s is a capital day for rye.'

"'Yes,' he said, 'but it is the worst kind of weather for corn and
grass; they want heat to bring them forward.'"

There are a vast number of fidgety, nervous, and eccentric people who
live only to expect new disappointments or to recount their old ones.

"Impatient people," said Spurgeon, "water their miseries, and hoe up
their comforts."

"Let's see," said a neighbor to a farmer, whose wagon was loaded down
with potatoes, "weren't we talking together last August?" "I believe
so." "At that time, you said corn was all burnt up." "Yes." "And
potatoes were baking in the ground." "Yes." "And that your district
could not possibly expect more than half a crop." "I remember." "Well,
here you are with your wagon loaded down. Things didn't turn out so
badly, after all,--eh?" "Well, no-o," said the farmer, as he raked his
fingers through his hair, "but I tell you my geese suffered awfully for
want of a mud-hole to paddle in."

What is a pessimist but "a man who looks on the sun only as a thing that
casts a shadow"?

In Pepys's "Diary" we learn the difference between "eyes shut and ears
open," and "ears shut and eyes open." In going from John o' Groat's
House to Land's End, a blind man would hear that the country was going
to destruction, but a deaf man with eyes open could see great
prosperity.

"I dare no more fret than curse or swear," said John Wesley.

"A discontented mortal is no more a man than discord is music."

"Why should a man whose blood is warm within
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish?"

Who are the "lemon squeezers of society"? They are people who predict
evil, extinguish hope, and see only the worst side,--"people whose very
look curdles the milk and sets your teeth on edge." They are often
worthy people who think that pleasure is wrong; people, said an old
divine, who lead us heavenward and stick pins into us all the way. They
say depressing things and do disheartening things; they chill
prayer-meetings, discourage charitable institutions, injure commerce,
and kill churches; they are blowing out lights when they ought to be
kindling them.

A man without mirth is like a wagon without springs, in which one jolts
over every pebble; with mirth, he is like a chariot with springs, riding
over the roughest roads and scarcely feeling anything but a pleasant
rocking motion.

"Difficulties