Idaho County Free Press

In most of the discussions between optimists the question falls upon the balance of joy and sorrow in the world, the optimist justly contending that the universal love of life sufficiently proves that its happiness greatly exceeds its woe. There is however still another reason why life is worth living which is less frequently urged. It is that even its sorrows themselves are something which we cannot afford to do without. They are by no means the unmixed evils which we imagine them to be. Often they prove to be the foundations of a future success and happiness which never could have been reared on any other base. Often they give to the character a strength which could never otherwise have been developed, or virtues, which else would have remained inert.