December 3
Daily Cheer for All the YearA merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.—PROV. XV, 13.
But this is the time the heart to test, When winter is near and storms are howling, And the earth from under her frozen vest Looks up at the sad sky, mute and scowling.
The brave little spirit should rise to meet The season's gloom and the day's repining; And this is the time to be glad, for, sweet, "'Tis easy to laugh when the sun is shining!"
Wide Awake.
You can train the eye to see all the bright places in your life, and so slip over the hard ones with surprising ease. You can also train the eye to rest on the gloomy spots in utter forgetfulness of all that is bright and beautiful. The former is the better education. Life is too short to nurse one's misery; hurry across the lowlands that you may linger on the mountain-tops.
A good thing to do on cloudy days is to try to push the clouds away from somebody else's windows.
Though sometimes small evils, like invisible insects, inflict pains, and a single hair may stop a vast machine, yet the chief secret of comfort lies in not suffering trifles to vex one, and in prudently cultivating an undergrowth of small pleasures, since very few great ones, alas! are let on long leases.