Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1889 — GROWING OLD. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GROWING OLD.

BY HELEN A. STEINHAUER.

O you grow happier as you grow jolder?” ' “No,” was the reply, in a crisp, sharp tone, as of one who could bite nails in two; “do you?” “Yes,” answered the first speaker, very slowly and thoughtfully; “I think I grow happier everv dav I live.”

Much has been said and written about growing old gracefully, and the subject is a worthy one; yet it is of far more importance to know how to do so happily—to “grow happier every year we live.” How can we do this? Firstly, by doing xvhat the apple does as it hangs upon the tree—draw sap from the roots (learn wisdom from life’s experiences), and drink in the sunshine. Live in the light—the light of day—not behind closed shutters or dark, heavy curtains which keep out the vivifying sunlight. This is the first step. It w ill help to give you the sound, healthy body which conduces to a sound healthy mind. Secondly, turn your mind to the sunny, pleasant aspects of life, instead of to those which are dark, gloomy, and depressing. Never let your thoughts dwell on unpleasant things a moment longer than is absolutely necessary.

For every shadow which is cast There shines a cheering ray. ' There must be light to admit of the existence of a shadow 7 . Remember this, and resolutely turn your mind in quest of the brightness which elsewise you might fail to recognize. But this is not sufficient. You must also make sunshine for others if you would live in it yourself. Be unselfish and generous from principle, “seeking not your own” pleasure but the enjoyment of others, and you will be astonished to find what a flood of reflex happiness will pour in upon you. The happiest and best-loved people in the w orld are not the wealthiest, the wisest, the wittiest, or the most beautiful, but those who are the most selfforgetful, and who, instead of fancying themselves the center of the universe around which all else must revolve, are ready cheerfully to do a little moving around others if needs be. Still another essential to increasing happiness is contentment. It has been w’ell said that “a contented mind is (or hath) a continual feast.” We may stretch this to include the people that make up our environment, as well as the things. And to end we must often put in practice the homely advice I once heard given by an old-country peasant woman. Her broad-frilled, stiffly starched, white cap framed an honest and sensible face, worthy of the words which sententiously fell from her lips: “One must take people as they are and not as they ought to be.” Yes, allow them their harmless idiosyncrasies of thought, or speech, or manner; make fullest excuse for the things in them which fail to please yourself or others, and uniformly close your eyes or turn your back upon that which irritates or annoys you; make light of that which cannot be remedied nor yet avoided, and never fret your soul over other people’s faults or foibles. What does the brook do with the stones or pebbles in its bed ? Makes music as it runs round or over them, besides hanging out rainbows in the spray as it leaps down the declivity when the fall is great. Sq when other people render your pathway less smooth than it might be, make the best of it, and try to turn stumblingblocks into stepping-stones whenever possible. Cover the bare, bleak bowlders in life’s wayside with green, clinging mosses, both pleasant to the eye and soft to the touch. I pity the person who grows crabbed, and snappish, and vinegary—dreaded by the yojing and instinctively shunned by children and the brute creation—as the years lapse by. God never intended that souls should lose their sweetness as they approach the verge of life. Let us rather ripen and mellow till like golden fruit we drop from the bough.