MAKING THE BEST OF IT. 403 



to prove that our beautiful State has Avonderful capabilities 

 of climate, soil, and varied resources ; but it needs money, 

 pluck, common sense, and common industry to develop 

 these advantages. Men and women must work for their 

 living here as elsewhere, although here the chances for 

 present comfort and ultimate success are greater than in 

 any other State in the Union, and opportunities for the safe 

 and profitable investment of capital — not only moneyed 

 but physical capital — can no where be excelled. 



No industrious man of good habits and ordinary health, 

 however lacking he may be in " worldly gear," need be 

 without a cosy, comfortable home in Florida, neither his 

 wife nor his children. And here too a large family of 

 the latter ceases to be a burden, for there is much they can 

 do to help. 



The one tiling most needful is, the resolve to make the 

 best of it, to accept one's surroundings Avithout discontent, 

 to meet the changed condition of things in the new home, 

 and gradually evolve comfort out of discomfort and order 

 out of disorder, with patience, and without that constant 

 fretting and repining which will wear out one's own life 

 and throw a heavy cloud over one's w^hole family. 



Florida is pre-eminently a harbor of refuge, a shipyard 

 where barques, beaten and battered on the stormy finan- 

 cial seas, have put into port for repairs. These repairs will 

 come in due time, and the ship Avill sail again "as good as 

 new," if the ship-builder is industrious and tempers his 

 tools with judgment ; but there must perforce be an inter- 

 val of hardship and discomfort for the crew, and it has to 

 be lived through somehow. The situation has to be faced : 

 it would be a much harder one, remember, under the same 

 circumstances in any other section of the country — it has 

 to be faced, and there are two ways of doing it. The one 

 is by perpetual and irritable complaint, fretfulness, de- 



