Daily New Dominion Literary November 26, 1897

Some Rambling Thoughts.

"BY NEMO."

The wish of men to fly has never yet caused wings to bud, but the wish has been father to numberless thoughts about free movement over the face of the earth, and thus asses, camels, horses, and so forth have been broken to our use, and used until too slow for our hastening spirits. From them we have passed to steam, to electricity, to compressed air, and to other forms of propulsion. Even the flying machine is rapidly nearing a commercial possibility. Better than the birds who fly, yet needs must rest, our servants carry us, so that we skim the earth through proxy effort and eat or sleep or transact business while being flitted from place to place by tireless machinery. But I do not write this in order to minister to human pride; on the contrary, it is to point a moral for those whose hearts sometimes feel like bursting at being shut away in a narrow place. I know just how you feel; eager to do great things, sure that you could do them if you had a chance, and yet prevented by conditions that seem cruel in themselves, and more cruel when you see how they are hindering you. Have patience—at least for five minutes—and let us draw a little inspiration from poor wingless man, who being without powers of flight and yet desirous of such powers—learning that the boon does not grant him his wish, sets his brain to work. Its results we know. Like the traveler who scales a cliff by turning this way and that, the absence of wings is a limitation that has been set aside.

Apply this method to yourself, pining and eager one. Mere longing for different circumstances will never bring them. Opportunities are not forced by pulling wish-bones, nor do chances come by chiding fate. Since you cannot be in two places at once your place for the present is precisely the place you are in, and if viewed aright you will be loth to change it until you have done your all with it. The most seldom spot in the world for you, is the spot you stand on; for it is your testing place—not some one else's, but yours—it is your opportunity to show what a man with limitations can do and can dare. Transported suddenly from where you are doing less than your all—for that must be true if you are grumbling and fuming—to new circumstances that seem ideal, you will still find reasons for discontent. But if where you are, you made a wholesome blending of content and discontent,—content that you know your limitations and discontented to the extent of fitting yourself for wider scope, the time of fuller, more satisfactory life is practically certain to come. The waiting may be long, but even if long or the chance for ever deferred, you will have done well.

Overworked one, pressed with anxieties and harassed by those who ought to, but do not seem to co-operate with you, calm yourself. You are like a tangled kite, tearing yourself to pieces in a thicket, instead of the eagle you should be, soaring far above. You know full well that the work you are doing needs to be done; that it is laid upon you to do it; and in your heart you try to feel that the man and the task will surely fit. Believe this with your whole heart and little annoyances will assume their proper size. In your calm moments you are thrilled by the things you intend to accomplish during life; multiply your calm moments by sheer exercise of will and your belief in your own purposes will carry you far above petty interruptions. You are in a battle, fight it through. Would you in such a place pay any heed to nettles? When the smoke has rolled away and the dust of conflict settled you shall stand triumphant beneath the silent stars. All of life is not the present harassed moment; there remaineth an eventide for the solace of those who toil and triumph. At twenty-five, James Watt, who has transformed the world with steam, begged for the benignity of death, so troubled was he, yet he came to be the sweetest, sunniest old man you could wish to meet.

Questioning one, do you complain because God is a mystery? Would you have Him as visible as a tree and as tangible as a rock? Then He would be the one understandable thing in a world of mystery. Your inner details, your outer life, the two natures within you—these are mysteries. The workings of the mind of

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the one you love, hidden as effectually as a stranger's from your own thought—this is a mystery. The impossibility of a man thoroughly understanding a woman and vice versa—this is a mystery. Clear out of your daily life, in its simplest details, all that is strange; fathom it all and understand it; then may you raise querulous complainings at a mystery that hedges around the creator of all mysteries.

The prisoner prayed that he might have some light;
It came, showed him but his sorry plight.
The savant prayed for power to pierce the sky:
It came, and, dazed, he begged that he might die.
So give us, Lord, such light as suits our mind,
To know not over much nor wander blind

Bereaved one, weeping bitter tears beside the empty chair, you are not alone in your sorrow. Human woes have preceded you by ages and human woes will last long after time has taken the smart from your own wound. But these seem naught to you for they were not your sorrows. Yet dear one, tribulation has its place and its value you will yet live to see. In tears are great sorrows assuaged, in tears are great purposes born, in tears are noble resolves formed. Rise to live as the vanished one would most fondly wish! Thus will the dead live again in the deeds of good you do, consecrated to the memory of the lifeless.

Bereaved, I fall like wounded bird
From happy heights, to limp along
In gloomy vales wherein my song,
I think, can never more be heard.
And yet, perchance, though stricken sore.
And robbed of all I held most dear,
Some wiser hand has cast me here
To rise to heights undreamt before.