Boy Wanted

DO IT NOW!

The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy. Collect and learn them; they are notable measures and directions for human life; you have much in little; they save time in speaking, and upon occasion may be the fullest and safest answers. – William Penn.

If you have a task worth doing,Do it now!In delay there’s danger brewing,Do it now!Don’t you be a “by-and-byer”And a sluggish patience-trier;If there’s aught you would acquire,Do it now!

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. – Franklin.

If you’d earn a prize worth owning,Do it now!Drop all waiting and postponing,Do it now!Say, “I will!” and then stick to it,Choose your purpose and pursue it,There’s but one right way to do it,Do it now!

Don’t flinch, flounder, fall over, nor fiddle, but grapple like a man. A man who wills it can go anywhere, and do what he determines to do. – John Todd.

Do all the good you can, and make as little fuss as possible about it. – Dickens.

All we have is just this minute,Do it now!Find your duty and begin it,Do it now!Surely you’re not always goingTo be “a going-to-be”; and knowingYou must some time make a showingDo it now!

CHAPTER VI

CHEERFULNESS

Joy is not in things, it is in us. – Wagner.

Let us suppose that you must go into partnership for life with some other boy, as the world is about to go into partnership with you, would you not wish him to have, first of all, a cheerful disposition?

Money is good for nothing unless you know the value of it by experience. – P. T. Barnum.

Has it ever occurred to you that the world entertains the same thought regarding yourself?

It is easy to understand why a partnership, the members of which pleasantly pull together, is more likely to thrive than is one wherein they are always complaining of each other and sadly prophesying failure.

The world, as your partner, will be toward you what you are toward it.

The day is immeasurably long to him who knows not how to value and use it. – Goethe.

Smile, once in a while,’Twill make your heart seem lighter;Smile, once in a while,’Twill make your pathway brighter;Life’s a mirror; if we smile,Smiles come back to greet us;If we’re frowning all the while,Frowns forever meet us.

It is a maxim with me not to ask what, under similar circumstances, I would not grant. – Washington.

Next to virtues, the fun in this world is what we can least spare. – Strickland.

“As you cannot have a sweet and wholesome abode unless you admit the air and sunshine freely into your rooms,” says James Allen, “so a strong body and a bright, happy, or serene countenance can result only from the free admittance into the mind of thoughts of joy and good will and serenity. There is no physician like cheerful thought for dissipating the ills of the body; there is no comforter to compare with good will for dispersing the shadows of grief and sorrow. To live continually in thoughts of ill will, cynicism, suspicion and envy, is to be confined in a self-made prison-hole. But to think well of all, to be cheerful with all, to patiently learn to find the good in all – such unselfish thoughts are the very portals of heaven; and to dwell day by day in thoughts of peace toward every creature will bring abounding peace to the possessor of such thoughts.”

I resolved that, like the sun, so long as my day lasted, I would look on the bright side of everything. – Thomas Hood.

Says Robert Louis Stevenson: “A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is radiating a focus of good will; and his or her entrance into a room is as though another candle had been lighted.”

Ideas go booming through the world louder than cannon. Thoughts are mightier than armies. Principles have achieved more victories than horsemen or chariots. – Paxton.

“It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor,” says Dickens.

Give but a smile to sorry men,They’ll give it, bettered, back again.

Method is like packing things in a box; a good packer will get in half as much again as a bad one. – Cecil.

Bovee very truly says, “The cheerful live longest in years, and afterwards in our regards.”

If it required no brains, no nerve, no energy, no work, there would be no glory in achievement. – Bates.

“I have gout, asthma, and seven other maladies,” said Sydney Smith, “but am otherwise very happy.” How often those with whom we meet are sorely afflicted and yet their cheerful faces do not betray their troubles. They are too considerate of our happiness to sadden our minds with their woes. Those whom we deem fretful without sufficient excuse, if indeed any excuse justifies the habit of fretting, may be much more sorely afflicted than we think they are. There is a world of sympathetic truth in that old saying

“TO KNOW ALL IS TO FORGIVE ALL”

It is not what one can get out of work, but what he may put in, that is the test of success. – Lilian Whiting.

