It requires no small degree of effort to resolutely employ one's time so as to allow none of it to go to waste. There are a thousand causes tending to the loss of time, and any one who imagines that they would do great things if they only had leisure are mistaken. They can find time if they only set about doing it. Complain not, then, of your want of leisure. Rather thank God that you are not cursed with leisure, for a curse it is in nine cases out of ten. What, if to achieve some good work which you have deeply at heart, you can never command an entire month, a week, or even a day? Shall you, therefore, bid it an eternal adieu, and fold your arms in despair? The thought should only the more keenly spur you on to do what you can in this swiftly passing life of yours. Endeavor to compass its solution by gathering up the broken fragments of your time, rendered more precious by their brevity.
Where they work much in gold the very dust of the room is carefully gathered up for the few grains of gold that may thus be saved. Learn from this the nobler economy of time. Glean up its golden dust, economize with tenfold care those raspings and parings of existence, those leavings of days and bits of hours, so valueless singly, so inestimable in the aggregate, and you will be rich in leisure. Rely upon it, if you are a miser of moments, if you hoard up and turn to account odd minutes and half-hours and unexpected holidays, the five-minute gaps while the table is spreading, your careful gleanings at the end of life will have formed a colossal and solid block of time, and you will die wealthier in good deeds harvested than thousands whose time is all their own.
It has been written that "he who toys with time trifles with a frozen serpent, which afterwards turns upon the hand which indulged the sport, and inflicts a deadly wound." There are many persons who sadly realize this in their own lives. When age with its frosts of years has come their reflections can not be otherwise than of the saddest kind as they ponder over wasted time, the hours they spent in a worse than foolish manner. Death often touches with a terrible emphasis the value of time. But, alas! the lesson comes too late. It is for the living wisely to consider the end of their existence, to reflect on the possibilities of life, to resolve to waste no time in idleness, but to be up and doing in a manner befitting one who lives here a life preparatory simply to another and better existence.
Happiness
Happiness is that single and glorious thing which is the very light and sun of the whole animated universe, and where she is not it were better that nothing should be. Without her wisdom is but a shadow, and virtue a name.
It is in the pursuit of happiness that the energies of man are put forth. It matters not that we are generally disappointed in the ultimate results of our endeavors. Earthly happiness is a phantom of which we hear much, but see little, whose promises are constantly given and constantly broken, but as constantly believed. She cheats us with the sound instead of the substance, and with the blossom instead of the fruit. Anticipation is her herald, but disappointment is her companion. In the ideal scene every thing is painted in bright colors. There are no drawbacks, no disappointments, in that picture, but in the reality they are sure to appear. The anticipation of a pleasure may have lasted for weeks in the mind, and have been dwelt on in all the endless variety of possibilities, while the reality lasts but a short time. Hence the feeling of disappointment ensues. Hope immediately rallies the powers. We turn to new plans, and begin again the round of anticipation, ending in disappointments.