urt a form more fair
Than beauty at your birth has given;
Keep but the lips, the eyes we see,
The voice we hear, and you will be
An angel ready-made for heaven.

THE MOLLY O'MOLLY PAPERS.

VIII

Better than wealth, better than hosts of friends, better than genius, is
a mind that finds enjoyment in little things--that sucks honey from the
blossom of the weed as well as from the rose--that is not too dainty to
enjoy coarse, everyday fare. I am thankful that, though not born under a
lucky star, I wasn't born under a melancholy one; that, though there
were at my christening no kind fairies to bestow on me all the blessings
of life--there was no malignant elf to 'mingle a curse with every
blessing.' I'd rather have a few drops of pure sweet than an overflowing
cup tinctured with bitterness.

Not that sorrow has never blown her chill breath on my spirit--yet it
has never been so iced over that it would not here and there bubble
forth with a song of gladness.... There are depths of woe that I have
never fathomed, or rather, to which I have never sunken--for there are
no line and plummet to sound the dreary depths--yet the waves have
overwhelmed me, as every human being, but I soon rose above them.

'One by one thy griefs shall meet thee,
Do not fear an armed band;
One shall fade as others greet thee--
Shadows passing through the land.'

I have found this true--I know there are some to whom it is not
true--that, though sorrows come not to them 'in battalions,' the shadow
of the one huge Grief is ever on their path, or on their heart; that at
their down-sittings and their up-risings it is with them, even darkening
to them the night, and making them almost curse the sunshine; for it is
ever between them and it--not a mere shadow, nor yet a substance, but a
_vacuum of light_, casting also a shadow. Neither substance nor shadow,
it must be a phantom--it may be of a dead sin--and against such,
exorcism avails. I opine this exorcism lies in no cabalistic words, no
crossing of the forehead, no holy name, in nothing that one can do unto
or for himself, but in entire self-forgetfulness--in doing for, in
sympathizing with, others. So shall this Grief step aside from your
path, get away from between you and the sunshine, till finally it shall
have vanished.

I know--not, however, by experience--that a great _sorrow-berg_, with
base planted in the under-current of a man's being, has been borne at