Part 19 (2/2)

Those four oil Johnnies will marry girls who have plenty and some day those girls will have to do the family was.h.i.+ng.

The wheel turns, it's the history of the past. From s.h.i.+rt sleeves to s.h.i.+rt sleeves in three generations.

Lincolns, Garfields, and Edisons came from just such little cabins and just such rough, hard, bare life as I have been seeing this afternoon.

ANGER

It's a Temporary Mental Derangement

Anger and acts of revenge are great pull-backs to health.

Anger makes the blood rush to the head, weakens the body, and distorts the vision.

When a woman gets angry, she quarrels with her lover, her husband or her children. Any one of these things is a calamity.

When a man gets angry he is a wild man, his eyes glitter, his mouth is cruel, his fists clinch, his body trembles, his blood veins strain and he does more harm in five minutes' anger than nature can repair in a day.

Anger makes weak stomachs, dizzy heads, poor judgment, lost friends, despair, sickness and likely the confirmed habit will lead to apoplexy.

When two men have differences, watch the cool man finish victor, the angry man always loses.

Keep your head; let the other fellow fret and fume.

He will tie himself up in a knot and finish loser.

Serenity is a G.o.d's blessing and fortunate is the man who can hold his serenity.

When you get a letter that stirs you to anger, don't answer that letter for forty-eight hours, then write a moderately vitriolic letter,--and then tear it up.

I know you are tempted, goaded and your limit of endurance is sometimes exhausted.

I know revenge is sweet only in antic.i.p.ation. I know that revenge by anger and by the cruel ”eye for an eye” measure is never, never sweet.

I have had imposition, ingrat.i.tude, insincerity and advantages taken of me because I kept my poise and serenity.

I have been called easy, and soft, and friends have shown me where I was imposed upon, but I was stooping to conquer. I kept my reserve, my resistance and my power ready until time, place, and preparedness let me spring my coup and then I cashed in beautifully in princ.i.p.al and interest for those acts and hurts.

I have power now in my hands to make others suffer, keenly and deeply, for wrongs they have done me. Yet I do not exercise that power to revenge.

I have been misjudged and misunderstood because cowardly persons have lied and villified me and accused me of motives and acts of which I was innocent.

I am well hated now by one person in particular who blames me for things another is guilty of. A word from me would clear me, but it would bring gloom and despair to that person and would not make me any less cognizant of my innocence.

Time somehow will bring out the truth; the cowardly, guilty individual who basks in the favor of the one who is angry at me will surely pay for his wrong.

This I know and I am satisfied with the ultimate result.

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