The true
destiny of the sons and daughters of earth is to grow within the garden
of life as a sapling rather than as a sickly weed, developing timber
rather than pith, and yielding finally to death, the sharp-axed old
woodman, as the tree falls, to pass onward to new opportunities of
power and service. The tree does not decay where it stands, nor does
it often fall because its core is honeycombed by disease. It is cut
down in the meridian of its strength, because somewhere on distant seas
a new ship is to be launched and needs a stalwart mainmast, or a home
is to be builded that needs the fiber of strong and steadfast timber.
So, I think, with men and women, there would not be so much unsightly
growing old, with waning power and wasted faculties, if we attended
more strictly to the laws of health, and when death came to us at last
it should only be because there was need of good timber further on.
XL.
WHY, BLESS MY SOUL! IT REALLY SEEMS TO THINK.
I was watching not long since, a man talking to a bright woman on the
train, and his manner of comporting himself set me to thinking of the
peculiar ways men have of addressing themselves to women. Some talk to
a woman very much as they might talk to the wonderful automaton around
at the museum when it plays a game of chess. "Why, bless my soul, it
really seems to be thinking! What apparent intelligence? What evident
faculty of mental independence! It almost appears to possess the power
of coherent thought!" Others sit in the presence of a woman as though
she was a dish of ice cream.
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