Chapter 17

without imploring the reader to exterminate this characteristic of envy altogether. Because it is at first so little and so ridiculous, envy often escapes the hand of discipline. Yet the homely saying is a true one that "they which play with the devil's rattles will be brought by degrees to wield his sword," and the force of a nature given up to envy is truly a two-edged sword from the bottomless pit, cutting both the fiend who smites and the victim who smarts.

CONTENTMENT.

Mrs. Lofty keeps a carriage-- So do I. She has dappled grays to draw it-- None have I.--Alma Calder.

Unquestionably, the baby-carriage of the poet, with contentment, was a far richer establishment than the gilded barouche and the dappled grays of childless Mrs. Lofty. Riches are often childless; poverty is often contented. Happiness is a golden spell inwoven with most of our lives at certain times, whether we be rich or poor. The first surprise of the newly-rich comes in the non-discovery of additional happiness. Additional cares and duties come thickly enough. The greed of the envious, and the demands of the poor who are likewise needy in thoughtfulness for their more fortunate neighbors, fall upon the wealthy like a mist. There is no escaping it. As James Russell Lowell says of a Scotch fog--an umbrella will afford no protection. They must give all, or accept the hatred of those who believe it to be easier to give than to receive. "Contentment is natural wealth," says Socrates; "luxury is artificial poverty." Contentment is generally a sign of a high class of character. "If two angels were sent down," says John Newton, "one to conduct an empire and the other to sweep a street, they would feel no inclination to change employments."

HUMAN GREATNESS

is at best such a little thing that wise men do not lament its absence in their own persons. Our main pleasures are free to rich as well as poor. What sight is so grand as the sun? What pleasure is greater than to breathe? What fluid is more grateful for all purposes than water? What music is sweeter than the singing of birds, the ringing of free school bells and the hum of machinery? The extra pleasures which the rich man, if he be foolish, tries to buy, almost invariably

END IN HIS EARLY DEATH,

and in his hatred of the whole world. Those noble men of wealth who gain the plaudits of their fellows, have earned those plaudits just as poor men would earn them--by service to their fellow-creatures. Man is not constituted so that he can "take his ease" and be happy. The prisoner in solitary confinement is forced to take his ease, and we are told that he suffers terribly under the ordeal. Of course you have heard of

THE PRISONER IN THE DARK DUNGEON

who had three pins, and who gave himself employment by throwing them into the air and then beginning the long search which should finally secure them. Sometimes a pin would be hidden for years in a crevice. In this way the prisoner preserved his mind from utter decay, and was almost happy--nay, was really happy when his arduous labor would result in the discovery of all three of the objects of his pitiful quest. Instances like this should impress upon us the fact that the principal sum of our happiness is inalienable. We cannot, in health, possibly lose it. The hale pauper is far better off than the invalid Duke. We breathe and eat and see and hear with ease. All of those offices of the body are unquestionably delightful, as is proven by the relative view we get when we are ill and can neither breathe nor eat nor see nor hear without great suffering. "There is scarce any lot so low," says Sterne, "but there is something in it to satisfy the man whom it has befallen." The reason of this lies in this same fact that when the tree of happiness loses superfluous wealth, it but loses its foliage.

THE POOR MAN CARRIES INTO HIS COTTAGE

all the great and marvelous blessings of life. He leaves outside only a lot of artificialities, the most of which are so-called pleasures, but are really miseries. If we cannot be contented without these artificialities, we certainly would not be satisfied with an addition so unimportant. "A tub was large enough for Diogenes," says Colton; "but a world was too little for Alexander." Alexander valued the true blessings of life as nothing, and the power of life and death over others as everything. His disappointment and the contentment of Diogenes, who viewed things more correctly, are matters of tradition. "Contentment," says Fuller, "consisteth not in adding more fuel, but

IN TAKING AWAY SOME FIRE."

