Lowell.
"If you want to be cheerful, jes' set yer mind on it an' do it. Can't none of us help what traits we start out in life with, but we kin help what we end up with. When things first got to goin' wrong with me, I says, 'Oh, Lord, whatever comes, keep me from gettin' sour.'... Since then I've made it a practice to put all my worries down in the bottom of my heart, then set on the lid an' smile."
Lovey Mary, Alice Hegan Rice.
The Secret of the Joy of Living
NOVEMBER 19
"We live not in our moments or our years—
The Present we fling from us like the rind
Of some sweet Future, which we after find
Bitter to taste, or bind that in with fears,
And water it beforehand with our tears—
Vain tears for that which never may arrive:
Meanwhile the joy whereby we ought to live,
Neglected or unheeded, disappears.
Wiser it were to welcome and make ours
Whate'er of good, tho' small, the present brings—
Kind greetings, sunshine, song of birds, and flowers,
With a child's pure delight in little things;
And of the griefs unborn to rest secure,
Knowing that mercy ever will endure."
Archbishop Trench.
"The secret of the joy of living is the proper appreciation of what we actually possess."
NOVEMBER 20