Poor little Jim!
Our eyes are dim
When soft and low we speak of him.
No clattering shoe
Goes running through
The silent room,
Now wrapped in gloom.
So still he lies,
With fast-shut eyes,
No need to say,
Alas! to-day,
"You little limb,
You baby Jim,
Be quiet, do!"
GET ACQUAINTED WITH YOURSELF.
BY R. J. BURDETTE.
Telemachus, it will do you ever so much good if every once in a while you will go away by yourself for an hour or two and get real well acquainted with yourself. As a man thinketh, so he is. And you will never "know thyself" thoroughly unless now and then you get alone and sit down and talk to yourself, cross-examine yourself; learn what you know; what are your ambitions, your aims, your hopes,—what is your real character; because, my dear boy, your reputation may be one thing and your character quite another. Sometimes it does happen, in this faulty old world, that a really good man, a man whose character is above reproach, may bear the reputation of a rascal; and once in a while—two or three times in a while, in fact—a rascal wears the stolen reputation of an honest man. Go away now and then, my boy, and sit down all by yourself and think. Think of nothing under the sun only yourself. Yes, I know, my son, there are men who never think of anything else, and God never made more useless men; but that is because they do all their thinking about themselves publicly and loud. They never think alone.
You will be honest with yourself when you are alone, my boy. A man is apt to be honest with himself in the dark. He does not pose in heroic postures when he has no audience. When he stands face to face with himself, with no human eye to watch him, and no human ear to listen to his confession, and only his Maker, who knows every secret motive and thought of his life to see and to listen, a man has to be honest. How could he be a hypocrite then?
Get away from the crowd a little while every day, my boy. Stand one side and let the world run by, while you get acquainted with yourself, and see what kind of a fellow you are. Ask yourself hard questions about yourself. Find out all you can about yourself. Ascertain from original sources if you are really the manner of man people say you are. Find out if you are always honest; if you always tell the square, perfect truth in business deals; if your life is as good and upright at eleven o'clock at night as it is at noon; if you are as sound a temperance man on a fishing expedition as you are at a Sabbath-school picnic; if you are as good a boy when you go to Chicago as you are at home; if, in short, you really are the manner of young man your father hopes you are, your mother says you are, and your sweetheart believes you are. Get on intimate terms with yourself, my boy, and, believe me, every time you come out from one of those private interviews you will be a better, stronger, purer man. Don't forget this, Telemachus, and it will do you good.