Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-05-12


| dler-Persons Dependent in Old Age
! Generally Have Only Their Own Ex-
travagances to Blame
! The great trouble with the world is
that all of us want to dance without
paying the fiddler.
We want success without having to
work for 1t. We want to get rich with
out having to save. We want to eat
and drink without getting dyspepsia.
We want love without the burden of
responsibility.
And because for everything we get,
good or bad, there is fixed price, for
which we have to pay cash down, we
| fill the air with our whines and lamen-
tations.
There isn't one of us who is a failure,
or an invalid, or pauper. or friend
less and unloved, who isn't in that con.
dition because he or she tried to cheat
in the game of life, and to get some
thing for nothing.
| Why does a man succeed? Because
he is willing to pay the price of sue
cess. 1t is work, work, work, endless
toll. 1t is plodding patience that never
wearies. 1t is the concentration of
every thought, every desire, every as
piration to some one particular end.
1t is self-denial and self-sacrifice.
That is the price of success, and any
man and any woman who is willing to
pay it can have it. But you can't buy
1t with a little Intellectual spasmodic
effort now and then. You can't buy 1t
by loafing on your job, or working with
| one eye on the clock, or taking more
real heart interest in your amusements
than you do in your career.
Price Of a Comfortable and Respectable
old Age Is Selt-Sdcrifce.
! We are all called on to help a great
many old people who have seen better
days" Nothing on earth is more pitt
full than poor and dependent age. but
these people have only themselves to
blame. They are poor and dependent
because they were not willing to pay
the price for safeguarding the latter
years of their lives.
/ The price Of comfortable and re-
spectacle old age is self-denial and
thrift in ones youth. 1t is systematic
saving. 1t is laying aside a definite
sum every year for the rainy day that
is sure to come to every one, for the old
age that is inevitable. But these peo-
1 pie defaulted on the price.
! They wanted fine clothes; they
wanted to take trips; they wanted to
go to the theatre; they wanted to in
dulge themselves in a thousand foolish
eXtravagances, so they spent every cent
as they went along, with the result
that in their hour of need they had to
endure the humiliation of asking for
| charity, and in their old age they were
dependent on those who gave them
grudging food and shelter.
We all want to be we'll and strong,
but we are not willing to pay the price
of health. That is abstemiousness in
eating and drinking. Yet because 1t
tastes good we gorge ourselves on rich
food that We know will give US indi-
gestion; we drink alcohol that we
know is a poison to our systems; we
sit around in stuffy rooms and grow
fat and heavy because we hate to ex-
ercise. Nine-tenths of the sickness
from which we suffer we bring upon
ourselves just because we are not will
ling to pay the price of keeping well.
The whole of the divorce evil is
caused by people trying to evade pay.
ing the just debts of family life
man and woman get married because
they want domestic affection because
they want home, because they want
children.
They get these, but they begrudge
the price. The man wants the faithful
love of a wife who will stick to him
through thick and thin, who will work
by his side when he is poor, who will
nurse him when he is sick, who is as
unchanging as the North star, but at
the same time he wants to be free to
carry on fiirtations with younger and
gayer women.
He wants a home that he can come
to when he is tired or down and out,
but he doesn't want to have to come
to 1t If some lively amusement offers
He wants the arms of little children
about his neck, but he wants to spend
the money it costs to support them on
his own dissipations.
Price OF Happy DOmeSticity Is IntmoId-
tion of Self on Altar of Home
woman wants husband to support
her and stand between her and the
world, but she doesn't want to have to
consider his pleasure nor desire She
wants home, but she doesn't want to
have to work in it to make it COM
Portable and thrifty. She wants chill
dren, but she doesn't want to have to
stay at home from bridge parties and
dances to take care of them, and keep
them from running wild on the streets.
Now the price of domesticity is self
sacrifice and devotion; 1t is mutual
consideration and forbearance: it is
the putting of the good of others be-
fore your own pleasures; it is the i'm
notation Of self on the altar of family
and home, and it is because so few
men and women are willing to pay
this price that there is so much do
mestic misery in the world.
This one thing is certain-there are
no bargains in life. Everything that
is worth having is costly, and the price
tag was written at the beginning, and
1t has never changed. Success. fame,
...-.l n..i--. IL