Therefore, if you are spending so much money that you need more income, take away some of the fire. If you reduce your expenses two dollars a week, you have added nearly eighteen hundred dollars to your account in fifteen years. If you wear your boots one month after you could well persuade yourself to have a new pair, your new ones will not wear out a month sooner for that reason!

GOOD FORTUNE OF OUR LITTLE EGOTISMS.

We are all, fortunately, greatly disposed to contentment with our lot. We do not seem to realize it, but the importance of the pleasures of life which cannot be bartered in, has its noticeable effect on the mind. Horace remarked this ages ago, and Dr. Johnson has thus translated the thoughts hinging upon it: "Howsoever every man may complain occasionally," says he, "of the hardships of his condition, he is seldom willing to change it for any other on the same level. Whether it be that he who follows an employment, chose it at first on account of its suitableness to his inclination; or that when accident, or the determination of others, have pleased him in a particular station, he, by endeavoring to reconcile himself to it, gets the custom of viewing it only on the fairest side; or whether every man thinks that class to which he belongs the most illustrious, merely

BECAUSE HE HAS HONORED IT WITH HIS NAME--

it is certain that, whatever be the reason, most men have a very strong and active prejudice, in favor of their own vocation, always working upon their minds and influencing their action." Let us be thankful for that laughable egotism which is born with us, and within us, and which, in this natural and unobtrusive affair of contentment, becomes a true anchor, holding us inside the peaceful haven.

AMBITION.

Marble may rise from crystal waters spanned By other marbles: founts may plash on stone, And fashionably-branched trees may stand As thieves upon a scaffold. Yet, how cold! How cold!

We are made up of elements. These elements should be well balanced. The delicacy of equilibrium is what makes the perfect man, or, rather, the honorable man. Too much avarice makes a contemptibly mean man; not enough makes a foolish spendthrift, who is always appealing to his friends for help. Too much bravery in man makes a bully; not enough a coward. Too much speech in man makes a bore; not enough a "stick." Too much hope in man makes a speculator and a gambler; not enough, a hermit and a man-hater. So of ambition. It is a flame to be guarded--a willing slave, an unpitying master. In its full sway it is the very essence of self-conceit and selfishness,--two traits, a little of which goes a good way. You know that you do not put much blueing into a washtub full of water. Well, use ambition in the same sparing way. If you spill it in using it, you will have a difficult affair on your hands. It may be just possible, of course, that you have clothes to wash, so to speak, which require the whole box or bottle. If so, your chance of happiness is not great.

"HE WHO SURPASSES OR SUBDUES MANKIND,"

says Byron, "must look down on the hate of those below." "Who soars too near the sun, with golden wings, melts them," says Shakspeare. We all have upon us golden wings of happiness. Let us not soar near the sun. "Fling away ambition," mourns old Cardinal Wolsely in Henry VIII; "by that sin fell the angels; how can man, then, the image of his Maker, hope to win by it?" "It often puts men upon doing the meanest offices," says Swift, "as climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping." It has been aptly called by Sir William Davenant,

"THE MIND'S IMMODESTY."

Watch this petty man. He is consumed by a desire to be a little higher than he now is. He is driver on a street car, in a city. Unconsciously, he is an excellent driver. He has not become so by the silent care which befits a real climber. No! he was born a horseman. But he was also born ambitious. If he were private secretary to the President, he would want to be President, simply because his attention would be more closely directed to the Chief Magistracy than elsewhere.

BEHOLD HIM INSTALLED AS CONDUCTOR.