If I knew you and you knew me —If both of us could clearly see,And with an inner sight divineThe meaning of your heart and mine,I’m sure that we would differ lessAnd clasp our hands in friendliness;Our thoughts would pleasantly agreeIf I knew you and you knew me.If I knew you and you knew me,As each one knows his own self, weCould look each other in the faceAnd see therein a truer grace.Life has so many hidden woes,So many thorns for every rose;The “why” of things our hearts would see,If I knew you and you knew me.

There is only one real failure in life possible; and that is, not to be true to the best one knows. – Canon Farrar.

“If a word will render a man happy,” said one of the French philosophers, “he must be a wretch, indeed, who will not give it. It is like lighting another man’s candle with your own, which loses none of its brilliancy by what the other gains.” Another wise writer says: “Mirth is God’s medicine; everybody ought to bathe in it. Grim care, moroseness, anxiety – all the rust of life, ought to be scoured off by the oil of mirth.”

Confidence imparts a wonderful inspiration to its possessor. – Milton.

Orison Swett Marden, than whom no man’s golden words have done more to make the world brighter and better, says: “We should fight against every influence which tends to depress the mind, as we would against a temptation to crime. A depressed mind prevents the free action of the diaphragm and the expansion of the chest. It stops the secretions of the body, interferes with the circulation of the blood in the brain, and deranges the entire functions of the body.”

The most important attribute of man as a moral being is the faculty of self-control. – Herbert Spencer.

“Do not anticipate trouble,” says Franklin, “or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.”

Self-control, I say, is the root virtue of all virtues. It is at the very center of character. – King.

One of our present day apostles of the gospel of cheerfulness tells us that worry is a disease. “Some people ought to be incarcerated for disturbing the family peace, and for troubling the public welfare, on the charge of intolerable fretfulness and touchiness.”

The boy whom the world wants will be wise, indeed, if he includes in his preparations for meeting the years that are before him —

In the long run a man becomes what he purposes, and gains for himself what he really desires. – Mabie.

A CURE FOR TROUBLETrouble is looking for some one to trouble!Who will partake of his worrisome wares?Where shall he tarry and whom shall he harryAt morning and night with his burden of cares?They who have hands that are idle and empty,They without purpose to build and to bless;They who invite him with scowls that delight himAre they who shall dwell in the House of Distress.

I owe all my success in life to having been always a quarter of an hour beforehand. – Lord Nelson.

Trouble is looking for some one to trouble!I’ll tell you how all his plans to eclipse:When he draws near you be sure he shall hear youA-working away with a song on your lips.Look at him squarely and laugh at his coming;Say you are busy and bid him depart;He will not tease you to stay if he sees youHave tasks in your hands and a hope in your heart.

The period of greenness is the period of growth. When we cease to be green and are entirely ripe we are ready for decay. – Bryan.

Trouble is looking for some one to trouble!I shall not listen to aught he shall say;Out of life’s duty shall blossom in beautyA grace and a glory to gladden the way.I shall have faith in the gifts of the Giver;I shall be true to my purpose and plan;Good cheer abounding and love all-surrounding,I shall keep building the best that I can.

Prepare yourself for the world as the athletes used to do for their exercises; oil your mind and your manners to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility; strength alone will not do. – Chesterfield.

“Give, O give us, the man who sings at his work!” says Thomas Carlyle. “Be his occupation what it may, he is equal to any of those who follow the same pursuit in silent sullenness. He will do more in the same time – he will do it better – he will persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible to fatigue while he marches to music. The very stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation its powers of endurance. Efforts to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous – a spirit all sunshine – grateful for very gladness, beautiful because bright.”

Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance. – Matthew Arnold.

In all things, to serve from the lowest station upwards is necessary. – Goethe.

To do nothing by halves is the way of noble minds. – Wieland.

Have you a cheerful member in your circle of friends, a cheerful neighbor in the vicinity of your home? Cherish him as a pearl of great price. He is of real, practical value to all with whom he comes in contact. His presence in a neighborhood ought to make real estate sell for a bit more a square foot, and life more prized by all who partake of his good cheer. He greets the world with a smile and a laugh – a real laugh, born of thought and feeling – not a superficial veneer of humor the falsity of which is detected by all who hear it. “How much lies in laughter,” says Carlyle “It is the cipher-key wherewith we decipher the whole man. Some men wear an everlasting simper; in the smile of another lies the cold glitter, as of ice; the fewest are able to laugh what can be called laughing, but only sniff and titter and snicker from the throat outward, or at least produce some whiffing, husky cachination, as if they were laughing through wool. Of none such comes good.”

Whatever your occupation may be, and however crowded your hours with affairs, do not fail to secure at least a few minutes every day for refreshment of your inner life with a bit of poetry. – Charles Eliot Norton.

Do you like the boy who in a game of ball is whining all the time because he cannot be constantly at the bat?

Isn’t the real manly boy the one who can lose cheerfully when he has played the game the best he possibly could and has been honestly defeated?

Nothing of us belongs so wholly to other people as our looks. – Glover.

Nothing is ever well done that is not done cheerfully. The one with a growl spoils whatever joy good fortune may seek to bring him. The man with whom the whole world loves to be in partnership is

THE ONE WITH A SONG

Our greatest glory consists, not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. – Goldsmith.

The cloud-maker says it is going to storm,And we’re sure to have awful weather, —Just terribly wet or cold or warm,Or maybe all three together!But while his spirit is overcastWith the gloom of his dull repining,The one with a song comes smiling past,And, lo! the sun is shining.

A noble manhood, nobly consecrated to man, never dies. – William McKinley.

The cloud-maker tells us the world is wrong,And is bound in an evil fetter,But the blue-sky man comes bringing a songOf hope that shall make it better.And the toilers, hearing his voice, beholdThe sign of a glad to-morrow,Whose hands are heaped with the purest gold,Of which each heart may borrow.

It is easy finding reasons why other folks should be patient. – George Eliot.

The one who thinks the world is full of good people and kindly blessings is much richer than the one who thinks to the contrary. Some men live in a world peopled with princes of the royal blood; some in a world of want and wrong-doers. Those whom we distrust are likely to distrust us. To believe a man is a man helps to make him so at heart. To think him a rascal is a start for him in the wrong direction. The world smiles at us if we smile at it; when we frown it frowns. It is the armor of war and not that of love that invites trouble. He who carries a sword is the most likely to find a cause for using it. The man who remembers it was a beautiful day yesterday is a great deal happier than he who is sure it is going to storm to-morrow.

Sympathy is two hearts tugging at one load. – Parkhurst.

Though life is made up of mere bubbles,’Tis better than many aver,For while we’ve a whole lot of troubles,The most of them never occur.

In the thousand and one little everyday affairs of life the man who is disposed to take things by the smooth handles saves himself and those about him an endless amount of worry. The pessimist is an additional sorrow in a world that holds for all of us some glints of sunshine and some shreds of song. It was of one such sorry soul that I penned the lines —

What folly to tear one’s hair in sorrow, just as if grief could be assuaged by baldness. – Cicero.

He growled at morning, noon and night,And trouble sought to borrow;On days when all the skies were brightHe knew ’twould storm to-morrow.A thought of joy he could not standAnd struggled to resist it;Though sunshine dappled all the landThis sorry pessimist it.

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man. – Franklin.

Occasionally we meet a person well along in years who has not yet acquired sufficient wisdom to understand that without some of the elements of a storm in the sky we could never look upon that most marvelously beautiful spectacle – a rainbow.

Give us to go blithely about our business all this day, bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonored, and grant us in the end the gift of sleep. – Stevenson.

Without hunger and thirst, food and drink would be superfluous; without cold, warmth would lose its grateful charm; without weariness, rest were of no avail; without grief, gladness would lose its delight. The thoughtful, thankful soul will keep the lips from complaining and the hands from wrong-doing by always supplying them with

A SMILE AND A TASK

Teach your child to hold his tongue, he’ll learn fast enough to speak. – Franklin.

