AN OUTLOOK UPON LIFE 



patience, love, self-sacrifice — no paper currency, 

 no promises to pay, but the gold of real service. 



I am not decrying ambition, the aiming high, 

 only there is no use aiming unless you are loaded, 

 and it is the loading, and the kind of material to 

 be used, that one is first to be solicitous about. 



"Serene I "fold my hands and wait;" but if I 

 have waited one day, I have hustled the next. If 

 I have had faith that my own would come to me, I 

 have tried to make sure that it was my own, and 

 not that of another. Waiting with me has been 

 mainly a cheerful acquiescence in the order of the 

 universe as I found it — a faith in the essential 

 veracity of things. I have waited for the sun to 

 rise and for the seasons to come; I have waited 

 for a chance to put in my oar. Which way do the 

 currents of my being set ? What do I love that is 

 worthy and of good report ? I will extend myself in 

 this direction ; I will annex this territory. I will not 

 wait to see if this or that pays, if this or that notion 

 draws the multitude. I will wait only tiU I can see 

 my way clearly. In the meantime I will be clear- 

 ing my eyes and training them to know the real 

 values of life when they see them. 



Waiting for some one else to do your work, for 

 what you have not earned to come to you, is to mur- 

 der time. Waiting for something to turn up is 

 equally poor policy, unless you have already set the 

 currents going that will cause a particular some- 

 Z55 



