Happiness as Found in Forethought Minus Fearthought

by Horace Fletcher

I had seen them at the World's Columbian Exposition, wrapt in the enjoyment of the great displays of fireworks that were operated on the lake front of the Exposition grounds each evening. I also happened to be provided with statistics, showing that the chance of being struck by lightning was only one in a great many thousand, and that if one were to seek to be struck, he would have to wait about ten thousand years for his average turn. I recalled the greater real beauty of the natural fireworks of the summer season, and their comparative harmlessness. This was the logic of it, and modified somewhat the attitude of the children, as well as the fear of the mother, relative to lightning and thunder; but the real cure came through appreciative suggestion and acquaintance.

On the approach of a storm wherein lightning might be expected, and even before it was visible, the mother had been in the habit of assuming a frightened expression, of gathering the children together, of cowering in a corner, and sometimes in a closet, in fear and trembling, until the storm had passed. From infancy the children had been in the habit of associating something fearful with the idea of lightning and thunder, and had never had a chance to observe their beauties.

I started in to correct the bad impressions, and to teach the attractiveness of storm phenomena, by calling out, on the approach of a storm, somewhat in this wise: "Oh! children, do you remember the beautiful fireworks at the Exposition? Come here quick! let's watch; we are going to have something ten times more beautiful, and, oh! such big booms and bangs. Watch now! ah! that wasn't much, but keep a-watching and we'll have some beauties. Crash! bang! blizzard! My! but wasn't that a beauty? Watch sharp, now, or you'll miss the best one,—what! afraid? Why, Alice, afraid of a beautiful thing like that! Nonsense! Come here, dear, and sit in my lap and watch out sharp, and then you can't be afraid. There! that's a little lady. Splendid! I reckon you know how to enjoy something beautiful, as well as any one. Boom, boom, boom! Did you ever hear anything so grand? Great big drums up yonder. I wonder what sort of a Fourth of July they are having? Wouldn't World's-Fair fireworks seem tame beside this? And think of it!—they don't cost a cent, and they are clearing the atmosphere so that the sun will shine brighter to-morrow than it ever did. It will shine for us, and for the plants, and for the butterflies. My! but aren't we lucky to have good eyes and good ears when such things are going on! and don't we pity the poor little blind and deaf children! Does lightning sometimes strike people and kill them? Why, yes, once in a great, great long while; but when it does, they say it is the pleasantest sensation possible. Don't you mind when you have pleasant shivers, what a delightful feeling it is? Well, they say being struck by lightning is like that—only more so. I have never had the experience of being killed by lightning, of course, but when my turn to enter the next life comes, I hope it will be that way; but the chances of being that lucky are very slim. Somebody, some great schoolmaster that knows almost everything, has calculated that if a man wanted to be struck by lightning he would probably have to wait about ten thousand years. That is too long. Life is delightful as it is; but if I had to wait even a thousand years or even an hundred years more for my promotion that way, I think I would rather choose a more common and less agreeable way"; and so on, governed by the interest and the effect upon the children. I impressed on them the real beauty of the storm, and taught them appreciation, to take the place of fear.

It is needless to say that that family no longer dreads the storm cloud. The suggestion reversed their way of looking at storms, and they then found great beauty in them and ceased to fear them.

Another experience: I once had the privilege of spending some time in close relations of friendship to a family composed of a widowed mother and several children, sons, daughter, nephews and nieces. A sister of the mother, who was pronounced to be an incurable invalid, had come from her Northern home to seek relief in the climate of the Southland. It is impossible to imagine more tender care of an invalid. Each member of the family vied with the others in offering gentle attentions, so that the waning life was filled with happiness that made invalidism almost a pleasure, as being the cause of so much loving consideration.

One morning the life-light flickered for a little and then went out. The usual funeral preparations which are the custom were attended to, and the remains were sent away to the far-distant home, and the family burial-lot.

While the remains were awaiting the appointed time of removal, the children of the family, of all ages and both sexes, passed in and out of the death-chamber, by day or by night, as if there had been no death, and there was not a semblance of dread, nor fearthought nor mourning. It was such a beautiful expression of loving consideration, unmarred by dread or fearthought, that one might well choose such a time and such a place and such environment on the occasion of one's passing on to the better life.

If it be possible to be a spirit, conscious of material environment, and in such guise to attend one's own funeral, which would be the environment of choice? Egotism, disembodied, would undoubtedly choose a scene of violent mourning, long drawn out, and painful to as many as possible. Loving Unselfishness would as certainly choose a funeral scene such as I witnessed in the house of my friends. Which would you choose? And if, as is most reasonable to suppose from observing the sequences of nature's processes that show that the seed of a flower has a more nearly perfect flower enfolded within itself, spirits also become purer by each unfolding through the release called death, and being made pure and unegotistic by the change, they must prefer, if they have the privilege, to have their old home remains viewed with loving and fearless consideration, rather than with fearsome dread and ostentatious emotion.

Then let us abjure fear in connection with death, and also in connection with the mortal remains of the beloved.

If the conventional premises relative to death be correct, the common attitude towards it is useless; and if the hypothetical premises be correct, as it is better to suppose, even if we cannot assert it, the common attitude is worse than useless, for it is both harmful and unjust. If we cultivate fear and mourning in connection with death, we are unjust to the dead, we are unjust to the living, we are unjust to ourselves; and, above all, cruel to the tender and impressionable emotions of children, to whom we are constantly leaving legacies of cowardice and ignorant egotism, or legacies of pure suggestion, love and appreciation.