Keep a smile on your lips; it is betterTo joyfully, hopefully tryFor the end you would gain, than to fetterYour life with a moan and a sigh.There are clouds in the firmament everThe beauty of heaven to mar,Yet night so profound there is neverBut somewhere is shining a star.

There is no use arguing with the inevitable; the only argument with the east wind is to put on your overcoat. – Lowell.

Keep a task in your hands; you must labor;By deeds is true happiness won;For stranger and friend and for neighbor,Rejoice there is much to be done.Endeavor by crowning life’s dutyWith joy-giving song and with smile,To make the world fuller of beautyBecause you are in it a while.

A young man cannot honestly make a success in any business unless he loves his work. – Edward Bok.

“Of all virtues cheerfulness is the most profitable. While other virtues defer the day of recompense, cheerfulness pays down. It is a cosmetic which makes homeliness graceful and winning. It promotes health and gives clearness and vigor to the mind; it is the bright weather of the heart in contrast with the clouds and gloom of melancholy.” These words from the writings of one of our sunniest philosophers are worth much gold to one who will ever keep them in mind.

There is a great deal more to be got out of things than is generally got out of them, whether the thing be a chapter of the Bible or a yellow turnip. – MacDonald.

Sydney Smith says that “all mankind are happier for having been happy; so that, if you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it.” This being true we should do all in our power to turn men from gloom to gladness; from the shadows to sunshine. With this purpose in mind I have written

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PESSIMIST

The boy who does not go to school does not know what Saturday is. – Babcock.

Brother – you with growl and frown —Why don’t you move from Grumbletown,Where everything is tumbled downAnd skies are dark and dreary?Move over into Gladville whereYour face will don a happy air,And lay aside your cross of careFor smiles all bright and cheery.

A faithful friend is a strong defence, and he that hath found him hath found a treasure. – Ecclesiasticus.

In Grumbletown there’s not a joyBut has a shadow of alloyThat must its happiness destroyAnd make you to regret it.In Gladville we have not a careBut, somehow, looks inviting thereAnd has about it something fairThat makes us glad to get it.

The three things most difficult are, to keep a secret, to forget an injury, and to make a good use of leisure. – Chilo.

’Tis strange how different these townsOf ours are! Good cheer aboundsIn one, and gruesome growls and frownsAre always in the other.If you your skies of ashen grayWould change for sunny skies of May,From Grumbletown, oh, haste away;Move into Gladville, brother.

CHAPTER VII

DREAMING AND DOING

The talent that is buried is not owned. The napkin and the hole in the ground are far more truly the man’s property. – Babcock.

“Hitch your wagon to a star!”

Such is the advice Emerson gave to ambitious youth. He meant well, no doubt, and indeed, his words are all right if taken with a pinch of salt. A boy should dream great dreams, of course, but he ought to set his dream-gauge so as to have it indicate a line of endeavor it will be possible for him to follow.

That which some call idleness I call the sweetest part of my life, and that is my thinking. – Felsham.

“Hitch your wagon to a star,”Sounds eloquent, of course,But it might prove more prudent, far,To hitch it to a motor-car,Or a steady-going horse.

We must learn to bear and to work before we can spare strength to dream. – Phelps.

The type of boy the world counts on to do it the most lasting good is the youth that does not permit the wings of fancy to carry him so far into the blue empyrean that he cannot touch the solid earth with at least the tiptoes of reason.

As Wingate truly says: “There is no use in filling young people’s minds with vain hopes; not every one can make a fortune or a national reputation, but he who possesses health, ordinary ability, honesty and industry can at least earn a livelihood.”

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. – Mark Twain.

If you are striving to be a level-headed boy you will understand that if you keep your eyes fastened on the stars all the while you are likely to overlook a thousand opportunities lying all about your pathway.

Let’s not despise just common things,For here’s a truth there is no dodging,The bird that soars on proudest wingsComes down to earth for board and lodging.

Success comes only to those who lead the life of endeavour. – Roosevelt.

Some of the poets and others advise you to aim at the sky or the sun or something of that sort, for by so doing you will shoot higher than you would if you aimed at the ground.

