The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 | Page 4

The voice we hear, and you will be An angel ready-made for heaven.

THE MOLLY O'MOLLY PAPERS.
VIII
Better than wealth, better than hosts of friends, better than genius, is a mind that finds enjoyment in little things--that sucks honey from the blossom of the weed as well as from the rose--that is not too dainty to enjoy coarse, everyday fare. I am thankful that, though not born under a lucky star, I wasn't born under a melancholy one; that, though there were at my christening no kind fairies to bestow on me all the blessings of life--there was no malignant elf to 'mingle a curse with every blessing.' I'd rather have a few drops of pure sweet than an overflowing cup tinctured with bitterness.
Not that sorrow has never blown her chill breath on my spirit--yet it has never been so iced over that it would not here and there bubble forth with a song of gladness.... There are depths of woe that I have never fathomed, or rather, to which I have never sunken--for there are no line and plummet to sound the dreary depths--yet the waves have overwhelmed me, as every human being, but I soon rose above them.
'One by one thy griefs shall meet thee, Do not fear an armed band; One shall fade as others greet thee-- Shadows passing through the land.'
I have found this true--I know there are some to whom it is not true--that, though sorrows come not to them 'in battalions,' the shadow of the one huge Grief is ever on their path, or on their heart; that at their down-sittings and their up-risings it is with them, even darkening to them the night, and making them almost curse the sunshine; for it is ever between them and it--not a mere shadow, nor yet a substance, but a vacuum of light, casting also a shadow. Neither substance nor shadow, it must be a phantom--it may be of a dead sin--and against such, exorcism avails. I opine this exorcism lies in no cabalistic words, no crossing of the forehead, no holy name, in nothing that one can do unto or for himself, but in entire self-forgetfulness--in doing for, in sympathizing with, others. So shall this Grief step aside from your path, get away from between you and the sunshine, till finally it shall have vanished.
I know--not, however, by experience--that a great sorrow-berg, with base planted in the under-current of a man's being, has been borne at a fearful rate, right up against all his nobly-built hopes and projects, making a complete wreck of them. May God help him then! But must his being ever after be like the lonely Polar Sea on which no bark was ever launched?
But surely we have troubles enough without borrowing from the future or the past, as we constantly do. It is often said, it is a good thing that we can't look into the future. One would think that that mysterious future, on which we are the next moment to enter, in which we are to live our everyday life--one would think it a store-house of evils. Do you expect no good--are there for you no treasures there?
How often life has been likened to a journey, a pilgrimage, with its deserts to cross, its mountains to climb!... The road to---- Lake, distant from my home some eight or ten miles, partly lies through a mountain pass. You drive a few miles--and a beautiful drive it is, with its pines and hemlocks, their dark foliage contrasting with the blue sky--on either hand high mountains; now at your left, then at your right, and again at your left runs now swiftly over stones, now lingering in hollows, making good fishing-places, a creek, that has come many glad miles on its way to the river. But how are you to get over that mountain just before you? Your horse can't draw you up its rocky, perpendicular front! Never mind, drive along--there, the mountain is behind you--the road has wound around it. Thus it is with many a mountain difficulty in our way, we never have it to climb. There is now and then one, though, that we do have to climb, and we can't be drawn or carried up by a faithful nag, but our weary feet must toil up its steep and rugged side. But many a pilgrim before us has climbed it, and we will not faint on the way. 'What man has done, man may do.' ... Yet, till I have found out to a certainty, I never will be sure that the mountain that seemingly blocks up my way, has not a path winding round it.
Then the past.... Some one says we are happier our whole life for having spent one pleasant day. Keats says: 'A thing of beauty is