He rings the bell incessantly for a milk-wagon to get out of the road. The passengers expostulate. One of them is drunk, therefore extra-expostulatory. Our conductor beholds the moment arrived when he must "bounce" the passenger. The passenger is landed free on track, with only the conductor's badge in his mind, which he reports to the office. The next day the conductor tells a passenger to get his feet off that seat, or he will put him off. In a dispute which follows, the conductor loses a chance to get across a swinging-bridge, and a passenger who has thus missed a train, gets angry and reports the conductor. The driver is quietly asked about our friend, and our friend is thrown out of his place like a shot out of a gun. He is too proud to drive again, and takes a trip into the country for his health. This homely drama is played in all the hotels where head-waiters are employed, in all the departments of business where head-clerks are needed; in all the great stores where floor-walkers "strut their brief hour,"--everywhere that gives an opportunity for little Envy to peep, from

THE RIDICULOUS AMBUSCADE

of some incompetent subordinate, out upon the goings and comings of unsuspecting Merit. "There is a native baseness," says Simms, "in the ambition which seeks beyond its desert, that never shows more conspicuously than when, no matter how, it temporarily gains its object." So, to me, there has always seemed a real baseness in these attempts of unfit people, who have only their self-conceit for training and their cheek for capital. Half our failures in business come from men attempting something they know nothing about. A printer will open a drug store, and a country dry goods merchant will start a daily paper in a city! "Alas!" says Young, "ambition makes my little less."

Once in a while there is born, in every State, a soul which is to be "like a star and dwell apart." It is to be gifted with qualities of an exalted character. But it is also to be lashed with the scourge of ambition. It is to stand, as William Penn said,

"THE TALLEST TREE,

therefore the most in the power of the blasts of fortune." How little should we desire the dizzy niche in which it seats itself. Our little heads would swim in the sickness of our unfamiliarity. We would fall. "Remarkable places," said Madame Necker, "are like the summits of rocks; eagles and reptiles only can get there." Napoleon, possibly, never had a true friend in his life. He certainly never deserved one. Each year saw him surrounded by new associates, whom he meant to sacrifice, if he could.

UPON THE BLOODY FIELD OF ASPERN AND ESSLING,

he offered up Marshal Lannes. He was forced to stand by that brave dying man and listen to his awful reproaches. So, again, in the terrible carnage of Spain at Eylau, at Borodino, Lutzen, Bautzen, Dresden, Leipsic, Hanau, everywhere, he was compelled to hear the outspoken protests of the men who had held the ladder for him--to stamp his foot at the constant declarations of "Dukes," "Princes," and "Kings," that he was a monster whose thirst demanded only human blood. At last, the whole world cried out that it had had

"ENOUGH OF BONAPARTE!"

The expression became a war-cry, and the world escaped from the baleful sceptre under whose shadow it had too long suspired. "What millions died that Cæsar might be great!" cries Campbell. "None think the great unhappy but the great," says Young. They deserve their unhappiness. It is the mess of pottage to obtain which they have sold everything. Fame has always seemed to the philosopher like some mountain in a polar clime--cold, lonesome, inhospitable.

Tall mountains meet, and giddy greet The clouds in their exalted homes; What may they show, save ice and snow, Unto the fleets that pass their domes?

Their crests are bold with solar gold: Their charming cliffs enchant the eye; Yet earth shows not more dreary spot Than toilers in their heights descry.

There points a peak which mortals seek-- Fraught are its crags with human woes; Shrill through its fasts shriek envy-blasts-- Forever drift hate's blinding snows.

Its towering height beams with a light-- The wondrous blaze of Glory's orb; Still those who gaze feel most the rays, While they who climb no warmth absorb.

Contentment creeps--Renown climbs steeps Where consummations ne'er appease; Below, how oft, when Care's aloft, Unhappiness, distrusting, flees.

THE REPUBLIC'S ANCHOR.

In ancient times the sacred plough employed The kings and awful fathers of mankind.

A work of this character--a book for the home--would be manifestly halt without some consideration of that grand subject, Agriculture,--the tilling of the continents of this wide earth, to whose fruitfulness the oceans apply their beneficent offices; to whose generosity the sun lends his quickening rays of brightness and beauty. "The awful fathers of mankind" to-day pay attention to the "sacred plough" as in ancient days, aye, thousands of times as much attention! The tribes which then wandered upon the globe have now increased until Nature must needs groan with the load of her gifts to sustain them, and the rulers must scan the sky, and send the telegraph out-riding the storms, to warn the husbandman that danger to his crops approaches--danger, which if not averted, were more deadly than the hatred of an enemy on a foreign strand.

