Health & Fitness
Read books online » Health & Fitness » How to Eat by Thomas Clark Hinkle (adventure books to read TXT) 📖

Book online «How to Eat by Thomas Clark Hinkle (adventure books to read TXT) 📖». Author Thomas Clark Hinkle



1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Go to page:
a father and have children, and have met with disappointments, live for those children! Do everything in your power to make them happy, high of heart, and gallant of soul. Do not live for yourself, live for your children. If you have no children of your own, look about and get interested in some other person's children. You will find a lot of children all around you—blessed little beings—that you can help to make happy. Get your mind off yourself and your troubles and on the children of this world, and keep it there.

When you were a child no doubt you had many happy days. Some of us had a very happy childhood, while others may have been denied what their hearts desired. But if we did not have a happy childhood that is all the more reason why we should be glad to help some other little ones have a happy one. More and more each year I live I come to believe that it depends entirely upon grown people whether in this world children are happy or not happy.

If you had a happy childhood—and most people had—do you not recall the glorious times you had? I know you do, for we all do. And I know, too, how much people affected with nerves dwell on those memories, and how much they wish they might go back to those blessed days when the sun was always shining and the birds were always singing and the streams always beckoning them to play along their sands.

Do you realize that you can live in those days again? I do, and I go back and dwell in them more and more the older I get. I do not mean that I am not looking forward, for I am, tremendously.

How stupid we poor miserable creatures of this world become after we leave our childhood days behind us! We really should never lose sight of them. I have said that the person afflicted with "nerves" should not run. I did not quite mean all that implies. After such a man has recovered, if he has a good heart, he should run a little. I run; I can't help it. I feel so good I have to run a little now and then to work off steam. But you know very well when most people see a man running they at once think a house is afire somewhere.

It is almost unbelievable that we should actually surround ourselves with so many utterly senseless customs that tend to nothing but misery and unhappiness. We should dress for comfort, and we should have the courage to live in a youthful world where all may be happy. "If the blind lead the blind," so the Bible tells us, "both shall fall into the ditch." We need so to live and act that we shall not fail to be happy. Happiness really is what everybody is chasing, but how very far away from it most people are getting! Go back to the memories of your childhood. Be with children and play with them all you possibly can. If you are a mother, begin this very day to exercise more patience with your children, recalling over and over again that when you were a child you were just as they are. And remember, for it is only too true, that the day is fast coming when your little boy will no longer be a little boy, he will be a man, and will have gone away from you. Then many times you will wish him back, and you will look back on those days when you thought your nerves were being ruined, and feel a great swelling in your breast, and breathing a sigh, whisper to yourself, "Dear God, I hope I did all I ought to have done for him while he was little."

I know that any one can live with children and find happiness in being one with them, and I know of no better thing to do. After we have hold of ourselves with a firm grip we should endeavor to do this.

I have had people suffering with "nerves" tell me they had lost a little boy or a little girl, and that it seems impossible to get over this loss. I cannot tell you how much I long to help such people. But I always urge them to go right on playing with other children and to remember, for to me it is certain truth, that they will meet that little child again. There should be nothing to grieve about in such a loss. To find compensation, the one who has had such a grief has only to keep on playing the part of a true man or true woman. Childhood with all its pains and pleasures is everywhere about us. And childhood is only the beginning of immortality.

Late one night, a number of years ago, I was sitting in a little restaurant in a western town, and was feeling very lonely and miserable. Sorrow weighed heavily upon me that night and the world never seemed blacker, yet I think my belief in the immortality of the soul had never been more certain. I looked up and high on the smoke-stained wall hung a painted picture of an old-time ship with many sails set. This painting pictured the ship sailing through the darkness of night. But through the dark, seemingly restless clouds the moon gleamed brightly on the white canvas of the sails.

I had never before been so powerfully impressed by any picture. It seemed fairly to speak to me. I took an envelope from my pocket and set down the verses given here. These verses were afterwards published in one or two metropolitan papers. Mr. James Bryce, then English Ambassador at Washington, saw them and wrote me a beautiful letter about them, in which he said, "Your little poem 'The Last Journey' attracts me very much." You see he was beginning to grow old, and I knew that was the reason these lines of mine had made an appeal to him.

Not very long after this I also had a letter about the verses from Dr. Osler, then Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford. In it he said, "I have read your little poem 'The Last Journey' with unusual interest." And again I knew why. You see, it does not matter very much what our rank or our station here, no matter whether a human being is a king or what his station in life may be, he still is a human being. We are all reaching out after the same great thing. The fine thing about the sentiment of these little verses is that although you wish to and may not believe it, it is coming true anyway.

THE LAST JOURNEY One night when in a youthful dream,
I saw a moonlit sea,
And sailing o'er its dark expanse,
A ship of mystery.

The lonely traveler seemed to be
On some great mission bound,
As o'er the darkened waters
It sailed without a sound.

Long years have passed; old age has come:
The fire of life is low.
Again I think of that strange dream
Of youth so long ago.

And in the ship that swiftly sailed
That silent moonlit sea,
I seem to see a storm-tossed soul
Bound for eternity.

Now to my mind this sweet dream comes,
A peaceful memory,
For soon I'll be A YOUTH again,
With Immortality!





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of How to Eat, by Thomas Clark Hinkle

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO EAT ***

***** This file should be named 19762-h.htm or 19762-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/7/6/19762/

Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.



*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.org/license).


Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works

1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.  See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.

1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Go to page:

Free ebook «How to Eat by Thomas Clark Hinkle (adventure books to read TXT) 📖» - read online now

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment