of
harshness or desire to injure the poor fellow, and there I let
the matter rest to take care of itself.

This is practical wisdom. This is sane philosophy. Not ignoring the
danger, pooh-pooing it, scoffing at it and refusing to recognize
it, but calmly, sanely, with a kindly heart looking at possible
contingencies, preparing for them, and then serenely trusting to the
spiritual forces of life to control events to a wise and satisfactory
issue.

Can you suggest anything better? Is not such a course immeasurably
better than to allow himself to worry, and fret and fear all the time?
Practical precaution, _taken without enmity_--note these italicized
words--trustful serenity, faithful performance of present duty
unhampered by fears and worries--this is the rational, normal,
philosophic, sane course to follow.

Another great source of worry is _our failure to distinguish
essentials from non-essentials_. What are the essentials for life? For
a man, honesty, truth, earnestness, strength, health, ability to work,
and work to do. He may or may not be handsome; he may or may not have
wealth, position, fame, education; but to be a man among men, these
other things he must have. For a woman,--health, love, work, and such
virtues as both men and women need. She might enjoy friends, but they
are not essential as health or work; she would be a strange woman
if she did not prize beauty, but devoted love is worth far more than
beauty or all the conquests it brings. What is the essential for
a chair?--its capacity to be used to sit upon with comfort. A
house?--that it is adapted to the making of a home. You don't buy a
printing-press to curl your hair with but to print, and in accordance
with its printing power is it judged. A boat's usefulness is
determined by its worthiness in the water, to carry safely, rapidly,
largely as is demanded of it.

This is the judgement sanity demands of everything. What is
essential--What not? Is it essential to be a society leader, to
belong to every club, to hold office, to give as many dinners as one's
neighbors, to have a bigger house, furniture with brighter polish,
bigger carvings and more ugly designs than anyone else in town,
to have our names in the papers oftener than others, to have more
servants, a newer style automobile, put on more show, pomp, ceremony
and circumstance than our friends?

By no means! Oh for men and women who have the discerning power--the
sight for the essen