HERE'S HOPIN' An optimist has been described as a man who orders oysters at a restaurant and expects to find a pearl to pay the bill with. This of course is not optimism, but brazen brainlessness. Yet somehow the pearls come only to those who expect them. YEAR EAR ain't been the very best ;- CLEON AND I Toward the end of the yacht race in which the America won her historic cup the English monarch, who was one of the spectators, inquired: "Which boat is first?" "The America seems to be first, your majesty," replied an aide. "And which is second?" asked the monarch. "Your majesty, there seems to be no second." So it is in the race for happiness. The man who is natural, who is open and kind of heart, is always first. The man who is merely rich or sheltered or proud is not even a good second. CLE LEON hath a million acres, ne'er a one have I; Cleon, true, possesses acres, but the landscape I; Cleon is a slave to grandeur, free as thought am I; Cleon fees a score of doctors, need of none have I; Wealth-surrounded, care-environed, Cleon fears to die; Death may come, he'll find me ready, happier man am I. Cleon sees no charm in nature, in a daisy I; Cleon hears no anthems ringing in the sea and sky; State for state, with all attendants, who would change? Not I. Charles Mackay. THE PESSIMIST Most of our ills and troubles are not very serious when we come to examine the realities of them. Or perhaps we expect too much. An old negro was complaining that the railroad would not pay him for his mule, which it had killed-nay, would not even give him back his rope. "What rope?" he was asked. "Why, sah," answered he, "de rope dat I tied de mule on de track wif.” NOTH JOTHING to do but work, Nothing to breathe but air Nothing to comb but hair, Nothing to sing but songs, Nowhere to come but back. Nothing to see but sights, Nothing to quench but thirst, Nothing to strike but a gait; Nothing at all but common sense Ben King. From "Ben King's Verse," A PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED There are irritating, troublesome people about us. Of what use is it to be irritating in our turn or to add to the trouble? Most offenders have their better side. Our wisest course is to find this and upon the basis of it build up a better relationship. HERE'S a fellow in your office TH Who complains and carps and whines Till you'd almost do a favor To his heirs and his assigns. (And this chap's of course involved)--- There's a duffer in your district This old earth's (I'm sometimes thinking) One menagerie of freaks Folks invested with abnormal Lungs or brains or galls or beaks. St. Clair Adams. PROSPICE Here the poet looks forward to death. He does not ask for an easy death; he does not wish to creep past an experience which all men sooner or later must face, and which many men have faced so heroically. He has fought well in life; he wishes to make the last fight too. The poem was written shortly after the death of Mrs. Browning, and the closing lines refer to her. FEAR EAR death?-to feel the fog in my throat, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote The power of the night, the press of the storm, Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, For the journey is done and the summit attained, Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, I was ever a fighter, so-one fight more, The best and the last! I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past. No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest! Robert Browning. |