load heavy. Better take off
your kid gloves, and patent leathers, and white vest, and ask Push, with
his stout shoulder, and Pull, with his strong grip, to help you. Energy,
pluck, courage, obstinate determination are to be cultured. Eat strong
meat, drop pastries, stop reading sickly novelettes, pray at both ends of
the day and in the middle, look a man in the eye when you talk to him, and
if you want to be a giant keep your head out of the lap of indulgences that
would put a pair of shears through your locks.
If you cannot get the right kind of business partner, marry a good, honest
wife. Fine cheeks and handsome curls are very well, but let them be mere
incidentals. Let our young men select practical women; there are a few of
them left. With such a one you can get on with almost all heavy loads of
life. You will be Pull, and she Push; and if you do not get the house built
and the fortune established, send me word, and I will tear this article up
in such small pieces that no one will ever be able to find it.
Life is earnest work, and cannot be done with the tips of the fingers. We
want more crowbars and fewer gold toothpicks. The obstacles before you
cannot be looked out of countenance by a quizzing glass. Let sloth and
softliness go to the wall, but three cheers for Push & Pull, and all their
branch business houses!
CHAPTER XXIII.
BOSTONIANS.
We ran up to the Boston anniversaries to cast our vote with those good
people who are in that city on the side of the right. We like to go to the
modern Athens two or three times a year. Among other advantages, Boston
always soothes our nerves. It has a quieting effect upon us. The people
there are better satisfied than any people we know of. Judging from a few
restless spirits who get on some of the erratic platforms of that city, and
who fret and fume about things in general, the world has concluded that
Boston is at unrest. But you may notice that the most of the restless
people who go there are imported speakers, whom Boston hires to come once a
year and do for her all the necessary fretting.
The genuine Bostonian is satisfied. He rises moderately early, goes to
business without any especial haste, dresses comfortably, talks
deliberately, lunches freely, and goes home to his family at plausible
hours. He would like to have the world made better, but is not going to
make himself sick in trying to cure the moral ailments of others.
The genuine Bostonian i
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