The magnificent, conservative forces of our Republic live upon its farms. There is our safety in the hour of trial! Rome fell because

HER LOAFERS AND CITYITES

were the only voters. They had no homes to protect--they had only votes to _sell_. But here, with our mighty experiment in human government, we have an irresistible power, the elements of which are straight-thinking men, who want only the right to prevail, and who have wheat and corn to sell, but absolutely no votes! God be thanked for this! When the torch of Communism shall

BURN THE SENATE HOUSE

in the city, the swords which were yesterday plow-shares will surround the glaring pile, and steadfastly blot out of existence the conspiracy of the beer-saloon and the "dead-fall;" when the bayonet of the gaudy foreigner shall glisten on our coasts, the ranks of farmers will hurry, side by side with the metropolitans, to chase the adventurers back into the seas.

"Agriculture," says Zenophon, "for an honorable and high minded man, is the best of all occupations and arts by which men obtain the means of living." How true this is! One would think

"BUSINESS"

in the days of the Greek were carried on just as it is now--the concourse of a pack of men turned wolves, hungry for trade, and devouring each other in the absence of common sustenance. To succeed in business in a city in this epoch, and to be at the same time a high-minded and honorable man, is very rare--is usually the result of employing lieutenants to do the "business," and keeping the "dirty work" away from the knowledge of the principal. But when the farmer drives a bargain with

"THE GOOD GODDESS"

how clean is the transaction! There is no lying, no cheating, no treachery, no rivalry. How frank and open is the face of him who has concealed nothing! How hearty is his laugh--for has he not laughed with nature--with the twitter of the birds, with the low beating of the bells? Has he not faithful friends--friends of a life-time? When he has gone into debt has he not paid? Has he ever considered

FIFTY CENTS ON HIS NEIGHBOR'S DOLLAR

a full return, and has he walked into his neighbor's parlor (shabby for lack of the fifty per cent) and congratulated him on the return of the holidays? A spade is a spade with him. A thief is a thief. He does not like thieves. He says so. Neither does his city cousin like thieves. His city cousin is very careful not to say so. He does not like monopolies, he says so. Neither does his city cousin like monopolies. His city cousin would "turn off" any clerk who said so very loudly, let alone saying it himself. He does not like corruption and hypocrisy. On this point his city cousin has

POSITIVELY NO OPINION,

as "it really would ruin his business." Thus we see the farmer--free, ingenuous, independent. Thus we see the city merchant--smooth, prudent, sycophantic. Thank God for Agriculture! And now

CANNOT WE INSPIRE YOUNG MEN

with a little truer idea of life? Cannot we teach them that money in itself is not what they want above all things? How little wealth the really wise find necessary! On the farm is health, independence, high standing--all within the reach of any young man. He certainly sacrifices one or two of these objects when he enters a city. He can get money but he will lose his health. If he get true independence he will be

ONE OUT OF TEN THOUSAND,

all the rest of whom are slaves. With the new combinations forming in the business of the world, new experiences are constant. The man employing three hundred fortunate workers to-day, may be himself searching for work next year. The man getting $5,000 a year to-day may next week be trying to find labor at a dollar a day, and may absolutely fail. The financial panic has no such thing in store for the farmer. He will live on, just as his brook runs on, and when the sleek magnates in the hotel-parlor decree that he must lose his farm, as they need it for a "colony," he will rise up and smite them, and thereafter the sleek magnate will be an affair of the past. Young man, if you have not an absolute genius for something else, stay on the farm. Read books which will make you desire to be a pure man, just for the noble name it will give you. If you can get as great a desire to be a good man as you have to be a purse-proud man, you will be on the right track; for you will see that honesty is easier in the perfumed fields than it is in the polluted air of a city business-house. Read over the biographies, and see how certainly all our great men got their greatness in the open air of the country. Take a big city, for instance. Has it not surprised you to see how few great men New York or Chicago have furnished to the nation? The city levels men. It drags them down. Their individualities are put into a dredge-box, and the flour of mediocrity is scattered on all alike.

