Love is the leaven of existence.--Melvin L. Severy.

Work is no disgrace but idleness is.--Hesiod.

Shoddy work is not only a wrong to a man's own personal integrity, hurting his character; but also it is a wrong to society. Truthfulness in work is as much demanded as truthfulness in speech.--Hugh Black.

The flowering of civilization is in the finished man, the man of sense, of grace, of accomplishment, of social power--the gentleman.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson.

It is all very well to growl at the cold-heartedness of the world, but which of us can truthfully say that he has done as much for others as others have done for him?--Patrick Flynn.

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work, and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace.--Emerson.

Some people meet us like the mountain air and thrill our souls with freshness and delight.--Nathan Haskell Dole.

I let the willing winter bring his jeweled buds of frost and snow.

--Edward Francis Burns.

The world is unfinished; let's mold it a bit.--Sam Walter Foss.

Our wishes are presentiments of the capabilities which lie within us and harbingers of that which we shall be in a condition to perform.

--Goethe.

Do not let us overlook the wayside flowers.--Joe Mitch.e.l.l Chapple.

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.--R. L. Stevenson.

The wealth of a man is the number of things which he loves and blesses, and by which he is loved and blessed.--Carlyle.

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.--Jonathan Swift.

Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.--Lord Chesterfield.

Indulge not in vain regrets for the past, in vainer resolves for the future--act, act in the present.--F. W. Robertson.

The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in our power.--Hugh White.

The man who cannot be practical and mix his religion with his business is either in the wrong religion or in the wrong business.--Patrick Flynn.

I don't think there is a pleasure in the world that can be compared with an honest joy in conquering a difficult task.--Margaret E.

Sangster.

Every right action and true thought sets the seal of its beauty on every person's face; every wrong action and foul thought its seal of distortion.--Ruskin.

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.--J. M. Barrie.

Politeness is like an air cushion; there may be nothing in it, but it eases the jolts wonderfully.--George Eliot.

Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all things easy.

--Benjamin Franklin.

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.--Disraeli.

We would willingly have others perfect and yet we amend not our own faults.--Thomas a Kempis.

The most manifold sign of wisdom is continued cheer.--Montaigne.

There is only one cure for public distress--and that is public education, directed to make men thoughtful, merciful, and just.

--Ruskin.

To believe a business impossible is the way to make it so.--Wade.

CHAPTER III

THE JOY OF DOING

Half-way, half-hearted doings never amount to much. Battles are not won with flags at half-mast. No, they are run up to the very tops of their standards and are waved as far toward the heavens as is possible.

If we lack enthusiasm we are almost as certain to fail of achieving an end as a locomotive engine that lacks steam is of climbing the grade.

Even a listless, lackadaisical spirit may get on all right so long as the path of life is all on a level or is down grade, but when it comes to hill-climbing and the real experiences of life that serve to develop character, it is likely to give up the contest and surrender the prize it might win to other and more earnest compet.i.tors.

"If you would get the best results, do your work with enthusiasm as well as fidelity," says Dr. Lyman Abbott. "Only he can who thinks he can!" says Orison Swett Marden. "The world makes way only for the determined man who laughs at barriers which limit others, at stumbling-blocks over which others fall. The man who, as Emerson says, 'hitches his wagon to a star,' is more likely to arrive at his goal than the one who trails in the slimy path of the snail."

Every girl knows that the girl friends whom she loves best are the ones who are alive to the world about them and who feel an enthusiasm in the tasks and privileges that confront them.

Enthusiasm is the breeze that fills the sails and sends the ship gliding over the happy waves. It is the joy of doing things and of seeing that things are well done. It gives to work a thoroughness and a delicious zest and to play a whole-souled, health-giving delight.

Only they who find joy in their work can live the larger and n.o.bler life; for without work, and work done joyously, life must remain dwarfed and undeveloped. "If you would have sunlight in your home,"

writes Stopford Brooke, "see that you have work in it; that you work yourself, and set others to work. Nothing makes moroseness and heavy-heartedness in a house so fast as idleness. The very children gloom and sulk if they are left with nothing to do. If all have their work, they have not only their own joy in creating thought, in making thought into form, in driving on something to completion, but they have the joy of ministering to the movement of the whole house, when they feel that what they do is part of a living whole. That in itself is sunshine. See how the face lights up, how the step is quickened, how the whole man or child is a different being from the weary, aimless, lifeless, complaining being who had no work! It is all the difference between life and death."

We must play life's sweet keys if we would keep them in tune. Charles Kingsley says: "Thank G.o.d every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know."

All the introspective thinkers of the world have agreed that nothing else is so hard to do as is "nothing." It is unwholesome for one to have more leisure than a mere breathing spell now and then for the purpose of setting to work once more with renewed energy.

They who work with their hearts as well as their hands do not grow tired. A labor of love is a labor of growing delight. "The moment toil is exchanged for leisure," writes Munger, "a gate is opened to vice.

When wealth takes off the necessity of labor and invites to idleness, nature executes her sharpest revenge upon such infraction of the present order; the idle rich live next door to ruin." And Burton puts the case even more strongly when he says: "He or she that is idle, be they of what condition they will, never so rich, so well allied, fortunate, happy--let them have all things in abundance and felicity that heart can wish and desire,--all contentment--so long as he or she or they are idle, they shall never be pleased, never well in mind or body, but weary still, sickly still, vexed still, loathing still, weeping, sighing, grieving, suspecting, offended with the world, with every object, wishing themselves gone or dead, or else carried away with some foolish phantasy or other."

But riches do not necessarily have to be a.s.sociated with idleness.

Riches rightly employed bestow upon the possessors of them the blessed privilege of being employed in the kind of work where they can serve to the best advantage and do most for their fellowmen. Indeed, the possession of riches places upon those who have them the moral necessity and obligation of doing more and better things in the world than is expected of the ones less amply supplied with wealth. "From every man according to his ability; to every man according to his needs." The larger responsibilities are placed upon those to whom are given the larger means of achievement.

So it is a mistake to fancy that the possession of great riches would relieve us from doing all the tasks and duties for ourselves and for others that are inevitably essential for the physical and spiritual health and happiness of all mankind. No matter in whatever walk of life we may find ourselves, we must exercise our muscles or they will become weak and useless; we must stir and interest our hearts or they will grow hard and unresponsive; we must use our minds or they will become dull and inactive; we must employ our consciences or they will grow to be blind and unsafe guides that must lead us into dark distress.

But to be employed does not mean that we must necessarily work in the fields, or in the factory, or in the office. There are a thousand ways in which we may serve the world. The only requirement is that we shall devote a portion of our time and energy to genuine service in behalf of our brothers, our sisters, our parents, our teachers, our friends, and all the world. And we must be grateful for the chance to serve others and deem it an opportunity rather than an obligation.