nce at the wish of a friend I was visiting I went to carry some
comforts to a neglected almshouse on a Western prairie. In the insane
ward I found a poor young fellow suffering from epilepsy. There had been
some brutal treatment in the almshouse and he had tried to escape. Being
overtaken he had fought for his liberty, and in consequence he was
afterwards fastened with a chain and ball of many pounds' weight. He
could not be cared for elsewhere, as his family was very poor, and
though usually perfectly sane he had dangerous intervals. The management
of the almshouse was culpably bad, and though about this time
benevolent persons began to bestir themselves, and there was some
amelioration of conditions, yet this young man was certainly placed in
as narrowing circumstances as could surround a human being. He was poor
to the degree of pauperism, he had an incurable disease and he was
almost absolutely in the power of tyrants. Remembering that my friend
wished to lend some books to those of the poor creatures who could read,
I asked him if he liked to read. He said yes, that he was very fond of
reading, but could not get any books. I asked him what kind of books he
would like. "Well," he said slowly, "I should be glad of anything; but I
think I should like best stories or biographies which would tell me how
people who were put in hard places met their lives. For," he added
pathetically, "I want to make the most I can of my life." I felt as he
spoke that these were the most heroic words I had ever heard or that I
ever should hear. I left the town in a few days, and my friend at the
same time changed her residence, so I have never known his fate. But I
am sure no circumstances could make a life inspired with such a feeling
a narrow one.

Fortunately few people are so hemmed in by circumstances. But some of us
think a single misfortune enough to crush us. How, for instance, is a
woman prostrated by disease to make anything of the little life within
her four walls?

I remember a woman who broke down at school and suffered so frequently
from violent hemorrhages all her life, which was prolonged till she was
nearly fifty, that she was seldom able to leave her room. Her home was
on a farm a long distance from the village, so that it at first seemed
as if she could not have even the ordinary alleviation of cheerful
society in her more comfortable days. Another aggravation in her case
was that she had an active temperament and stro