In this land of dreams the rich may travel with the poor, may revisit the same old scenes, see the same faces of the dead, leave all that is “earth earthy,” and the spirit or soul wander abroad, over land and seas and in dreams kneel again at a mother’s knee repeating the prayer she taught and which has long since been forgotten, to awake with regret to the cares which riches bring.

There is one more journey which the rich and the poor take together and that is down and through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

It is a curious study to watch the faces one meets in a large city or town.  Every face has a history, every life a story, if we but take the trouble to read.  The face is but an index of the heart, and even in the heart of the happiest the “muffled drums are beating.”

As Longfellow so beautifully expresses it in “Hyperion” “and then mark! how amid the chorus of a hundred voices and a hundred instruments—­of flutes and drums, and trumpets—­this unreal shout and whirlwind of the vexed air, you can so clearly distinguish the melancholy vibration of a single string touched by the finger—­a mournful sobbing sound.  Ah this is indeed human life! where in the rushing noisy crowd, and sounds of gladness, and a thousand mingling emotions, distinctly audible to the ear of thought, are the pulsations of some melancholy string of the heart, touched by an invisible hand.”

An Optimist, a pleasant, sweet faced woman, with a voice like the chime of silver bells, is saying: 

“It is only to morbid and diseased minds that existence looks colorless.  People who live too much within themselves, whose imagination becomes disordered see only the dark side of life.  It was not intended that life should be all sunshine and no shadow.”

         “For life is one, and in its warp and woof,
     There runs a thread of gold that glitters fair,
     And sometimes in the pattern shows most sweet
     Where there are sombre colors.”

Dark clouds must appear in the life of each, and one of the great lessons of life is to learn to bear disappointments philosophically, not sit down with folded hands and watch the clouds approaching until our vision becomes obscured.  There is sunshine in the lives of each and every one if they will but see it, and banish vain regrets and useless repinings.  Inertia causes a vast deal of trouble.

     “Lose this day loitering, t’will be the same story
     To morrow, and the rest more dilatory
     The indecision brings its own delays. 
     Are you in earnest?  Seize this very minute! 
     What you can do or think you can, begin it! 
     Only engage, and then the mind grows heated. 
     Begin it, and the work will be completed.”

Fortunately the day of fine ladyism has passed and there are noble women who are not afraid nor ashamed to take upon themselves the duties and responsibilities of life, women who do their work well and faithfully, duties that perhaps in themselves are not noble, but by the manner in which they are done the work in itself is elevated.  The common laborer who does his work well and to the best of his ability is more to be commended than the President who puts but half his energy in his duties.