I would advise you to aim directly at the target you wish to hit. Don’t shoot over it or under it; shoot at it.

The most certain sign of wisdom is a continued cheerfulness. – Montaigne.

Dreaming great things is good but doing simple things may be better. There ought to be, and there will be more dreams than deeds, just as there are more blossoms on the tree than can mature and ripen into perfect fruit.

Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar. – Wordsworth.

We shall always have to divide our attention between the things we can do and the things we should like to do. Dreaming is an interesting pastime but we should not devote too many precious moments to

THE PLEASURES OF “IFFING”“If” this or that were thus and so,Oh, wouldn’t it be clever!But “ifs,” alas! won’t make it soThough we should “if” forever.Yet, while “ifs” cannot help a mite,We’d all be less contentedAnd life would hold far less delight“If” “iffing” were prevented.

Our business in life is not to get ahead of other people, but to get ahead of ourselves. – Babcock.

When the time arrives for a boy to cease dreaming and to begin doing he should seize upon the highest duty that comes to his hands and waste not a moment in dilatory uncertainties. “Thrift of time,” says Gladstone, “will repay you in after-life with a thousandfold of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams.”

Have the courage to appear poor, and you disarm poverty of its sharpest sting. – Irving.

Hopes are good, but patiently worked-out realities are better. Hope is for to-morrow. Work is for to-day. The hope that lulls one into a dreamy inactivity, with the promise that all will be well, whether or no, is sometimes a hindrance in the path toward success. We must not succumb too fully to

THE POWER OF HOPE

Hope is the real riches, as fear is the real poverty. – Hume.

Hope’s a magical compoundTo increase our strength, we’ve found,It can charm our bars and barriers all away.With its impulse, which we borrow,We can always do to-morrowLots and lots of things we never do to-day.

Small pleasures, depend upon it, lie about us as thick as daisies. – Jerrold.

Hope is the architect but brawn is the builder. An architect’s most elaborate design for a mansion, on paper, cannot protect one from the elements as well as can the crudest little cabin actually built by hands. Those who spend much time in dreaming wonderful plans and waiting for a ready-made success to come and hunt them up may be interested in learning about

HANK STREETER’S BRAIN-WAVE

Go after two wolves, and you will not even catch one. – Russian.

Hank Streeter used to sit around the corner grocery store,A-telling of the things he’d like to do;“But, pshaw!” said Hank, “it ain’t no use to tackle ’em beforeFate settles in her mind she’ll help you through.And ’tain’t no use to waste your time on triflin’ things,” said he;“The feller that secures the biggest plumIs the one that thinks up something that’s a winner, so, you see,I’m waitin’ for a brain-wave to come.”

In all God’s creation there is no place appointed for the idle man. – Gladstone.

“The men that make the biggest hits,” so Hank would often say,“They ain’t the ones, or so I calculate,That get their everlastin’ fame a-workin’ by the day;No, sir! They sort o’ grab it while you wait.They spend their time a-thinkin’ till they strike some new ideeThat’s big enough to make the hull world hum.”“And that’s my plan for winnin’ out,” said Hank; “and so,” said he,“I’m waitin’ for a brain-wave to come.”

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. – Mark Twain.

And there he sat a-waiting: in the winter by the stove,In summer-time he sat outside the store;And, while his busy neighbors all about him worked and throve,He just kept on a-talking more and more;Kept on a-getting poorer, and, while time it hauled and tacked,Hank had to make a meal off just a crumb,Till death it had to take him, – caught him in the very actOf waiting for a brain-wave to come.

Labor is the genius that changes the world from ugliness to beauty, and changes the great curse to a great blessing. – Opie Read.

The man that’s born a genius, – well, I s’pose he’s bound to win,But most of us are born the other way;And, after all is said and done, the man who pitches inAnd works, – well he’s a genius, so they say.If he can’t win a dollar, why, he tries to earn a dime;If he can’t have it all he’ll capture some:For doing just the best we can is better, every time,Than waiting for a brain-wave to come.

I have seldom known any one who deserted truth in trifles that could be trusted in matters of importance. – Paley.