better
motto to guide and help us while we play the game. Look pleasant,
please, when you have met reverses, when you beneath misfortune's
stroke are bent, when all your hopes seem riding round in hearses--a
scowling brow won't help you worth a cent. Look pleasant, please, when
days are dark and dismal and all the world seems in a hopeless fix; the
clouds won't go because your grief's abysmal, the sun won't shine the
sooner for your kicks. Look pleasant, please, when Grip--King of
diseases, has filled your system with his microbes vile; I know it's
hard, but still, between your sneezes, you may be able to produce a
smile. Look pleasant, please, whatever trouble galls you; a gloomy
face won't cure a single pain. Look pleasant, please, whatever ill
befalls you, for gnashing teeth is weary work and vain.

Look pleasant, please, and thus inspire your brothers to raise a smile
and pass the same along; forget yourself and think a while of others,
and do your stunt with gladsome whoop and song.

COURAGE

Brave men are they who set their faces toward the polar bergs and
floes, who roam the wild, unpeopled places, perchance to find among the
snows a resting-place remote and lonely; a winding-sheet of deathless
white, where elemental voices only disturb the brooding year-long night.

Brave souls are they whose man-made pinions have borne them over plains
and seas, who conquered wide and new dominions, and strapped a saddle
on the breeze. Their engine-driven wings are wearing new pathways
through the realm of clouds; they play with death, with dauntless
daring, to please the breathless, fickle crowds.

Brave men go forth to distant regions, forsaking luxury and ease;
through all the years they've gone in legions, to unknown lands, o'er
stormy seas; and when, by sword or fever smitten, they blithely
journeyed to the grave, full well they knew their names were written
down in the annals of the brave.

I am as brave as any rover described in gay, romantic screeds, but,
when my fitful life is over, no epic will narrate my deeds. Condemned
to silent heroism, I go my unmarked way alone, and no one hands me
prune or prism, as token that my deeds are known. But yesterday my
teeth were aching, and to the painless dentist's lair I took my way,
unawed, unquaking, and sat down in the fatal chair. He dug around my
rumbling molars with drawing-knives and burglars' tools, and cross-cut
saws and patent rollers, and marlinsp