
what the expenses of her family OF four
will be when the two little girls shall
have grown 10 womanhood and require
more in the way of education, and
clothing. and entertaining.
There is enough for their comfort now.
but she IS not SO sure of their fathers
advancement in business. and SO she
spends hours estimating the cost of the
family ten years hence.
She lives in the fear of a future in
suffciency that she tells me almost par
alyzes her reason at times.
Yet here is the plentiful present: each
day offering happiness to a woman who
has but to reach out for it. and who
will not,
1t is like the silly superstition. Sing
before breakfast. YOU will cry before
supper. which women seem to take as
q motto by which to conform life. fear
ing the song at any time because of
possible fears in the future.
The flowers do not hesitate to bloom /
because the time will come when they /
will fade |
The GIN doaS uot stow b.bind q cloud |
today because il may rain tomorrow.
Don't Be Afraid to BE Happy. |
Then why should we be afraid to be |
happy when We may? |
The man who ruined the lives of five |
people because he believed in ina ginary |
conditions that might never land most |
probably would neyerD have come into :
his life was coward.
The woman who wasted her time with :
pencil and paper figuring the cost of ,
the clothes OF her two daughters ten
years hence would do better to give
her time to making them happy now.
God may take them both beyond the
reach of her anxious figuring before
the time that she so breads ever comes.
The actual sorrow OF perpleXity of to-
cay We are given strength to meet.
Crossing the bridges of another day
or another year is foolish. heart
breaking occupation. which kills all the
JOY of the present which We are meant
to have. and to pass on to others.