Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-04-22

Are Discussed
By MRS. WILSON WOODROW


For thousands of years-ever since
our first tailless ancestors learned to
create fire by rubbing two sticks to-
gether-we have been studying the
art of living; and to such little ad-
vantage that we never have grasped
even its first elementary principle.
Life is action; it's supreme joy is
in functioning. Yet we persist in be-
lieving that our highest bliss lies in
laziness-and this, in spite of the
fact that the idle and indolent in
variably present a spectacle of un-
happiness.
Human longing for most of us ex-
presses itself in the old nursery
rhyme promise of curlylocks' lover,
that she should not wash the dishes
nor yet feed the swine, but sit on
cushion and feast upon Strawberries,
sugar and cream.
1t sounds enticing AS Sydney
smith said, God might have made
something better than the strawber-
ry, but He never did it. Yet l am
willing to wager that within week
Curlylocks would find her diet so
cloying and the softness of her cush-
ion so monotonous, that she would
be fairly begging for a chance to
feed the cunning pigs and dabble her
hands in the dishwater.
Heaven, If we only realized it, Is
not made up of golden streets, but of
handicaps. Work is the wellspring of
all our, happiness. From the day of
our first staggering baby step, the
only real satisfaction we know is in
the overcoming of obstacles.
Sometimes we comprehend this
in relation to ourselves; almost never
in relation to others. Our constant
effort is to smooth the pathway of
those we love and save them from
the cropper they seem bent on in
vlfng. The father who has fought
his way up to wealth, and who could
not be induced to forsake the hurly-
burly, almost Invariably wants TO
bring up his sons and daughters in
idleness.
I've made the pile" he says to
them in effect. IT'S up to you to
enjoy it."
And then he considers them lack
ing in gratitude and appreciation.
because the poor things are bored
and miserable.
Carlyle put the whole thing in
nutshell when he wrote: Not what
j have said, but what 1 do is my
kingdom"
l have a letter which in its un-
conscious pathos and courage has
touched me deeply. 1t is from a girl
twenty years old, who in early child
hood was stricken with infantile
paralysis and left so badly crippled
that she has never since been able
TO go about without a companion to
assist her.
When l was younger" she writes,
81 had hopes of outgrowing my help
lessness and then l was resolved to
strike out for myself in some kind
of an occupation. But 1 guess my
hopes will never be fulfilled now. and
the fact that l cannot go to work
makes me very unhappy.
AT one time we lived near a
dressmaker, and this woman taught
me. how to cut out a dress by just
looking at the picture or fashion
plate of it. But somehow could
never get the knack of fitting-or
maybe l never did enough of it to
become eXpert-so, you see, l would
not succeed very well as a dressmak-
er, and that is about the only thing
] would really care to do.
Il have some money saved up,
and ! would like to do something
with it, so that | could help myself
and feel Independent.
my people, when l speak of this
ambition, only laugh and tell me
don't have to do anything. That may
be true; but | know that unless II
start doing something now | never,
never will do anything at all, and will
never be satisfied with my life"
| wonder if the relatives of that
young girl could understand how
cruel they are to her in their kind
ness?
1t seems to be a rule of Nature
that the more handicaps she loads
upon a person, the more indomitable
and eager is the spirit she implants
The lame, the deaf, the halt and
the blind are never content to be
taken care of. They burn to prove
to themselves and to the world that