Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1893 — The Evil of Fretting. [ARTICLE]

The Evil of Fretting.

There is one sin which seems to me is everywhere and by-everybody underestimated and quite too much overlooked in valuation of character. »It is the sin of fretting; so common that unless it rises above its usual monotone, we do not observe it. Watch any ordinary coming together of people, and see how many minutes it will be before somebody frets —that is, makes more or less complaining statement of something or other, which most probably every one in the room, or in the car, or on the street corner, it may be, knew before, and which probably nobody can help. Why say anything about it? It is cold, it is hot, it is wet, it is dry; somebody has broken an appointment; ill cooked a meal; stupidity or bad faith somewhere has resulted in discomfort. There are plenty of things to fret about. It is simply astonishing how much annoyance may be found in the course of every day’s living, even at the simplest, if one only keeps a sharp eye out on that side of things. Even Holy Writ says we are prone to trouble as sparks to fly upward. But even to the sparks flying upward in the blackest of smoke there is a blue sky above, and the less time they waste on the road the sooner they will reach it. Fretting is all time wasted on the road.— [New York Advertiser.