296 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



victory; that the silence of thought since you have been away has 

 been for my spirit a triumph. 1 read something like this the other 

 day: 'There is no healthy tiiought without labor, and thought makes 

 labor happy.' Perhaps this is the way 1 have been able to climb 

 up higher. It come to me this morning when I was making bread. 

 I said to myself, 'Here I am compelled by inevitable necessity to 

 make our bread this summer. Why not consider it a pleasant 

 occupation, and make it so, by trying to see what perfect bread I 

 can make?' The whole of my life grew brighter. The very sun- 

 shine seemed to flow down through my spirits into the white loaves, 

 and now I believe that my family is furnished with better bread 

 than ever before, and this truth, old as creation, seems just now to 

 have become fully mine: that I need not be the shrinking slave of 

 toil, but instead its regal master, making whatever I do yield its 

 best fruits." 



EXECUTIVE ABILITY. 



Executive ability is needed in the housemother, fully as much, if 

 not more, than in the Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

 Without it, confusion will reign in her household, and she herself 

 may rush hither and thither for eighteen hours out of the twenty- 

 four, yet accomplish little except to work herself into a nervous 

 headache. The housekeeper should plan the work carefully. Some 

 housekeepers plan their work for the day in the morning before 

 they arise, and study how they can accomplish that work with the 

 least labor and expenditure of strength. This is the part of wis- 

 dom, but I am sorry to say that most women on awakening in the 

 morning, jump out of bed hurriedly, hurry into their clothing, and 

 hurry off to the kitchen to hurry up the breakfast, and keeping up 

 this continual hurry they are tired and exhausted before the middle 

 of the day. Ah, this fever of excitement, under which so many 

 work, is most detrimental to health and happiness, for it is one of 

 the great causes of nervous ailments so common among us women. 

 An old Arab proverb is "Hurry is the Devil," and, my sisters, I 

 warn you tonight to keep yourselves free from his malign influence 

 by keeping yourselves calm and serene at all times. If, however, 

 you should at any time feel that you are becoming hurried and ex- 

 cited with your work, or when you are going somewhere you cannot 

 find some of the belongings that you wish to wear, and your sure 

 you'll miss the train, or be too late for that meeting, and you are 

 losing control of yourself, stop long enough to say, ''Get thee behind 

 me, Satan," and if you speak firmly enough he will leave, and in his 

 Btead calm and serenity will reign, and you will get that work done 

 without any trouble, or you'll make that train or get to that meeting 

 on time. But if you should not, there will be another train, and 

 there will be another meeting. Peace of mind is paramount to 

 everything else in the life of either man or woman. 



WORRY. 



And now I want to speak of something that is akin to hurry, which 

 is worry. Worry is one of the worst things in which any one can 

 indulge. Persons who worry are not fit companions for anybody. 

 They are not happy themselves, and they keep every one about them 

 in hot water, unless, indeed, it be true, in rare instances, what the 



