Oh, yes, things appear true in part, as to a few simple things, yet it is very pleasant to hear you read these fanciful figures. I know the lady Emma, also the worrysome, aged, sick woman. I expect an upset at her death, yet we hope for good results, though you promise me irritating labors by this looked-for change.
How amusing this big frog, the magician or joker, as you term him. I did not know the tad-pole was so gifted.
Some months later proves the death, and several of the stated events more than verified. With the young folks asking eager questions, the clouds had gathered. The lame man came into view. The good time not yet. Confusion and discord revealing some added cares as threaded together by the symbols as previously shown, and from the note-book of the young man. The hated lame man of letters having rudely flustrated the game of their lives, yet he was just, though believed to be the cruel enemy, from the broken, wavy lines and cutting things about him, then facing towards them. Mental reason, or impressment plying its parts as touching these mingled, and confusion atmospheres, proving that all things affect us, consciously or otherwise, relating to life.
These intricate and wonderful relationships--these cosmic laws--bind all mankind together for better or, more often, for needless sorrow and trials. Yet here was some good side to these life-lines, for their own choosing, had each been more unselfish and just. Are we, then, arbiters of our own fate? It is still an open question to many, though there is a time for all things.
LET US NOT BE FATALISTS.
We must seize the handle of the subject, when the door is waiting to open. Each association makes some conditions, brief or life-long. We are not bound to be enslaved forever, though nothing pays but justice, kindness, patience and useful duty, if peace we would enjoy here or hereafter.
IN THE CHRIST SPIRIT.
There is at least one good, guardian angel ever ready to aid in each life, my dear young friends. One of these ladies did marry that mentioned first love after many sad disappointments, with little intrigues, as afterward she said: "Be neither too fickle, too self-opinionated, nor too submissive. Be something useful. Learn to reason with head, heart and soul." The young man is still plodding on in pessimism. This best friend Emma is still alone, yet working out some of the noble purposes of her helpful, progressive life, knowing that "her own will surely come to her" some good time, and that this brief school-life is not the end of anything nobly sought for. Simulating big things allowed the young man to belittle many noble facts in nature, thus stunting his manly growth, and overgrowing this chilling pessimism with smart retorts.
One really desiring to aid humanity can become inspired into consistent kindness, well centered in the lines of forecast, as also in the cup reading pleasure. So observe the figures, point them out, summing up as these gems of thought come to life. One too lazy or disobliging cannot grow these many latent powers. These are as yet but dimly apprehended. All persons possess some special gift. God meant it so, and that we give hope and joy in all honest ways. So try your gift in this mingling of your aspirations for lofty expressions, which transmit pleasing convictions, strange as at first these may appear. Each soul, as reading or listening, creates an atmosphere of either flippancy, depression, courage, trust, or some vital power.
Some persons there are, who make us feel happy and well by simply looking at us, or thinking of us, with that subtle power that cures one of melancholia, discouragement, or irritability. Writing a letter with a soul is good. You know there is the soul of things, a fact in nature. I know of many cases, on turning backward in memory's pages. One special one of a dear musical friend, who became very ill from over-work, with nervous headache and sick stomach, so that all hope of an expected musical evening had to be abandoned, as she took her bed in disgust, with sore disappointment. About an hour later, not entirely unexpected, there called at her home a beloved brother, whose melodious voice in song proved to the lady better than any medicine, as he quietly sat down to the piano to sing that sweetly pathetic song: