Cheerfulness as a Life Power | Page 6

their burdens.
"He grieves," says Seneca, "more than is necessary, who grieves before it is necessary."
"My children," said a dying man, "during my long life I have had a great many troubles,
most of which never happened." A prominent business man in Philadelphia said that his
father worried for twenty-five years over an anticipated misfortune which never arrived.
We try to grasp too much of life at once; since we think of it as a whole, instead of living

one day at a time. Life is a mosaic, and each tiny piece must be cut and set with skill, first
one piece, then another.
A clock would be of no use as a time-keeper if it should become discouraged and come to
a standstill by calculating its work a year ahead, as the clock did in Jane Taylor's fable. It
is not the troubles of to-day, but those of to-morrow and next week and next year, that
whiten our heads, wrinkle our faces, and bring us to a standstill.
"There is such a thing," said Uncle Eben, "as too much foresight. People get to figuring
what might happen year after next, and let the fire go out and catch their death of cold,
right where they are."
Nervous prostration is seldom the result of present trouble or work, but of work and
trouble anticipated. Mental exhaustion comes to those who look ahead, and climb
mountains before reaching them. Resolutely build a wall about to-day, and live within the
inclosure. The past may have been hard, sad, or wrong,--but it is over.
Why not take a turn about? Instead of worrying over unforeseen misfortune, set out with
all your soul to rejoice in the unforeseen blessings of all your coming days. "I find the
gayest castles in the air that were ever piled," says Emerson, "far better for comfort and
for use than the dungeons in the air that are daily dug and caverned out by grumbling,
discontented people."
What is this world but as you take it? Thackeray calls the world a looking-glass that gives
back the reflection of one's own face. "Frown at it, and it will look sourly upon you;
laugh at it, and it is a jolly companion."
"There is no use in talking," said a woman. "Every time I move, I vow I'll never move
again. Such neighbors as I get in with! Seems as though they grow worse and worse."
"Indeed?" replied her caller; "perhaps you take the worst neighbor with you when you
move."
"In the sudden thunder-storm of Independence Day," says a news correspondent, "we
were struck by the contrast between two women, each of whom had had some trying
experience with the weather. One came through the rain and hail to take refuge at the
railway station, under the swaying and uncertain shelter of an escorting man's umbrella.
Her skirts were soaked to the knees, her pink ribbons were limp, the purple of the flowers
on her hat ran in streaks down the white silk. And yet, though she was a poor girl and her
holiday finery must have been relatively costly, she made the best of it with a smile and
cheerful words. The other was well sheltered; but she took the disappointment of her
hopes and the possibility of a little spattering from a leaky window with frowns and
fault-finding."
"Cries little Miss Fret, In a very great pet: 'I hate this warm weather; it's horrid to tan! It
scorches my nose, And it blisters my toes, And wherever I go I must carry a fan.'
"Chirps little Miss Laugh: 'Why, I couldn't tell half The fun I am having this bright
summer day! I sing through the hours, I cull pretty flowers, And ride like a queen on the

sweet-smelling hay.'"
Happily a new era has of late opened for our worried housekeepers, who spend their time
in "the half-frantic dusting of corners, spasmodic sweeping, impatient snatching or
pushing aside obstacles in the room, hurrying and skurrying upstairs and down cellar." "It
is not," says Prentice Mulford, "the work that exhausts them,--it is the mental condition
they are in that makes so many old and haggard at forty." All that is needful now to ease
up their burdens is to go to
OUR HAWAIIAN PARADISE.
A newspaper correspondent, Annie Laurie, has told us all about the new kind of
American girls just added to our country:--
"They are as straight as an arrow, and walk as queens walk in fairy stories; they have
great braids of sleek, black hair, soft brown eyes, and gleaming white teeth; they can
swim and ride and sing; and they are brown with a skin that shines like bronze ... There
isn't a worried woman in Hawaii. The women there can't worry. They don't know