"IN A MORAL POINT OF VIEW,"

says Lord John Russell, "the life of the agriculturist is the most pure and holy of any class of men; pure because it is the most healthful, and vice can hardly find time to contaminate it; and holy because it brings the Deity perpetually before his view, giving him thereby the most exalted notions of supreme power, and the most fascinating and endearing view of moral benignity."

Farmers, you take pains to get two teams, so that the boys can take hold at the ploughing and in the corn. See to it that you also get the boys a light wagon, so that they can go to a picnic or a bee without discommoding you.

START YOUR BOYS OUT IN THIS WAY,

and they will not abuse their opportunities. Instead of going six miles on Sunday to a lake or river, they will "turn out" of their own accord and go to church with their heads up, self-reliant, perhaps just a little bit proud. Why? Because when they sneak off to a river, it is because they have nothing with which they are decently pleased for all their hard toil. Make your home a pleasant place for your sons, even if it be at great hazards. It will all come out right. Give the children some comforts before you take big chances on a short-horn herd. Rig up a bath-room, a swing, a sort of gymnasium. Buy games of recreation, such as your taste approves. Buy above all things good books and plenty of them. Remember some book in your own old childhood-home! What a gigantic influence that book has exercised on your whole life! It does not seem to you that your sons will pay so much attention to the books in _your_ house, but they will. Some one book will furnish a key to a life--will sway its reader while young, while old, until he goes over the bounds of its dominion into the next life. You and Society both desire your young people to

STAY OUT OF THE CITIES.

The safety of our Great Republic entirely depends upon the existence of a conservative class of independent individuals, unable to become crazed, through laziness, over some miserable idea unconnected with the business of living. When any great wrong is to be righted by absolute force it is necessary that the body exercising that force should be amenable to a sense of practical justice. If it shall be necessary to take the railroads away from their owners, or to close the boards of trade, or to go the other way and farm out the post-office and machinery of the government to get rid of the crime of office-hunting,--why then, the action of independent men is necessary--the doings of wage-workers are not satisfactory, and are almost always fatal to the order of things which was to be renovated. If this Republic have any vitality not enjoyed formerly by the democracies now buried in the yellow pages of history, it is the tremendous scope of her quarter-section farms. Not many years ago one of the largest business houses in Chicago put up a placard, just before election, stating that the proprietor considered his interests justly the interests of his clerks, and it was decidedly to his interests to have the Honorable Barnacle Bigbug re-elected. All employes were requested to note well. You see the crime of this dry-goods "prince" (how we all run to idiotic titles!) lay in subordinating the good of the State to the good of his particular millions. He totally forgot that the good of each clerk was as much to be looked after by the Government as the good of his own ambitious flesh and blood. He drowned every principle of democracy in the monarchical desire to "get it all and then give some away." The desire to give away is where the theory gives away. Now this can never happen on the farm.

The plutocrats must always tremble before the man with hay-seed in his hair. They cannot reach him. They cannot tempt or debauch him. Teach this to your sons. Teach it with horses, buggies, churches, picnics, schools, books, rest, and travel. Take the boys to the rank-smelling cities; show them the factories, the store-gangs, and the street gangs. Then they will go home with joy in their hearts, and when Old Brindle moos and Old Sorrel whinnies in recognition at their gate you may be sure that the greedy city will never swallow up your sturdy sons, the pride of your declining years. I have been somewhat earnest in this because my life on a farm was harder than circumstances make imperative nowadays. Clearing is heavy work. The culture of an Indiana opening among stumps that make a field look like a drag turned wrong-side-up leaves little chance for gymnasium or bath-room. But all that is gone by. I have been earnest, again, because

THE FOREIGNERS